Quotes About Influence

I know there's bands that might write something that sounds like The Smiths, and they'll go, 'Oh, it sounds like The Smiths, we've got to make it sound not like The Smiths.'

As a composer, I know that all sorts of sounds I hear are making their way into my brain and soul and later sneak into my music.

I was greatly influenced by musique concrete when I was, like, 10. I was completely mesmerized by the idea that you could make music out of sounds. So that's been a constant influence on all my work.

My best friend was crazy about Culture Club. She had posters everywhere. She joined the fan club. She knew everything about them. No one else sounds like Boy George, and I have great memories of singing along in her bedroom.

Eric Clapton was such a great player. He sounds like he's Freddie King or someone like that. He plays the roots of blues and Delta blues. He really affected me with the way that he plays, because he never really plays that many notes.

A lot of people at the highest level, I never listened to. It was hard for me to listen to a whole lot of stuff. It didn't get there for me. Al Green, who's maybe my favorite male singer - to me, Al Green sounds like a saxophone player.

The many sounds of Memphis shaped my early musical career and continue to be an inspiration to this day.

It's not easy to sound like Dilla, but you can make beats like Dilla with your computer, so that's why everybody sounds like Dilla.

It was Skrillex who got me into dubstep. He made it melodic - not just a bunch of crazy sounds.

It sounds odd coming from me, but I realize what I say and how I look has a great impact.

Lonnie was ahead of his time, but at the same time he was right in there with Albert Collins's Cool Sounds.

When children start to speak they find their own voice by imitating the sounds around them. It would follow that bands do the same. Bands will find their own voice at some point.

Well, every now and then I would hear the preposterous notion that that Jane Pauley sounds like Barbara Walters. Like I could if I tried?

When I was 13, listening to Choice FM, I would listen to a lot of R&B from America, and whenever a British person tried to do it, it didn't really work, they just sounded like they were trying to copy that whole style. Now the music sounds British, something real rather than an imitation.

I get most of my inspiration from older records. Most of the records that I listen to were probably made before I was born, and I was born in the mid-'70s. I don't know why, exactly, I'm drawn to those sounds.

Women come up to us all the time and give us the most amazing compliments, like, 'Salt-N-Pepa was the soundtrack of my life.' They remind us that we meant so much to them. Sometimes artists don't really grasp that. But when you talk to fans, you get in touch with your legacy.

'Mortal Kombat,' the first arcade one, that soundtrack sounds like a Chick Corea album.

The first I bought were records. I don't know which was first, but I feel like it was the same day. It was 'The Muppet Show' soundtrack and Queen's first album, because it was the only one my brother didn't have.

Motion Picture Soundtrack on Kid A was another Coltrane inspiration.

In every language you can imagine, I've had people say 'Appetite For Destruction' is the soundtrack to their lives. I don't think you could say something nicer to an entertainer or performer - can't get more respectful.

You can talk about Michael Jackson all you want, but John Hughes was the soundtrack to my 1980s life.

While writing 'The Orientalist,' I played a soundtrack that alternated between ragtime and Azeri mugams, Russian operas and German and Italian pop songs from the 1920s and 30s. When I finally finished, I gorged on all my music from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

A legacy for me is being a piece of the soundtrack of someone's life.

I didn't know a single musical soundtrack, really, growing up. Nobody listened to musicals. That wasn't a thing I did.