Quotes About Music

Music became less understandable in the wake of the new MTV era. You weren't supposed to be anything other than a pop star, to not go deeper than that. It was really strange. It was suffocating, image-wise. What you could talk about in a song changed; if you were misunderstood, you were really misunderstood - taken literally.

Naturally, underground music often gravitates toward experimentation and the abstract. That's understandable, and more often than not, it feels great to dive into a difficult album and swim a few laps.

When things socially and politically get difficult, punk music suddenly comes back again, and there's just a really healthy pivot away from music that's not humanly understandable.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

In fact, jazz has such a great feeling and great emotional content that it really doesn't require you to have technical understanding of it. I think you just have to allow your feelings to go with the music and you will find yourself carried along by it fairly quickly.

I'm not sure it's a better music world of appreciation and performance. I think the listener is a different guy, and listening is something he does in passing, with other stuff going on. There's less care and understanding of the relationship between the song and the listener.

I think the kind of togetherness and understanding between music directors and singers, and between producers and directors, is not the same anymore. Now, it's all too professional.

I was a very interested arts student, I was always into that part of school and when I got into high school I went into architectural drafting. It gave me an understanding of how to build things and it's really helped me put things in perspective. With my music and my movies, to me it's all art.

I felt like when I got with Kanye, and we discussed me being on G.O.O.D. Music, he just really took me to a place in regards to music that I love and music that I had made previously. We had a clear understanding of what I wanted to make, and he just seemed like he was an advocate for hardcore, uncompromising hip-hop.

I believe when the music is being sung or being played, at the end of it, there's some sort of grace and understanding. And that's all I want for humanity. I just want us to understand each other. That's the point of my music.

I think people have been really receptive to understanding that I've grown up and the music's going to sound a little different.

You're talking to someone who really understands rock music.

Arriving at a simple piece of music is a very difficult balance because, in being simple, you could easily be banal, so maybe it's more difficult to write a simple piece of music than a 12-tone piece where no one understands exactly what it is about.

It's amazing when you're playing to a crowd who barely understands English but they're singing parts of your song back to you.

It's Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony I'm really looking forward to. Simon Rattle does it perfectly: he understands its primal rhythmic life force, and he and the wonderful Berliners make it a sheer riot of orchestral colour.

Jeanie McCarthy is the love of my life. She's the only woman who really understands me, my music, and my heart. It took me a long time to find my soul mate, but thank God I found her before I moved to the other side of time.

Someone who knows only music, understands nothing about it.

I'd rather be on a label that understands us and allows us to be a bit odd.

Not everybody likes or understands a drum solo, so I like to bring in effects and sounds to keep their interest.

I have just enough people paying attention that I have the freedom to be in charge. And I have a great record company - Nonesuch understands what I'm about.

My mom is just someone who's easy to talk to and hang with. My sister, it's always cool to be able to help her out with things. My brother is fun when we're just joking and messing around. And my dad is someone who's helpful with my music and easy to talk to about that stuff because he understands me in that sense.

I was like little-miss wannabe punk-rocker; I would go home and secretly listen to Pink, and dance around, like, 'Ugh, she understands me so well!'

I get to travel the world doing what I love to do - making other people happy... They might not even understand my words, but the one thing everybody understands is music.

The fact of the matter is that nobody understands what John Coltrane is doing except John Coltrane. And maybe not even him. So we're all experiencing it on this subconscious level.