Quotes About Music

Is it, one wonders, only nostalgia that makes the music of the popular songs of that time seem more tuneful, the words more comprehensible, the feeling behind them more genuine than of any since? Certainly the dance music of the war years was enjoyed by all age groups, and respectable middle-aged citizens were not ashamed to be caught humming the hit tunes of the moment in those years when 'popular' music was truly popular.

In the three minutes it takes the song to play I'm caught in a magic world of harmony and joy, a truly ecstatic joy, where the aching longing to be somewhere else, out of this city, out of this country, out of this body and out of this life, is kept at bay.

Without a soundtrack, human interaction is meaningless.

If you play I Don't Want To Know by Fleetwood Mac loud enough -- you can hear Lindsey Buckingham's fingers sliding down the strings of his acoustic guitar. ...And we were convinced that this was the definitive illustration of what we both loved about music; we loved hearing the INSIDE of a song.

It's possible this whole Why do Latinos love Morrisey? question will haunt us forever. Fortunately, Canadian academics are on the case.

Saying you like Piano Man doesn't mean you like Billy Joel; it means you're willing to go to a piano bar if there's nothing else to do

A homeless man once told me that dancing to rap music is the cultural equivalent of masturbating, and I'd sort of fell the same way about playing John Madden Football immediately after filing my income tax: It's fun, but - somehow - vaguely pathetic.

The most wretched people in the world are those who tell you they like every kind of music 'except country.

It might sound chauvinistic, but there is a sad reality in rock music: Bands who depend on support from females inevitably crash and burn.

Nine Inch Nails were the best and most popular industrial band of all time; as a consequence, industrial purists usually assert that Nine Inch Nails aren't an industrial band at all (this is a counterintuitive phenomenon that tends to occur with purists from all subcultures, musical or otherwise).

Toby Keith writes songs like 1993's Should've Been a Cowboy, and what's compelling is that you can't deconstruct its message. Should've Been a Cowboy is not like Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive, where Jon Bon Jovi claimed to live like a cowboy; Toby Keith wants to be a cowboy for real.

Punk was perfect for lazy people, because anyone could do it--you didn't even need to know how to play your instrument, assuming you knew how to plug it in. There was really no difference between Sid Vicious and anyone in London who owned a bass.

And all I could do while I listened to this dude tell me how punk rock saved his life was think, Wow. Why did my friend waste all that time going to chemotherapy? I guess we should have just played him a bunch of shitty Black Flag records.

What music means is almost completely dependent on the people who sell it and the people who buy it, not the people who make it. Our greatest artists are the ones who understand how they can be interesting and unique within those limitations.

Once consumers experienced free music, they came to view music as something that was supposed to be free.

The single-biggest proof that the Dixie Chicks are Van Halen is their audience; they are singing to the same teenage boys, except those boys are now teenage girls.

The video for 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was not more consequential than the reunification of Germany. But Nevermind is the inflection point where one style of Western culture ends and another begins, mostly for reasons only vaguely related to music.

In a roundabout way, Boba Fett created Pearl Jam.

I attempted to make a more academic argument about how the Limp Bizkit song "Nookie" was misogynist for suggesting that the protagonist's ex-girlfriend should inject a cookie into her vagina (or maybe that she should somehow fold her vagina into her rectum — the specific lyrics have never been clear).

songs deliver an amorphous, irrefutable interpretation of how being in love is supposed to feel, and people find themselves wanting that feeling for real.

Without a soundtrack, human interaction is meaningless… I never have any idea how other people feel; they always appear fine to me. But if somebody had pointedly played Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield" that night, I'm sure I could have constructed some empathy.

Both lyrically and sonically, glam metal is the sensible accompaniment for removing one's pants for money.

I have more CDs than 99 percent of America, but fewer CDs than 40 percent of my friends; if an acquaintance has more CDs than me, I feel intimidated and emasculated. I think about my CDs a lot. I find it oddly reassuring to look at them when I'm intoxicated.

The Constitution is awesome, but still overrated; it's like Pet Sounds.