Quotes About Music

I have a very vague surface level awareness of Metallica.

When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.

If I'm not representing the people with my music for the goodwill of the Creator, it's all in vain at the end of the day.

I've actually done a cover of 'Train in Vain' by The Clash with Viv Albertine - which was originally written about her.

I grew up listening to bands like the Cure, Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance - these are the bands that I actually grew up with, and I always had these things in my taste, too. And I always loved industrial music as well: I listened to Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Cabaret Voltaire. And shoegaze bands like Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.

You can hear the Celtic heartbeat all over Europe and America, from Bing Crosby to Jack White, from the Smiths to My Bloody Valentine, from House of Pain to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

My Valentine's playlist... you're gonna have to play some Ginuwine. You're gonna have to play some 112. You're gonna have to play some Confession - Usher's - back in the day. You know, a little bit of Prince Royce there, too.

When I left the country to study in the U.K., I suddenly realized, and I'm still realizing, how much other stuff is out there - like My Bloody Valentine, who millions of people are passionate about, but they're still considered an 'underground' band.

We started in 1976, jamming, and we played our first show on Valentine's Day 1977, so we can mark 40 from there, or we can mark 40 from 1979 when we did our first record.

For Valentine's Day, I wrote my crush a song and had it professionally recorded. I never released it, though, because I wanted it to be a song just for her. I thought it would be more special that way.

When Kanye gets to a point where he can actually put a couple of notes together either vocally or two bars of valid music playing an instrument, then he might have a right to criticize somebody else.

Great song lyrics are as valid a part of American literature as any novel.

It's valid that the Strokes and the Pleased have been influenced by some of the same bands. But it's invalid in the sense that we listen to the Strokes and try to sounds like them. I think that they are a good band.

Some song ideas absolutely require a kind of rigid discipline, and others require absolute chaotic abandon. The form is only valid if you know how to un-form it. I don't mean to sound like an intellectual here!

Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid.

There are musicians who want to make a living making music. There are listeners who want to listen to music. Complicating this relationship is a whole bunch of history: some of the music I want to listen to was made a while ago in a different economy. Some of the models of making a living making music are no longer valid but persist.

See, to me, rock'n'roll doesn't have any point. It's just fun. It has a million different angles and they're all valid. But I think rock might be a world issue.

Sometimes it's good to just sing and let the words come out. Whatever comes out is valid because it's what you were thinking.

The hardest part, for me, is being in the band and knowing the way I want certain things to sound, but also having to listen to opinions, and very valid opinions, of my bandmates. So, sometimes, I'll have to have conversations with them as a producer and then conversations with them as a bandmate.

Country music as a genre, as an art form, is just as valid out there in the pantheon of the arts as classical, jazz, ballet, whatever.

It's definitely a joy when you make a record to know you are doing it for the right reasons: You want to do it and that you think you have something valid to offer.

I do think there is a valid reason that Segovia commissioned the composers he did. He was very much a pioneer, and what he wanted was a very listenable repertory. But I'm interested in different aspects of the guitar, and of music.

I think that the whole point of music is that there shouldn't be rules. There is no right or wrong. And the fact that I may not like that piece of music and you may... The validation is in the fact that somebody gets something from it.

When I die, I want people to be like, 'Respect the music.' I don't really care if you hate me or like me - what I want badly is the validation and respect of the people.