Quotes About Music

Babyface is one of the top songwriters in the world ever, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have worked with everybody that I grew up listening to.

Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things.

Working with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis was crazy.

Herb Wong was an incredible man. We met when I was performing with Clark Terry at the Wichita Jazz Festival around 1974.

Some of my heroes are John Bonham, Keith Moon, Neil Peart, Ringo Starr, Terry Bozzio, Bill Bruford... The list goes on and on and on.

We sent a guy called Terry Slater a couple of demos, using the last of our money. And then things turned. He landed us a deal with Warners and said just keep coming up with songs, because when success hits you, you won't even know your name.

Pink Floyd, the most successful progressive rock band of all time, have stood the test of time because the emphasis was always on melody and atmosphere.

At an event in Germany, I realised the organisers had 'The Great Escape' playing as background music to my test, and I just thought, 'It's really cool. I want that.' It is fantastic to ride to.

Only the Punjabi music industry has stood the test of time. Bollywood has finished the regional music industry of other languages, but the Punjabi music scene is still flourishing.

I always want to make my records sound great so they'll stand the test of time, and that takes a lot of work.

I think early on in my career, I was heavily inspired by bands like Throbbing Gristle and Test Dept, and films of David Lynch, for example, where the soundscape plays a very important role in the listening experience.

The Men at Work thing is always there, it's always going to be there. It's not something I consciously think that much about anymore. The thing that stays with you is the songs, which is a good thing for me, because the songs are the things that stand the test of time.

A lot of bad music sells a million copies; I don't think it's a good litmus test for whether things are going well.

When I listen to music, there's usually some aspect of that music that I like, and that's what I take and try to bring into my own music. Bringing in other musicians to collaborate with is a good way for me to test out new ways or make music that I might have not discovered on my own.

When you sample something, you're using the crutch of borrowing chords and melodies from a song that's already great, that's already stood the test of time, that's already special. When you're trying to do it all from scratch, you're writing something brand new that has to stand on its own.

Just look at the Old Testament. They didn't go out with the army first. They sent the musicians out.

No one does cool, catchy pop music like Robyn, and 'Hang With Me' is a testament to that.

One of the first places where I started to respond to song lyrics was in reggae music. A lot of what I was responding to were references to the Old Testament. It was not that I had to adapt the lyrics to the sound. Reggae and the Old Testament are bound up together. There wasn't anything that I had to do.

I've been very grateful and humbled by the fact that young people really dig Joy Division's music. It's a great testament to the chemistry and the songwriting prowess between the four original members.

I was two years old when I saw the mandolin for the first time, and I just loved it. I just loved the sound of it, the shape of it even, and the way it looks. And I still love it, which is a testament to something.

Other music that 'Ride The Lightning' led me to discover was to start really kind of sinking my teeth into some of the thrash of the era that I literally had no exposure to - whether it was Slayer, whether it was Testament, whether it was Megadeth. It was the opening of a doorway, for me, to a whole new palette of music.

Rock 'n' roll, for me, is another award for underachievers. It is nothing but a testament to mediocrity.

I knew there was a way to blend records together, but I didn't know how to. This was haunting me when I was in my teens. In my frustration, I decided to start experimenting with electronics. I tested the torque factor on different turntables. I had to figure needles out. See, there are two kinds, elliptical and conical.

When I was in my former band Downhere, I did everything I could not to remind people of Freddie Mercury, but it became almost hilarious how many people compared me to him to the point where it felt like it was working against the band when we tested singles at radio.