Quotes About Artistry

Once I'd chosen the songs, it seemed like it would just be a question then of recording them. But it's a case of trying to re-invent the songs; taking them in different directions.

I put out a recording of me singing mostly jazz because I wanted people to know I'm coming from a jazz background.

Music is also a part of who I am so I'm thinking about recording an album.

It's nice to be in a creative world that's kind of isolated, but you can get led astray down some pathway while you're recording that you might not like later. And there's a lot of time to get in your own head and stay there.

So how does Liz Phair feel about Lana Del Rey? Well, as a recording artist, I've been hated, I've been ridiculed, and conversely, hailed as the second coming. All that matters in the end is that I've been heard.

I've been so entwined with technology since I was about 15, recording myself and multitracking and producing things on my own.

My goal has always been to make classic records, classic albums. Sometimes the recording process and the era it was recorded in means the production leans in a particular way, but to me they are all part of the same process.

I'm making music the way I would have done before modern equipment and music recording.

I could play it safe by recording songs that are familiar, but am I expanding myself as an artist by doing covers? It's a catch-22. It's called show business: The word 'business' is in it, and you've got to be a businessman. But then again, you have to be true to yourself as an artist.

When I'm acting I don't sing, and when I'm recording I'm not acting.

I get very deep into the writing and recording process.

People ask me all the time which I would prefer doing more, but I honestly can't say. When I'm filming, I'm like, 'No, this is my favorite,' and when I'm writing music and recording and performing, it's like, 'This is definitely it.'

When I started The Shins, it really was just me, alone, but it was still The Shins. I was totally recording stuff and writing songs as The Shins and all of that. So the beginning inception of the whole thing was some sort of a lie, I guess.

When I was in seventh grade, I asked my parents for a mobile recording system for Christmas, and I got it. I didn't come out of my room for years after that. I'd get invited to the movies and I'd say, 'I'm gonna finish a couple of demos.'

When we're recording, I always dress up.

When I was recording music, I'd record all the parts myself, and I wouldn't let other people in; that's essentially what Blood Orange is the result of; me trying to find the most comfortable I can be with everything.

I would be involved with music whether I had a career or not. I'm always going to be writing songs and recording them.

When you're recording classic songs, you've got to kind of make them your own, and you can't always worry about what people are going to think.

Garth Fundis is a song guy. He is in it for the right reasons; he's about the music. He doesn't ever try to talk you into recording something that you shouldn't. He gets it.

Acting and recording an album at the same time, that's not my sport. I could write a movie when my attention was paid to that. But I'm good at one thing at a time.

I don't think a lot of bands and artists work as hard as we do on the creation, on the writing, the arrangements and the recording in our format.

You have to focus hard on recording songs that you believe in.

I keep recording and recording, but they always stay on the rack and never get out there.

I sequence during the entire recording process. The sequencing changes as I'm recording and as I'm listening. From when I'm, like, four songs in, I start trying to figure out which song should come after which. Which is important, and it changes as the album goes.