Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Pop music has progressed. The singing voice has changed dramatically in pop music, and people now just sing the way they want to, in their speaking voice, instead of putting on some great transatlantic rock and roll sneer.
The Fiesta Tour McDonald's exhibit is a one-of-a-kind compilation of items and great moments in Latin music history. Every item has a unique story, including the outfit which I wore during the 2008 Premios Juventud awards.
I needed to get to know myself and really, really explore music without any pressure to sell it. I wanted to try and not restrain myself at all, so I've been trying to move quite freely between different sounds and genres.
My life has always been full of music..My father was a concert promoter when I was a kid so music has always been a part of my life growing up, furthering my desire to do music when I was old enough to create it on my own.
We have oral traditions in Mali, and songs are passed down and around this way. I think in the US you can play all the time in your own room and never see another musician your whole life. We can't understand that in Mali.
In Africa, there is much confusion.... Before, there was no radio, or other forms of communication.... Now, in Africa ... the government talks, people talk, the police talk, the people don't know anymore. They aren't free.
Obviously given good health, and a continuing audience and a record company that allows me to do music. So given those things yes, I'm introducing some new music that people haven't really heard me do in quite this fashion.
I started out as a duo with Mis-Teeq's Sabrina Washington, and we worked for four or five years before signing a record deal. I had no money, and I was taking part-time jobs just to earn the train fare to get to rehearsals.
I'm bisexual, but it's not the sort of thing I spent a lot of time thinking about. I've slept with girls; I've slept with guys, so I guess that's what they call it! I'm not anti trying to use language to simplify our lives.
We did a gig at the Marquee and we were supposed to be paid five pounds but we never got it, and it cost us something like 10 pounds in petrol to get there to do it. So what we did was steal some equipment from The Marquee.
I'm nosey, and I have a great imagination. So it's not necessarily things I have to go through, but it's things people I know or my family is going through, and I hear about it, and I think, 'That sounds like a great song.'
The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, actually, was an effort to put something on the mall in Washington so American tourists could walk through America, and in their minds everything on the mall would be American.
If there is a God, he or she or it or whatever higher power there is is behind us so long as we're using our music in an inspirational way. I'm here for a reason, and I was given a talent, so I'll continue to try to use it.
My Facebook page confuses a lot of people. I'll post a Beyoncé Knowles song, and, people are like, "What are you doing?! This is bullshit," and I'm like, "No! Beyoncé is the Linda Ronstadt of our day, you don't understand!"
It was so strange, coming from Nashville, Tennessee, where I was playing to 15 people, to going to London and playing in this crowded little dive pub. I know Tom Petty had a similar thing - I realize, on a lot larger scale.
If you can play guitar and sing, you can probably get a gig down the road playing at a restaurant, but don't throw your life away chasing something that is so elusive it will only lead you to regret and may turn you bitter.
Stand up for what you believe. Follow your gut, which most of the time is your heart talking. This has been my hardest lesson. I have given this advice and not always followed it myself. The truth is, there is no other way.
In the studio, we adhere to a strict colour code. Developed over decades, the colour code consists of a finite and precise colour palate... The whole world as we experience it comes to us through the mystic realm of colour.
I love the song 'El Rey.' And for years, I never knew what the song was totally about. It was something new for me. I'd never sung a song in Spanish before. Then I got the translation and saw what a really cool song it was.
The most successful stuff is sold to you as indispensable social information. The message in the music is, 'We are terribly, terribly slick and suave, and if you listen to us, you can probably get a leg up in society, too.'
You're only as much as you settle for. If they settle for being somebody's dishwasher that's their own f***ing problem. If you don't settle for that and you keep fighting it, you know, you'll end up anything you want to be.
It used to make me unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned how to make feeling work for me... I don't know, I just want to feel as much as I can, it's what 'soul' is all about.
I think it's important for artists to work together. It's great for fans to see, like, Ludacris came out to our show in Atlanta and kinda made a surprise appearance there, it shows a mutual respect for what each other does.
If you knew what a sensation of the nearness of a higher power one instinctively feels when one is permitted to contribute to the good of mankind, as I have done, and still do! Believe me, it is a great gift of God's mercy!
For me as an artist, pop culture has so much power and influences society on a regular basis - I see it in the kids; I see it in everyone that I encounter. Everyone is influenced by pop culture whether we want to be or not.
I've had many songs where I've gone, 'Oh, my God, this song is going to be huge!' but it wasn't the right artist, or something just didn't happen. It didn't make the song any worse. It just didn't line up. That does happen.
I feel sorry for a culture that depends too much on delegating its musical expression to professionals. It is fine to have heroes, but we should do our own singing first, even if it is never heard beyond the shower curtain.
I'm a real Otis Redding fan, and I just think he sounds so good. He sounds like he's always at the end of a long day, and he just won't give up. I just love his wearied devotion - that beautiful, beautiful, weathered sound.
People hear me talk and they know my background and they immediately stereotype me as being a real, real country guy, and that's the right stereotype. But you also want people to know you're a little broader than that, too.
I think most people start rock bands in their early twenties or teens, but I was almost thirty at the time when the band started really doing anything and it took another several years before people started caring about us.
We've had kids come to our shows and ask us why we hate Jesus. It's like, 'Well, we don't hate Jesus at all. We just think religion is silly, and it's a really popular thing, but that doesn't mean we have to agree with it.'
I'm probably the most proud of "Mrs. Potato Head," because I had that idea in my head for so long, and I tried writing that song one time and I just couldn't tell the story the way I wanted to, and I couldn't figure it out.
I think the transition between singing covers on a reality show to being able to do my own thing was really exciting. I'm no longer singing covers every second, and people are actually getting to hear my own original music.
My second wife Bonnie Owens and I worked together after we divorced for a period of maybe 20 years. And I managed to stay friends with another wife. And then there's one that I don't mess with. Everybody's got one of those.
I think Ru [Paul] gave me the best advice when he said to talk into a recorder and transcribe it. That is what worked for me. I just talked. Out of the talking I listened to it found what was cohesive. It all came together.
Tra-la-las and doo-be-do's became a Neil Sedaka trademark. I was the king of the tra-la-las and doo-be-do's in the '50s and '60s. But then when I re-recorded 'Breaking Up,' I started with a verse instead of the doo-be-do's!
I have a wish for world peace and the truth. I would like to see a society that will bring happiness to all life forms. Of course, to the Nazis, I appear a rebel, but to the rebels, I appear like a normal person from Venus.
I think love is important, and loving yourself and being happy and feeling you're worthy of happiness as an individual. One of the most important things is to have the courage to love yourself and share that with the world.
You’re walking down life’s road, society’s foot is on your throat, every which way you turn you can’t get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the road and you can either lie down and die, or insist upon your life.
My father was an expert hunter, so we ate a lot of wild game when I was growing up in Montana. That helped broaden my palate generally, but I know it informed my distaste for factory farms and unspectacular commercial meat.
I'm fascinated by people in their eighties and nineties. Especially those who are still creating and living in an interesting way. I am fascinated by them because they have so much to say now that they've lived for so long.
Your graciousness is what carries you. It isn't how old you are, how young you are, how beautiful you are, or how short your skirt is. What it is, is what comes out of your heart. If you are gracious, you have won the game.
Love is definitely a foundation, a spiritual connection that makes peace. Also it is the change in the world. People don't get so hung up on it any more as they used to. They feel that it can be secondary in some instances.
I think the people who really love the way somebody sings, they like to hear it. As long as you don't change your style completely or do something that has nothing to do with what you're known for, which I don't agree with.
I never strike out at any life form. The only things I attack are icons of conspicuous consumption. People put objects in front of their life, in front of anything that has real importance. They make this 'thing' their God.
I feel like if you are going to come to somebody who you don't even know on a worldwide platform, then your idiocy needs to be seen worldwide so it can get smacked down. And that's what just needs to happen with some people.
When I was a kid, it was just a wild dream to think that I would've had a career like this, and I really didn't think that was possible. But things just kind of started to roll, and I was caught up in it, and I went with it.
Rodgers and Hammerstein didn't mean anything to me. I just wanted to have a hit, I just wanted to be like those people on the radio. It was all of a case of the present tense with no projecting into the future, particularly.
My life nah important to me, but other people life important. My life is only important if me can help plenty people. If my life is just for me and my own security then me no want it. My life is for people. That's way me is.
When those people get up at the Grammys and say, "I thank God", I always imagine God going, "Oh, don't, please don't thank me for that one. Please, oh, that's an awful one! Don't thank me for that - that's a piece of crap !"