Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The nature of music fandom and music fans is that, very often, they fall in love with a band or a particular artist, and they really would like... I'm talking generally; that's not everyone. But a vast majority of the fan base would prefer the band to keep making the same record and the same style of music over and over again.
I find that the time that goes by is actually your best friend when you are making a record. The passing of time gives you perspective on what you recorded and what you wrote. If something sounds good to you 12 months after you recorded it then chances are pretty good that there's something valuable about the part or the song.
The thing that separates Sophie from the music I do for other people is that it's 100% written by me. In the past, I've written my songs and then asked friends if they could record the vocals. I didn't want to use my own voice, because other people have much better voices. I was hearing the music with a voice that I don't have.
On 'Hairless Toys,' I've tried to create an ambiguous character to go with an ambiguous record. She's anything but rock n' roll - she's so not rock n' roll that, in a twisted way, she's kind of radical. She's like someone from my memory, almost like my mother, and she's lost in some space-time between the 1960s and the late '80s.
When I was a critic, I reviewed Public Enemy's 'Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age' - this is back in '94 - and I called it a 'Dante-esque spiral of the hip-hop hell.' I idolized Chuck D, but I just hated that record, and I did not hold back. Chuck didn't freeze me out. Every time I met Chuck, he always treated me with the utmost respect.
A respectable-sized audience hasn't really been able to follow developments in jazz since the free jazz movement in the '60s. Some of them can't even get with John Coltrane. Audiences are diminishing more and more rapidly. Some of the top young musicians with something new to say can't get record companies to put out their stuff.
There is not an example on record of any free state holding a province of the same extent and population without disastrous consequences. The nations conquered and held as a province have, in time, retaliated by destroying the liberty of their conquerors through the corrupting effect of extended patronage and irresponsible power.
It seems everyone wants to know if I have an eating disorder, and playing an anorexic character on 'Make it or Break It' probably didn't help much. To set the record straight, I certainly do not have an eating disorder. I think as anyone can gather, I love food, and it is not just a front to cover up the fact that I don't eat any.
When I've had to edit my albums, I'll listen to it one time through, and I'll make edits. I want to remember to set up a camera to record myself listening to my set, because I don't even slightly crack a smile, I am just listening for technical details, and I look like somebody that has absolutely no sense of humor. I look insane.
I did a record with Janet Jackson, and it went to the top of the charts, and we had all of these complications, and she couldn't be in the video and couldn't do anything for the record. I went through something similar with Pitbull. I think it works really well for a lot of other artists, but for me, it just doesn't work that well.
A record like 'Price of Fame' - when you do get this success, how do you treat it, or how do you let it treat you? How does it affect your family and friends and the people around you? ... And I don't mind telling people what I've been through when it comes to the pressure I put on myself of wanting to be the best and the greatest.
I got into music when I was a little boy. My dad was always into jazz. I got my education from him. The first time I listened to jazz, he gave me a Thelonious Monk record. It was so different from anything I had ever heard. It took me a while to understand it, and I liked that. I liked the fact that it wasn't immediately palatable.
When I was growing up, I was so fascinated by Mel Blanc and all of the different voices that he did for 'Looney Tunes' and watching Robin Williams record voice-over for the genie in 'Aladdin.' It always seemed to be a major honor - something you have to earn. Like people trust you when they want to have you there without seeing you.
My father gave me one of those small, box-sized travel players when I was a kid and just a handful of records that he had. 'Zeppelin IV' was one. 'The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl,' which is just about the worst record ever - you can't hear anything, just screaming in the background. I think there was maybe, like, an Animals record.
For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law. By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs.
As a lawyer, as a private citizen, you see a lot of injustice. You see a lot of people who should have been punished and are not, and people who were punished wrongfully are not vindicated. Fiction is sort of a way to set the record straight, and let people at least believe that justice can be achieved and the right outcomes can occur.
With rap, you go in the studio, you make music, you put the music out, then all of a sudden, you're a star: you have a big record on the radio, and you're on stage, and you've never done it before. Let's say your first show is 'Summer Jam,' and you're in front of 60,000 people, and you've never played an arena, ever. You're gonna suck.
One thing that did get me into a lot of different types of music was when I was very young, the local record store went out of business and they were selling off all the vinyl. I remember going in - I was probably 16 or 17 and I'd just gotten a record player as a present. It was like hitting the jackpot: all these records for $3 apiece.
I remember when 'Aladdin' had come to India, there were a bunch of people who auditioned. We had to record a video, which I did on my phone. I had worn this red outfit and had to read the dialogues for Jasmine. The scene went really well, but then they also asked us to sing and I can't sing to even save my life. So I really got rejected.
In whichever way my music can get out there, I'm just like, 'Sure.' It's also through the TV synch licenses that I've been surviving. I don't really make money through record sales. I used to be really picky: 'No, I don't want it to be the song of a commercial,' but nowadays it's what you need to do to get the song out as much as you can.
Most of the time I don't force records. I'm not one of these guys that put records out every nine, 10 months. I'm pretty long between records. I've only had a few in my career. I kind of wait until I feel I have really strong songs. I don't know if they're going to change the world or not, but I dig 'em, and if I dig 'em we make a record.
The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.
Reviewing the record of American intervention in Indochina in the Pentagon Papers, one cannot fail to be struck by the continuity of basic assumptions from one administration to the next. Never has there been the slightest deviation from the principle that a noncommunist regime must be imposed and defended, regardless of popular sentiment.
When I'm travelling, I always take my little notebook and scribble things down as I watch them; I'm very much geared to everything that's happening. Whereas, the diary I keep is just about a record of a day I've spent. When I'm filming, I'm looking quite intensely at everything I see and trying to get my own eye on what we're going through.
A lot of people ask me, 'How did you have the courage to walk up to record labels when you were 12 or 13 and jump right into the music industry?' It's because I knew I could never feel the kind of rejection that I felt in middle school. Because in the music industry, if they're gonna say no to you, at least they're gonna be polite about it.
I have a huge scarf from Hermes that I bought the day I signed my record deal. I had never had an Hermes scarf. And I ran to buy one, thinking, 'Now, this is a symbol, I need one, I need an Hermes scarf,' which actually now I'm quite embarrassed about. Most of the time I twist it so much that no one notices it, and just bundle it around me.
To tell you the truth, the nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame totally surprised me. I had no idea that was coming. I know a lot of people like to say it's enough just to be nominated. But I've been nominated for so many things, I'd like to get this one. I think it's a long shot, considering I never had a No. 1 rock n' roll record.
I could do another tour, make a record that's very similar, do similar venues. Or I could make a different record, do different venues, and grow. It's exciting to take it to new places, but it's never been my intent to be the biggest thing in the world. That's not what my drive is. I want to make what I want to make, and make a living off it.
I was talking to my dad about the stuff he grew up listening to, and 'Operation: Mindcrime' is a record that he had always talked about around the house. He always talked about it as the 'greatest concept album of all time.' One day, I started listening to it, and it just hit me. I was like, 'These songs are all hits. They're all huge songs.'
At a book festival in Fort Lauderdale, I met David Eisenhower, Ike's grandson, who was promoting his book 'Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower,' in which he describes attending the Yankees' 154th game in 1961. The whole family had been following Mantle and Maris chase Babe Ruth's home run record across the country.
I don't think about the record, because winning games has to be our focus, and if we lost focus thinking about that record, I would really regret it. How will I feel later on? People tell me it will mean a lot after I retire, for the kids and me. But to me, it's just a stat. It's something people enjoy talking about. Me? I just enjoy playing.
Until the 20th century, medicine was more like politics than physics. Its forecasts were often bogus and its record grim. In the 1920s, statisticians invaded medicine and devised randomised controlled trials. Doctors, hating the challenge to their prestige, resisted but lost. Evidence-based medicine became routine and saved millions of lives.
In the future we will all be famous for 15 minutes. It will be on a daytime magazine programme and we will each wear a tasteful shirt and slacks combination. We'll be interviewed by a soothing voice under a clock that's permanently set to 4pm. We will talk about the weather. We will record for months to get 15 minutes they can use in the edit.
Aviation offered such fun as crossing the continent in planes large and small, trying the whirling rotors of an autogiro, making record flights. With these activities came opportunity to know women everywhere who shared my conviction that there is so much women can do in the modern world and should be permitted to do irrespective of their sex.
I'm a little left of center, for sure, with Angels & Airwaves. But even when I get really weird, it's not that weird. It's not like some obscure Sonic Youth record or something. We don't take it quite that far. But what we do like are crescendos, and we do like when a song catches you off guard and it gives you the chills up and down your arms.
Because I was independent for such a long time, and I was always just feeding my fans - every month, I'd be giving them something new. So I had to adjust to the process of making a record. And after signing with a label, there are just certain things you can't do anymore. It was frustrating at first, but as the months went by, I got used to it.
I always tell the story of 'Irreplaceable.' I initially wrote 'Irreplaceable' with myself in mind, with plans of it being my record. I love that record; however, what I realised about that record was that though given the circumstances of that situation - men and women are not that different - when you sing about it, it changes things, you know?
Although I have guitars all around, and I pick them up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics, and I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me.
I struggled with the pressure of having the successful record after the first record. Second album syndrome. I'm living proof; it's very real. It was like a psychological battle to be creative. I used to never feel pressure to be creative; it's always just been a fun thing. And then suddenly it's my job, and people are asking, 'Where's the record?'
I bring up 'The Heist,' and you can almost cut that record down the middle between songs where the beat came first and the words came second, and songs where the words came first and the beat came second. It can start with a vibe, a beat that drives a story, or it can start with a story and then trying to identify the tone to tell that story right.
I'm not thinking about the next record really yet. I kind of want to do a bunch of stuff with Jonathan Zawada, the guy who did the album art. I'd like to do some crazy art installations and design some weird synthesizers and work with other people and make some fun stuff for a bit. Maybe tap into virtual reality stuff or maybe write another record.
