Some of my favorite records growing up were Christmas albums. The ones I liked best were the albums that you could listen to from start to finish. You could put them on while you're decorating the tree or driving around looking at Christmas lights.
I really just dabble in music; I really just did a few albums for my fans.
Album sales have collapsed, with few artists making money from albums; touring is more lucrative. But I'm 53 now and won't be able to tour forever, so a logical step is to get into writing film scores. Trouble is, you need to be somewhere which has a big film industry - another reason why I'm thinking about living in California.
Typically, the theme of my albums, if there is a theme, is, 'How does it feel?' And that always leads to love songs. It just does.
I've been told I sold 110m albums and singles. If that's the case, I should've come here in a space rocket.
If an artist wants to work with me because they feel I've made some credible albums and there've been things that are long-lasting, it's because those artists took the time and we built an idea.
Before I leave the earth, I'll have released a bunch of albums and a bunch of movies. I'm going to do it all. It's just that I have to strategically position myself on how I do it so that the world receives it.
I'm not really a country singer, although I did make a couple albums and love its simple, straight-from-the-heart approach, but I have always sung a lot of jazz, show tunes, pop tunes, gospel and blues.
Hip-hop don't have no fresh energy, none at all. It's money driven, everybody tryin' to make that cheque, nobody putting art in their albums any more.
I take certain steps to make sure I'm relevant artistically. I always have new music and a reason to be on the road. I'm not just playing 'Get By' over and over. I have 12 albums.
I wasn't a comic book aficionado at all when I was a kid, but my cousin Weed was. Every time we went to visit him on the farm, he had two really fun things: comedy albums and comic books.
I lived on the farm with my parents and grandparents. I had no playmates as a young child, and I was indulged. I helped my grandmother piece quilts, and we made pretty albums, an old-fashioned pastime. We cut poems and pictures out of magazines.
For 10 years, I had a band called Steel Train. We made three albums. We toured like crazy.
George Winston piano albums have been my go-to since junior high.
We were lucky in the days of Led Zeppelin. Each album was different. We didn't have to continue a formula or produce a certain number of singles. Because, in those days, radio was still playing albums. That was really good.
One of my favorite albums in the world is Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska.' Each song has this very distinct character who has something profound to say.
There's always room for your hard-core country songs, and that will always shine through, and I'll always have those on my albums. And then I'll have fun stuff that gets people up and dancing that some people may want to say, 'Well that sounds real pop-y!' but I don't really think it does, I just think it's what's going on.
A lot of my solo albums were produced by different people who had their idea of what songs I should do, and they had me doing a lot of ballads.
I've done two albums for Concord Records; one was with Al Jarreau and it did very well for us. The second album was called 'Songs And Stories,' and it had good songs and good performances, but I promised them I would do an album that was more jazz-oriented.
In the past, I've been a bit diffident about my own albums, almost excusing them for some reason, even though deep down I felt strongly about them.
My favorite albums are really short.
Taylor's first four albums have been certified platinum a combined 21 times, but despite her unprecedented success in country music, '1989' is strictly pop.
I wanted to drop three albums in a year because no one had done it. It was bold, unheard of.
Here's something I probably shouldn't be saying: I never listen to my soundtrack albums because I can't stand it. It's just stereo. When I write, I write in surround. My life is in surround.
I grew up in the era of the concept album. What I do now is pick up on singles, and they are their own complete stories; you don't necessarily have to hear the rest of the album because I don't think albums are created like that anymore. They get songs from all over the place.
Technology has given us convenience, but at the same time it's making musicians work harder in that if you really want to make money making music and selling albums, you have to go out there and perform. And hope you sell stuff like merch, and get on YouTube, and all the other ancillary sort of things that go along with that.
I do not try to duplicate anyone's success; I am just really inspired by what they have done. I like the fact that The Roots can tour extensively, put out albums, and be so well received; that takes a lot of work. I really admire that, and it's something that I try to attain myself.
It's pretty cool that people will pay for something even though they don't have to. It's totally different now to back in the day. Now you're paying for a record because you believe in the band. In the future that will be the only time people will pay for albums, because there's some kind of connection.
Music is my main goal, but I'm not going to rush a record out. There are so many actors who have come out with albums these days. I don't want to do it because it's the thing to do. I want to wait until the time is right.
You know, albums are a funny thing. They're not like an intellectual decision. It's a collection of your kind of musings.
Like books and black lives, albums still matter.
If one artist sells five million albums, the tendency is for other artists to say, 'Maybe I should do a little of that, too.' That can be tough to resist.
I was on mad platinum albums... I produced and wrote on them.
