When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.'
I like alternative music, so I like to hear new bands.
I'm just basically trying to make music that feels good. Right now in the music industry there's a real lack of intimacy. You don't really connect with the artist as much anymore, and you don't really understand where they are. I'm basically doing music that illustrates who I am and where I am in my life.
I've got more creative control when I do music.
Although cover notes for classical music albums tend to say that the trill of flutes suggests mountain streams and so on, I don't think anybody listens to music with the expectation that they're going to be presented with a sort of landscape painting.
Some children's music is aimed just at kids, and it can be very childlike.
Some people lose sense of what their music was when their life starts to get better.
I have a lot of respect for Eminem and Rihanna. They are both very real in their music.
I just worked my own personal thoughts into my music, and just kept at it until I found a way in.
At a time when club music has gone more electronic, I've gone the other way: organic and world music.
If you get involved in music expecting to make a living out of it, then you've picked the wrong thing to do. That shouldn't really be in your mind.
At this stage, most of the awards I get are concerned with my longevity. Even I'm amazed at myself because there have been new generations since I've been born and new music that they create, so it's amazing to still be on the radar.
When I heard the Pogues, I connected with the songs immediately, but it was also the first time I didn't reject out of hand the kind of music that my parents had always tried to push on to us when we were growing up.
Being a woman in music was fine, but when I wanted to direct, I was poking my head into a man's world.
There's this Afghani kid in Stockholm called Phat Deuce who's started sending us his music, and he's amazing.
Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?
My cousin lives in Delhi, so I kept visiting the city and got really fascinated with DU. Apart from studies, one also gets good exposure to music here. For an artist, there are a lot of opportunities in the city.
As long as my music is real, it's no limit to how many ears I can grab.
I crank up the music, and I dance around the house.
Music is about people for me. It's not about sounds. It's about people; it's about putting people into challenging situations. And for me, challenges are opportunities.
I truly believe that my songs bring the answers and the solutions, as opposed to just talking about the problems. My music at its core is joyful.
If you want to see that human story unfold, if you want to understand that only the unexpected life is worth a damn, spend some time with 46 years of Lou Reed's work: music that leaped and then looked. Safety is for the godless and the faithless.
I think all recent music sucks, and that includes Type O Negative.
I feel when acting, I am sometimes overly self-conscious; I think, 'Going, no, don't, put your eyebrow back where it was and, you know, turn to the left.' You know, I'm sort of very consciously adopting this character. But with music, I don't know. I found it was a question of just closing my eyes and just sort of letting things come out.
Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued; Olympia had bagels! We didn't have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me - a place with so many vegetarians, the restaurants made special dishes for them?
I can never stop thanking God because my music influences people in their respective lives.
I love the Mexican muralists - like Rivera, Orozco - and the music of Walter Benton. They gave you a sense that reality was much more than life.
Music gives us new energy and a stronger sense of purpose.
I have a passion for music; I love music. But I also have a passion for money and paying my bills.
Patty Griffin is iconic, and there's no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people - not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she's such an important figure in the American music scene.
I'm not gonna be warded off the joy music bus.
I have a couple of things I do to clear my head when I need it. The first is exercise, the kind of exercise that makes me lie on the floor afterward gasping for breath and wonder if I'm actually going to be able to breathe enough to not die. The other one is playing music.
I never was the front man in any bands I played in when I was in college, and I always learned music by myself at home.
What I would argue in my defence is that shows like 'Britain's Got Talent' and 'The X Factor' have actually got people more interested in music again and are sending more people into record stores.
All I'm really good at is making music and singing and doing this. I'm not good at fashion, so I don't see a point in trying to be good at that.
I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene.
