Just look at the messages today's media are sending everybody, from TV and commercials to actors and singers. Kids are just drowning in that 24-7 and it's getting really bad.
Whether it be Beyonce or Justin Bieber, we see singers who have absolutely nothing to offer anyone as they walk off stage clutching three Grammys in each hand.
To have a live choir there on the stage and then these singers from different countries signing with us in real time through Skype, it's as if there aren't borders anymore.
Very few opera singers in history have been able to cross into popular music.
Novelists get to say plenty in their massive tomes; rock singers only get four-minute songs with two verses and a chorus' worth of lyrics, and so there's a real pleasure in accessing the intelligence behind the music, even if it doesn't qualify as 'great literature.'
I find male singers and what they sing about fascinating. It makes me realize how little we know about ourselves and how little I know about myself. It's interesting to see the male perspective.
I heard opera all day long. From the time I was 9 years old, I was imitating the singers; later I studied opera. But we also got Western television and radio, from the Americans in West Berlin. When I was 11 years old, I turned into a hippie and gave flowers to policemen. And when I was 21 and left Berlin for London, I became a punk.
My grandad's a gospel singer, and his children were singers, too. But I don't believe in God in the same way... not religion; it breaks us up too much. The same with musical styles - it breaks people up. I believe they are all one thing - why not put them together?
It's easier to collaborate with instrumentalists than singers; they know exactly the sound that I need.
All kids, when they go to school, are pretty good artists and dancers and singers and poets. All that gets buried, basically through being educated, or brainwashed.
Americans can pretty much sing anything, whereas foreign singers are often limited in style, language, even composer.
There is one thing I should say, and it's important: Young Broadway singers and anybody who is an orator of any kind - lawyers who have to speak in court or pastors or anyone who has a lot of stress on their vocal cords: You should do the maintenance. You should do whatever it takes to feel fresh and good.
So many singers want to act, and so many actors try to sing.
Recording an album and doing it live are like two different animals. There are some people that are great singers live, horrible in the studio.
James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they're fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together.
I've been through a lot of beef with other singers, but it's all verbal.
There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish.
I've been lucky in my life to work with people who I consider master singers.
There's always gonna be guys who are just wonderful singers and probably shouldn't be writing songs. Then there's always gonna be guys who move up the ranks writing. I don't know what's healthier or what's the best thing - probably whatever yields the best songs.
It's not enough to hit the notes. There is no point in the singers just standing there and sounding wonderful if they're not connecting with the characters they are portraying.
Jazz scares me. I've witnessed so many incredible singers and jazz musicians. Pop and soul music have always been the things that I felt like I could do.
With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That's why we're such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, 'Are people interested?' But I think our band has something and they know we don't just put albums out. We do think about it.
In addition, I'm finishing a track for the movie 'Waking Up In Reno', but there are numerous other singers I look forward to recording with in the near future.
I never really thought I was going to be a singer, honestly. I never listened to singers; I always listened to rap music.
A lot of performers don't want to leave the circuit, the European opera house circuit, partly because most singers don't sing many concerts, or at least not while they are in their prime.
I don't think I am even the best I can be. I like to listen to other singers and learn from them, but I'm always working on myself, trying to improve, trying to be very tough with myself.
I think that freshness and that innocence is something that is missing from a lot of female singers. I'm certainly not denying that I'm young, but I'm not fluff.
Hanson is not the pop band that a lot of people think we are. I think we're a lot more rooted in a lot of music history... we're songwriters, we're singers, we're players first. We're not entertainers, we're not celebrities, and frankly, we don't really want to be.
I actually prefer female voices to listen to, mostly, but among the male singers whose voices I like are Jeff Buckley, Art Garfunkel, that sort of voice. Contemporary crooners rather than rockers.
There are some sounds that English singers find quite difficult to manipulate.
I think Alison Krauss is one of the most amazing singers ever. As a songwriter - this is gonna sound cheesy - I love Randy Newman. And my mom passed on a love of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. At one point I was so into the Indigo Girls, just like I was so into the Dixie Chicks, those female harmonies.
I advise wannabe singers to form a band, practise in your garage if you have to, but do as many charity or open mic shows as possible to get experience. I sang for seven years before getting a record deal, and I was already loving what I was doing. I just got lucky and got discovered.
It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.
In the days following 9/11, when we were reeling and disoriented, there was a kind of solace to be found in old recordings, and even pseudo-folk singers like James Taylor seemed to be safeguarding something, drawing back bygone days.
In country music the lyric is important and the melodies get a little more complex all the time, and you hear marvelous new singers who are interested in writing and interpreting a lyric and in all form of popular music.
At the Sahara, the seats are banked and most of the audience is looking down at the stage. Everybody in the business knows: Up for singers, down for comics. The people want to idealize a singer. They want to feel superior to a comic. You're trying to make them laugh. They can't laugh at someone they're looking up to.