You can't listen to what people who aren't musical have to say. When Anytime was released, I had bad reviews, and at first I was hurt. Your songs are like your children. You don't want to hear, 'Your kid is ugly.' But I knew the record was good and it would sell.

I watch my contemporaries, and they love to live in the studio and I don't. I have a life. I treat it as a 9-to-5. I try to create something new every day, and then I get on with my life.

I'm constantly being courted by labels and their backing. Obviously the market is there when you talk about the economics and the numbers, but it's hard to give up the freedom of being able to do whatever you want.

I hate the pigeonholing that's happened in the music business in the last 30 years.

I just want people to take a step back, take a deep breath and actually look at something with a different perspective. But most people will never do that.

I'm not like a legend that - so I'm sort of in the middle in this sort of gray area where, you know, I'm creating music and I'm not saying there isn't an audience because there is because all of those people go out and spend $80 to $150 on a concert ticket.

Lionel Richie told me forget about the critics. But if you come back with hit after hit, you don't have to worry about anything.