I don't want to do a gimmick. It's a bummer that that's how it is. I would say, personally speaking, consuming music now is harder than it was before. It's like being stuck in a slot machine. There's just so much noise. It's just constant noise. It's harder to clear your head and give the time to music that a lot of it really deserves. It's really crazy how different your relationship to an album or music becomes, even if it's digital, if you spend the $7 to $10 on it. It forms this relationship where you're not just going to throw it away.
Ed DrosteThere's a particular trend towards the empty pop song right now. Where people are like, "This. Is. Brilliant. She's singing about a crush on somebody. Wowww." You know what I mean? There's a weird, I don't know... It's called "poptimism."
Ed DrosteOne of my favorite things is when I'm listening to a song and I find my own meaning in it that I can relate to and I can create my own relationship and bond with the song.
Ed DrosteI do enjoy talking about how everything's changed and I'm fascinated by it, and I can spend my time worrying, like, "Are we going to appeal to teens?" But then, if I were to try to make a record for teens, I'd be doing exactly what I said I didn't want to do. That'd be posturing. And I'm watching other people trying to do that, and they all look stupid. But for some of them, it's working, so cash in.
Ed DrostePeople digest and process music differently, and I'm sure that was the case even when I was a kid.
Ed DrosteI feel like a lot of the stuff coming out right now just feels really inauthentic to me. But apparently, people don't seem to see through it. And this makes me sound bitter, but it's just my perspective. I'm not bitter. I just feel like there's a lot of stuff that doesn't feel like it's coming from a place of any sort of integrity. It just doesn't feel like it's coming from the heart, basically. It just feels like it's being produced because people know it's a formula that will work, or it's easily digestible and fun to look at.
Ed Droste