Quotes About Albums

Guy Picciotto had a really sound point: Live albums basically have bands playing songs that are available on studio records, and what example can you think of where the live album is better? What are the great live albums? I have live albums of bands, but I wouldn't listen to them for the most part. So we thought, instead of spending energy trying to puzzle out how to create a live record, let's just write another studio record.

Between the Dinosaur Jr. albums and his recent solo albums, 'Several Shades of Why' and 'Heavy Blanket,' J Mascis is emerging as one of the last men from all that '80s indie madness, still writing songs that you want to listen to over and over.

I love Bob Dylan, I really do. I love his early work, I love the first time he plugged in electrically, I love his Christian albums, I love his other albums.

I have no idea how I do anything. I never have. You know I just started playing guitar and started singing and started working on this act that I would call "Don McLean" when I was probably in high school. And I have been doing this for 40 years, adding songs and writing things, cobbling together albums, doing live things, you know, albums and tours. And then I have records on the charts. I have no idea how this happened.

My biggest hero when I was a kid was Will Smith. I used to watch 'Fresh Prince,' and I was a huge fan of his albums. I bought all of his albums when I was a kid. Now, he is the biggest movie star in the world.

We have recorded songs on the same day that were released years later in other albums.

My solo albums were each like a half-finished puzzle; they represented only the beginning of a full picture. Simply put, they were inadequate and incomplete.

I'm not the 'rappity-rapper' type dude. All my music is really true. I can't just rap about nothing, just metaphors and putting words together. I can't just smash out material like other guys. I just want my albums to be crazy every time I drop one.

Sly Stone doesn't make good albums: only good records. His style is so infinite and revolves around so many crucial aspects that it has only come together perfectly on a handful of his singles.

So like what I want to do is connect all of my albums and make it tell a bigger kind of story. So the first album is very focused on her family life and her love life.

Nothing has really changed. We had bootleg albums in the '60s and today we have Internet file sharing. They just found a better way to do it -- get music for free. What's great about today is an artist has an opportunity to go direct to their audience without dealing with a middleman. People can go directly to the web for CDs, DVDs and downloads. I think that's the best thing that's happened, that people's music is being flashed around the world.

Enclosure, upon its completion, was the record which represented the achievement of all the musical goals I had been aiming at for the previous 5 years. It was recorded simultaneously with Black Knights' Medieval Chamber, and as different as the two albums appear to be, they represent one investigative creative thought process. What I learned from one fed directly into the other. Enclosure is presently my last word on the musical statement which began with PBX.

In the morning I'd write these essays, anything that I'd feel like writing, and in the afternoon, I'd spend time with my guitar. I had decided after listening to my last four or five albums that my biggest weakness musically was melody. the reason I had been singing in a monotone over the chord patterns in my songs was that I never practiced doing melodies.

Most of my albums have a concept. They all have some kind of theme, some kind of feeling. I really take pride in that.

Music didn't really hit me again until the '90s, when the dancehall scene got going. The '90s were perfect for me. I would have really liked to have had The Slits out in the '90s again, to do tours and albums, because I think the '90s was a brilliant decade for music.

I'll be a nun, raise my daughter, and make albums.

Basically every song on modern metal albums follows a formula and you get that formula in between one to three tracks.

It's depressing when you're still around and your albums are out of print.

I do question a band's longevity, because most of my favorite bands only made one or two good albums. After that, I didn't care about them anymore. Sometimes I wonder if people feel the same thing about us. The way I look at it is, if we can continue to inspire ourselves and write really beautiful music that we're proud of, I don't think there's any intention to stop.

I can't imagine ever not making music, making albums, writing songs, doing shows. That's all I really know, and that's all I really do.

I'm tired of being ruled by the Skull and Bones. The only place they belong are on punk-rock albums!

Instead of writing songs for girls, I tend to write albums, which I guess is a bit weird.

I've always thought live albums were cop-outs.

I tend to name albums after one of the songs.

I'm very bad with music. I don't know any new music. I've listened to the same 10 or 12 albums my whole life.

I don't have too many plans filled out. I know I want to keep doing more music. I've got a couple of albums worth of songs I'd like to put it out there. As far as movies, I just want to continue how I've been doing it: working with terrific people is certainly on my agenda, and then doing stories that interest me.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake at one point of putting my address on the back of one of my albums, just to find out what would happen. I received a lot of disturbing mail and calls. Actually, I was living in a hotel, so it was easy enough to find the number. I got a kick out of it for a while. Then I realized what I'd done.

I wore combat boots for two albums, then I went into more of the sparkle and glamour. The older that I've become, I've felt very connected to fashion, especially this past year working with [stylist] Kate Young and creating these relationships with people that I never had before.

Ive probably written about three albums that no one will ever hear.

Cheers to the albums written fortunes earned lives touched in the millions and generations defined by one lonely person placing an ad in the back of a free paper seeking a guitarist, bassist, and drummer just looking to jam.

I look at other artists who have had fabulous first albums, and you don't know what they're doing today. Who's to say I'll be an exception to that rule?

When you are on a major record label, you're just forced to think big. You are forced to think about things like "how many radio spins did we get this week?" or "how many albums did we sell across the country. Being independent, you are just focused on the city that you are playing in tonight. How many people can I meet and become friends with tonight. That's one of the great things about being an independent artist.

When I want to check out how my lifes been, I go through my albums. They steps in my life.

I get letters from young people telling me that they're broke and download my albums for free. They ask me what I think about that. I now have a standard line. I tell them, 'I would rather be heard than paid.'

I started in a band called Timbiriche, we toured the world when I was 8; I have 23 albums.

10 years ago [in 2006], nearly 90 percent of those albums sold enough in that year to reach Gold status. 10 years later, about 30 percent were eligible. With the new rules, we figure about 40 percent of the top 200 best-sellers for the year will be eligible. We were very cautious in our approach to changing how we calculate what is eligible because the integrity of the process is our foremost consideration. It's difficult to get certified sales awards, and it's a big deal and we didn't want there to be a huge change in how many would be eligible.

The thing about albums is just coming up with new material. I just got tired of that syndrome of putting out an album and then some reviewer claims that this song or that song has something to do with x y or z.

You're creating music to pull people into a world, whether it be a visual medium where music is just one element, or a purely musical medium. Either way, you're trying to transport people and to create a connection. I've always felt that the best films and the best albums can be the best company. If people feel a little bit less alone because of something I had a hand in creating than I feel like I'm contributing to the world in a positive way.

I write a column for The Village Voice, which I've done since time immemorial, and occasionally - and books. And I occasionally write minor notes for record albums and occasional articles.

My dad used to open up photo albums and stuff and you'd have to tell a story about the picture but you couldn't tell the truth so you had to make up a story about whatever you were looking at. He really taught us how to lie.

I just think I'm a narcissist, really! I guess when I write albums, they take a huge amount of time out of my life and I'm aware of not using the same processes as I did with the last one, or else I'd get really bored and wouldn't feel inspired.

All these non-singing, non-dancing, wish-I-had-me-some-clothes fools who tell me my albums suck. Why should I pay any attention to them?

I write songs simply because I get a kick out of making them exist. I'm also sort of addicted to the recording studio, and making albums is my idea of fun.

I had a couple albums out that sold well for who I was at the time and the type of music I played. People started recognizing my name and face and it helped sell bigger venues. I had a bigger spotlight and I had to live up to it but I thrived under that challenge. It expedited the creative process. If I was on stage in front of 300 people instead of 30, I had to work harder at my performances because I had a greater responsibility. It was very exciting, but creative too.

Cry Baby wasn't necessarily a baby theme but I understand what they're saying. So like, Cry Baby is definitely a remaining character throughout all of my albums.

I went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that's what I got back to.

I've made three studio albums and one live one with my brother. It's melodic singer-songwriter acoustic-rock music.

When I began making my own albums, the songs became funkier. They were more about the streets.