John Landis Quotes

Rock 'n' roll started to make so much money and generated so much income for the record companies that suddenly it was no longer evil.

Commercial record has never interested me. It's amazing I was in a band like The Police that had such phenomenal commercial success. Part of what made The Police what it was was that we didn't all come in with obvious mainstream musical tastes. We were a rock band and somehow we had to make rock music, but it was informed by a lot of things outside of the mainstream for sure.

I don't think you're selling out by allowing the masses to love your art. The only curse is that, when you get so big, sometimes people forget to look at the music.

Remember when you used to watch TV in the Sixties and you'd see Perry Como in a cashmere sweater? That's what rock 'n' roll is becoming. It's your parents' music.

Never hate a song that's sold a half million copies.

Pop music has always been about the mainstream and what appeals to the public.

I'm just not interested in selling out to get on the charts and make people happy.

I don't do something because I think it will sell 30 million albums. I couldn't care less. If it sells one, it sells one.

A lot of bad music sells a million copies; I don't think it's a good litmus test for whether things are going well.

Pop music has progressed.

I have cut four albums so far, and all of them have been trendsetters and commercially successful. I believe that once you start taking art in commercial terms, it ceases to be art.

I was born at the beginning of rock and roll. I got to experience the entire evolution of popular rock and roll music even before it started.

Rock became an incredible commercial success, people just became bored with serious music, and it was forgotten.

I remember Mitch Miller saying every week, This rock and roll stuff will never last. But one doesn't like to bring that up to Mitch.

Pop is the most competitive form of music there is. You are always fighting to be adopted and accepted by the masses, and it's always shifting.

I think that it's interesting how shows like 'Walking Dead' or even 'Game of Thrones,' with all its fantasy elements, have become so popular. Sometimes, though, I get a little bit annoyed because the whole nerd thing taking over and is now cool, and it wasn't cool when I was younger.

America used to say that hip-hop was a cancer. Then it embraced that cancer and realized, 'Hey, this isn't a bad thing. It is part of us, just more America.'

It's really weird how the rock world is quickly becoming like the jazz world. How if you do OK, or get a tiny bit of success, that's considered a sellout, whether you did anything different or not.

Obviously, I would like to play to bigger audiences and have a bit more success, but not if I have to commercialize.

Pop music follows the evolution of society in general: Everything moves faster.

'Gargoyle' was inching towards a more accessible record.

I think that's one of the beautiful things about this genre is that everyone who's in it isn't in it to make a million bucks and be popular, because that's not always our M.O. Really, I think the last time that rock was truly in the mainstream was probably a point in time in the '90s when there was a lot of alternative that was on the pop charts.

I don't want to be subsumed into popular culture and played on the radio next to some garbage music.

It was the case in the 70s and 80s that people believed music could change the world. But now people aren't making music because they want to change the world; they're making music because they want to just make a ton of money.

You can fool some of the people part of the time in a rock and roll song, fifty million Elvis Presley fans can't be all wrong.