Anderson East Quotes

I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't; they want that positive, uptempo thing.

Pop has to exist and it's a great thing.

I play sad bastard music. For the money.

Only two to three per cent of an audience is interested in words and pays attention to lyrics; most of the rest of it is about image or the beat or the sound, or else it's a tribal thing - country & western, rap, heavy metal, with historical folk rock off in some kind of cult.

The only thing that exists to me is commercial pop music.

If you say, 'I'm going to cut this song because I know the teenagers are going to love it,' well, then you're going to alienate everybody else. When I cut my record, I'm just going to cut the things that I like, and whoever likes it, likes it. That's too much work to try to figure out the demographic. That's too much like a business.

I love bummer songs.

I love sad songs. They say so much. I love country music but even the happy songs sound really sad.

The whole thing about rock music, pop music, is it's really for kids.

I don't know if a song is going to be a hit or it's going to flop. I never know. I just do the music and if people like it, they like it.

At one time they've been the most important thing to me. So I can't hear our records on the radio, I can't stand it, because they sound so out of what everyone else is doing.

Our songs did not transcend being R&B hits. They were R&B hits that white kids were attracted to. And if people bought it, it became rock & roll. That's marketing. Why couldn't it still be R&B? The bass pattern didn't change. The song didn't change. It was still 'Yakety Yak' and 'Searchin'.'

I have no idea about the state of rap. I don't pay attention. I just listen to old music that I have.

'Course, 'Santini' bombed in England, y'know. It came out at the height of the New Wave, which couldn't have been a worse time for a solo singer trying to sell rock melodies.

When I made hip-hop, I made hip-hop. I didn't make R&B or make it for the radio.

I'd love to do something with somebody like James Blake.

I didn't make music until I was about 18. I'd been playing my whole life, but I wasn't putting it out because I didn't feel like people would take it seriously. I thought people would be like, 'It's just like sad girl music - it's like Taylor Swift.'

I like Aimee Mann. Her album 'Mental Illness' is so good.

If you respond to pop music as an older person, then it's your game. But this business has a tremendously visual focus.

I just like a good, sad song. The sadder, the better. It moves me.

Some of the kids who discovered me from my 'F.E.A.R.' record or one of the U.N.K.L.E. tunes have said, 'I don't even like the Roses; I love your solo stuff.' I buzz off that.

I'm still an outsider in the hip hop community. I don't even know if I'm making hip hop anymore.

I've learned to respect Rick Ross' music.

I get lots of requests from people to write sad songs, and I'm like, 'No, that's rubbish patter.'

I'd love to see Kate Bush, full stop.