Jon Landau Quotes

Bowie's been a huge influence on me.

Much as my Boomer friends will hate me for saying this, Kanye West is the New Dylan. Not only do Kanye's best lyrics match Dylan's prescience, highly inventive word-play and genius for storytelling, his indefatigable cockiness eerily channels Muhammad Ali.

Jimi... He was the gov'nor and that's it. He was brilliant, wasn't he?

I do not use the word 'genius' lightly, but if David Bowie is not a genius, then there is no such thing.

I'm a huge Springsteen fan, and yet if either he or Bob Dylan had to be erased from the world's hard drive, I would save Bob Dylan's work for sure - he's the greater talent, and by leaps and bounds and skyscrapers and rocket blasts. But Bob Dylan is an alien to his public.

I met David Bowie when I was 14, and he became a hero to me - because he was an artist, and because he was a genius who had the time to be kind. I'd never met such an extraordinary artist before, and I haven't since - the world will be a greyer place without him.

Bob Dylan is my idol. Everybody has that person growing up that made them see things a little differently than they did before, Dylan is that guy for me. My dad gave me the 'Blonde on Blonde' album on cassette tape when I was seven or eight. It took me a while to get into Dylan's vibe, but once I did, I never looked back.

I have no doubt that if I met Bob Dylan, it would be disappointing - and annoying to him. But that's why I like Bob Dylan.

In 1952, Muddy cut the song 'Rollin' Stone.' It was a nationwide success, and the song echoes down through rock n' roll history. Bob Dylan cut a tribute by the same name, an English band decided to call themselves the Rolling Stones, and the magazine that first embraced music as a serious cultural phenomenon was itself called 'Rolling Stone.'

When I think of artists that I would have loved to work with, it's Jimi Hendrix. And Steve McQueen. He's not a rock star, but he's kind of a rock star to me.

I don't talk about Amy Winehouse as a 'singer.' She's a pioneer. I listened to her endlessly when I started writing.

I'm like, 'Would you be the person in the room that would boo when Dylan went electric? I know I wouldn't. Or are you the person that left The Beatles after 'She Loves You,' or 'Drive My Car?' You weren't on board for 'Revolution 9' or 'Day In The Life,' were you?'

And I don't expect anyone can bring about a revolution in the way that Bob Dylan did - and really didn't - in the 1960s.

Bob Dylan's not a hype and a haircut: he's the real thing.

If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

Elvis was the only man from Northeast Mississippi who could shake his hips and still be loved by rednecks, cops, and hippies.

The early Bob Dylan was compulsively drawn to the conflict between stability and the search for immortality.

There are few words in the music business or in art that I'll say people or some writers are overgenerous with words like 'legend' or 'genius', 'he's a pioneer' and all of that.

Bob Dylan is the Jew of all time.

Picasso is what is going to happen and what is happening; he is posterity and archaic time, the distant ancestor and our next-door neighbor. Speed permits him to be two places at once, to belong to all the centuries without letting go of the here and now.

I would love to be looked at some day - and I'm not ever saying I'm at this level - but I'd love to be mentioned in the same breath as a Bowie or an Eno. Those are the people that I admire artistically, their career trajectory, the integrity throughout their career, the bravery of their career.

Shakespeare and Rembrandt have in common the faculty of quickening speculation and compelling the minds of men to combat and discussion.

Chance The Rapper is just unreal: he's changing rap and really creating this whole amazing new style.

Prince inspired me. He changed my life. I will miss him greatly.

I thought he was the greatest thing. Bob Dylan.