Harry Connick Jr. Quotes

I'm not terribly happy about rock and roll. Certain rock music is uninspiring, numbing; it makes you feel like an idiot.

What I wanted to do was play the guitar but I don't like instrumental rock. I think it is tripe.

T-Bone Burnett once said that much of rock music is simply someone going wahhh daddy.

I'm a businesswoman. I am a music lover. I like for people to like my music. When you listen to top 40 radio, you hear pop stuff. You hear rock stuff. You hear all these different influences.

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.

I have a feeling there were many, many successful rock duos that just didn't get attention. That's the fault of the rock press. They are always playing up controversy, scandal, aggravation, and irritation.

I don't read a lot of rock magazines for the most part.

Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn't their parents'. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.

I love hip hop, and I have a bunch of urban songs I write for fun that I can't put on my albums because people would laugh and point.

Given a choice between Charlie Mingus and Eric Dolphy or Joe Strummer and Lou Reed, there was no choice. I like Reed and Strummer, but it's kiddie music.

Rap bores me, and all the glamour rock groups like Bon Jovi just amuse me. They obviously have a place, but they all sound like they use the same guitar player to me.

Classical music is for listening but rock and roll is to have fun with.

With so much of music blurring the lines between ersatz and authenticity, at least the 'Rock Band' game is a tribute to rock rather than an affront.

There is some brilliant pop music and some very poor classical music. And why shouldn't comedy be treated as seriously as drama?

Anyway, you know, when Richard Meltzer said rock and roll died in '68, what he means is Jefferson Airplane were no longer his buddies, that's what he really means. He means it in a political way: that was when the artists and the audience found themselves on different levels.

In fact, many rock critics look askance at explicitly political lyrics, which I think is pretty stupid, without denying that some political lyrics are also pretty stupid.

I was born and raised in Germany, so I was classically trained. Classical has been deep in me from a totally early age. Then, as a teenager, I picked up the guitar and was really into rock music.

I've always, always, always listened to music since I was, like, 7 years old and made up stories in my head based on what I was hearing.

What I do is a bit broader in scope than a heavy metal band like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, ACDC and so on.

I always took music very seriously and passionately. It is one of my biggest passions and hobbies.

Rock and roll promotes a primitive and destructive lifestyle. Metal can be seen as a subgenre of rock and roll, and thus, metal is not much better.

I was born into hip hop and reggae, and then I started listening to more hardcore and punk bands like Bad Brains and the Suicidal Tendencies; they opened up a whole new world for me. They had something to say, and I could relate to them.

I can rap, I can sing, I can do whatever, you know what I'm saying? I can do rock.

I think there are certain genres of music where people are allowed to go on, but there is something about rock and roll, I guess because it originally started out to be a teenage rebellion.

One thing rap and rock have in common, a lot of it is focused on negativity. I like dark stuff.