Greil Marcus Quotes

I wouldn't say rock & roll is dead but the current music made by young people isn't really rock & roll.

Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that's not what I call rock.

If you ask me, rockabilly has had a raw deal for far too long. People never shunned the blues or jazz the way they do rockabilly. But it's the original punk-rock, and it changed the way people looked at music for ever.

Bob Dylan did the first really long record - Like A Rolling Stone - I think it was four minutes.

Biggest lesson I've ever had in life is that blues had a baby and they named it rock 'n' roll.

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.

Today's folk song is rock and roll. Although it happened to emanate from America, that's not really important in the end because we wrote our own music and that changed everything.

As I define it, rock and roll is dead. The attitude isn't dead, but the music is no longer vital. It doesn't have the same meaning. The attitude, though, is still very much alive - and it still informs other kinds of music.

I play these [folk acoustic] concerts and I ask myself, 'Would you come see me tonight?' - and I'd have to answer truthfully, 'No, I wouldn't come. I'd rather be doin' something else, really I would. That something else is rock... The words are pictures, and the rock's gonna help me flesh out the colors of the pictures. (1965)

I'd studied piano first and switched over to cello when I was about seven. I played mostly chamber and solo classical music. I got really involved with rock music when I was a teenager. I wired up my cello.

There are all the offsprings of people who are influenced by punk. It sounds completely different - but it's still rock 'n' roll. When hip-hop came on the scene, it was the last legitimate creation of a new genre.

Rock is rock, and, rock and roll, rock is just short for rock and roll.

Rock music is stronger than sports. That's why. Rock rules. Around the world, who's more famous: Willie Mays or Paul McCartney?

Rock and roll is about having a good time.

Usually, the best thing is when the band goes to the bar and gets the corner table, we sit there like kings, and then they bring people to us. It's just rock 'n' roll. It's stupid, really.

If I hear dance music, my body starts to move. Whatever the dance music is, I can't help it. With all that, I still felt, well, rock is a little higher art, but it wasn't. Right now, because I have so much experience with dance charts, I started to realize that it's incredible art. This is going to be known one day as high art.

I think that I have a pretty varied taste in music I think. And it is primarily rock music big umbrella that I am, I am not into hip-hop. But, I do like both.

Rock 'n' roll is meant to entertain. Hippie folk singers are supposed to be singing about leftist views, but I don't think rock 'n' roll was ever that way. I don't remember the early rock 'n' rollers ever expressing any political views.

The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too.

I'm definitely really into rock music, and I feel like that is where my heart is.

I like rock & roll, and I don't like much else.

The rock and roll spirit. I learned a lot of that because I worked with Buddy Holly. I played bass with him, and he taught me a lot about that.

If you want to put your rock 'n' roll into mythology, [A Period of Transition] is from the Daddy Cool school.

A girl can't sing rock & roll too well. It's basically too savage.

My my, hey hey... Rock and roll is here to stay. Hey hey, my my... Rock and roll will never die.