Luke Bryan Quotes

Undeniably, I'm a country singer; I'm a country songwriter. But I feel like I make country music for people who like country music and for people who don't.

Mainly, I don't like it when music is made solely to impress people or in order to please business people; it doesn't sound good to me. If you're making music in order to become famous or loved by the masses... that's not what I'm about. When somebody's making music for the wrong reasons, I hear it right away.

And whether you're drawn to gospel music or church music or honky-tonk music, it informs your character and it informs your talent.

Country music has to evolve in order to survive.

I started rocking and rolling when Guns N' Roses came out. It wasn't until Garth Brooks came around that I really got back to country. He made it fun again. To me, in country music, the rigor mortis was setting in and it just wasn't fun anymore. Garth brought everyone back over to country and made it cool again.

Musically, I actually grew up listening to country music as a kid, like George Strait, Alan Jackson... all those guys. So it was kind of weird crossing over from that to pop and R&B, but you know, I love Michael Jackson, Ne-Yo, Usher, R. Kelly, Drake, Boyz II Men.

The industrial thing came about mainly through giving up trying to write pop songs in the early '90s. I don't think I was ever very good at pop music and as soon as I stopped trying, and started to write more the things I loved, it became much heavier and more aggressive.

The artists in country music who stopped having hits are the ones who were led into something that wasn't them.

I'm in a very good place to make records. Needing to make money off music is very dangerous.

If it's a good song and it fits me, that's what I'm going to do, I'm not out there trying to change the world. I'm just out there trying to sing country music the best way I can.

People keep putting limitations on themselves and creating this reality that soul music is dead. That's only in their reality. It's not true. To me, Adele is R&B. Bruno Mars is R&B. It's just good songwriting and songs. That is going to last.

A lot of people see electronic music as a flavor of the week, but it can be more than that - has to be more than that.

Superficial pop will always exist - there've always been Fabians - but when people like Dire Straits and Bruce Hornsby start having hits, it suggests that there's a revolution going on in music.

You used to have to sing and convey emotion, and now, well, technically you can do anything with technology. It sucks for music today, but that's why that old music feels so good to me.

I've seen country music go uptown, like we say, and I'm proud I was there when it happened.

Late 20th century music was a really important thing. It changed the world, and I'm part of that, and now I'm part of the museum that celebrates that.

G.O.O.D. Music is just real tastemakers, man. Kanye's a real tastemaker. One thing that I feel is tight about G.O.O.D. is that a lot of people have their own style, and you can see that. My style is different than Pusha's, it's different than Cudi's. But it's also slightly similar 'cause we have some similar tastes.

Rap music's been around for too long now to be inspirational. The words are, but the music isn't.

All the music that I've made in the past I've believed in. I think some of it has been more commercially successful than others, but it wasn't premeditated.

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.

Within the songwriting community, there are these unwritten rules for the way that a song should be written in country music, and I think that those rules are constantly being broken over the years, and the molds change and the process is evolving.

Music leaves such a big impression. I always wondered, 'Man, if I grew up in Nashville, would I be making Country records now?' I honestly feel like Chicago had such a big impact on me.

If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.

Rather than trying to create an audience, just try and create music that feels good to you.

Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later and it means something to us, and it always will do. It's incredibly important.