Elle King Quotes

Now my music is kind of pop-rock, right? If I'm 25 and singing still, I don't want to be singing music like that.

Am I R&B because I'm black? Am I pop because I have a song called 'Milkshake'? Or can I just be who the hell I am? Good Lord, people make it seem like we're doing heart transplants here, but we're just making music!

I was trying to establish an identity in music, and black and white had nothing to do with it.

I love to sing and make music because it makes me feel good.

I think Westlife is very unique: we have a certain sound; we do our thing our way, and we don't try to change too much. I think that's what the fans love about us. We keep giving the fans what they want every year. The style of music never really changes too much.

My music, I feel, has always been experimental, but it had got to a point where I felt disconnected from it completely. I didn't want to be a Clark Kent/Superman: I couldn't really say, 'Well, B.o.B's the old me, and Bobby Ray's the new me.' I had to just make a point.

I could never change the overall feel of my music. That's why people like me - I don't follow trends, and I don't follow crowds.

The repercussions of what you put out and what people gravitate to in your music never registered at all. I never had that thing that maybe other bands have - a specific idea of what they are and what their sound is.

The Smiths was an incredibly personal thing to me. It was like launching your own diary to music.

For me, I can only do that from my own experience with people I've known and things that I've lived and experienced. That's what good pop music is all about, pop music that does reach out to people. It's very personalized and very real, honest and sincere.

I wanted to bring the R&B flavor and other Westernized sounds to my music, because that's the type of music I grew up listening to.

Being a pop artist or making music like a jingle or something - I don't do that.

I don't think I'll ever want to do pop music. I think I'll only ever want to do classical crossover because it's something that I love, and pop just doesn't work for me.

Part of the punk attitude was that you should project your music through your whole body... show your personality as much as possible.

I don't want to be the cliche American Idol dude. I want to be different, you know - that's the whole goal, me and music. It's about being yourself and being unique.

I have a very difficult time describing my music. Because I run into people in the hardware store and they go, 'Oh, you're a musician. So what kind of music do you play?' And I go, 'Uh, I've been doin' this for many years - I don't know what to call it.'

My idea was you can't dress for the stage, you have to dress all the time like you're onstage. And so I would just always wear suits or some form of it. I wanted people to know I played music. That was kind of how you would find other people: you would just walk around looking a certain way and end up meeting someone who liked the way you look.

But at this phase of my life, I want to write and not have to think about whether a song is going to be a hit. I want to explore the music that inspires me, and I don't want to ape myself.

The music I write, I feel, is not the kind of music for a 25-year-old.

We always thought the Tom Tom Club could change to anything, but it acquired this image, which was cartoon animation and this real light-hearted dance music.

I wasn't Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson. I wasn't Tori Amos or Norah Jones. Nobody knew what to do with me.

Being an artist is dragging your innermost feelings out, giving a piece of yourself, no matter in which art form, in which medium.

'Muntazir' has a very feel-good vibe to it. It's Strings' signature composition, especially the pre-chorus. I thoroughly enjoyed lending my vocals to it.

With my own material, I like maintaining lyric integrity. I like having sophisticated lyrics, and maybe that's not down-the-middle Top 40 pop, but it reflects my style, my life, the way I speak, and the way I tell what's happening with my life emotionally, so in that way, it's authentic to me.

I was a little nervous that people wouldn't take to 'Under Pressure,' because my style and what I embodied had previously been the braggadocious '90s fun rapper type. Before this album, I didn't rap about my life much.