Tift Merritt Quotes

I love to offer a playlist to the world, almost like being a deejay.

My favorite thing to do with my iPod was to shuffle my entire music collection and marvel at what songs came next. Sometimes the segues would be so perfect that it seemed a genius deejay was behind the wheel.

I listen to Radio 4 and put the iPod on shuffle. I like the randomness of, say, the Stones, then something from Nina Simone, Nick Drake or Bob Dylan.

Don't get me wrong: there are aspects of buying music online that I love. Instantly being able to hear a song the moment it crosses your mind? Where's the downside? However, I do feel for those too young to remember the thrill of going record shopping.

I make playlists on my iPod like nobody's business!

I make up cassettes all the time - to take on the road with me - a song from this album, a song from that album. That's the way I listen to music; it's like one of those K Tel things: it's from all over. I listen to Fred Astaire, I listen to African folk music, I listen to Talking Heads.

I like everything in this iPhone, iPod world where you can do everything all the time. Back in my time, you bought a vinyl record when you were a kid and took it home, and it took a bit of effort to actually get it out of the thing and not scratch it.

I'm constantly listening to music and thinking about it and compiling my own cassettes and CDs in obsessively specific order. I have quite lunatic agendas for what I want to achieve. They won't make sense to anyone other than me, but it is what I've spent most of my life doing.

I've probably bought ten CDs in my whole life.

I hear odd tracks from my albums every now and again on the radio, or maybe a friend plays me something.

Vinyl is democratic, as surely as the iPod is fascist. Vinyl is representational: It has a face. Two faces, in fact, to represent the dualism of human nature. Vinyl occupies physical space honestly, proud as a fat woman dancing.

I had 45 Avril Lavigne posters. Those were my first posters.

I recalled how a lot of my older siblings would go to a friend's house and borrow records to play and sometimes borrow a turntable because we didn't have a turntable in the house until I was 8, about the same time we had a TV.

I don't really do playlists. I don't know how to make a playlist, honestly.

There's something about pulling out a real tape from a shelf and looking at it and knowing that 'Everlong' is on it, or 'Best of You' is on it, and it's really special.

I used to judge the quality of music by whether I could make a 90-minute cassette and not repeat any artists.

If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise, you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.

I don't think it's ever changed, whether its Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Zeppelin, Guns n' Roses or anyone today, the reason why you get into music is because you love it, and if you're good at it, that's a plus.

What we do is wake up every morning and think about how we get more music out to people; how do we get better music? We breathe, eat, and sleep music.

I don't think mixtapes will ever go out of style.

This is a public statement: I'm in favor of mixtapes.

I'm the die-hard that still goes out to buy records.

I couldn't afford to go to the record store to buy new tapes, so I'd tape everything off the radio. Just hit record when my song came on. I used to take my mom's tapes and tape over them. I had a nice little collection. Had my own Stephen Jackson mixtapes off the radio!

It would be better to be recognized first for music, but people go with what they like. If I'm here because I'm recognized more so as a style icon, then, if I'm smart enough, I will use this opportunity to share more insight about my music.

I've always bought CDs and even when I was young and at primary school I had a massive collection of CDs. I just like the excitement of opening it, reading the book, learning all the words and things like that. Hopefully I'll always be like that.