Jon Secada Quotes

Music's supposed to be real. When it really touches you, it's supposed to be real.

Most of all I want to make pop music that has something real behind it.

I think the best music is honest music.

If it doesn't come from your heart, music just doesn't work.

I try to make music with emotion and integrity. And authenticity. You can feel when something's authentic, and you can feel when it's not: you know when someone's trying to make the club record, or trying to make the girl record, or trying to make the thug record. It's none of that. It's just my emotions.

It's my responsibility to show people that this music is something they can trust in and believe in, and it's not a joke. It's not anything but 100 percent from my heart.

Along with a sense of humor, my songs have to be sincere, and they have to be sung from a position of inner conviction.

I think that people respond to honesty in music, so I only choose songs that are the truth for me.

I don't think songs have to be like these super-#1-smash-hit-sounding songs, because I think it's more important that it's like, 'Hey! This is coming out of me. This is something I connect with. This is something that I like to sing.'

I don't feel comfortable making empty music.

If I find myself just not feeling like writing songs anymore, I think I'll drop it. There's enough bad, insincere music out there. I don't need to contribute to that.

Write your own songs. It helps you to mean what you're singing, which will then make it mean something to listeners.

My music is going to be true. I'm not out to sell records. I'm experiencing something, and it's what I feel.

As a songwriter, it's very hard to listen to music that's not coming from the heart and soul, personally.

I once wrote on my MySpace profile that music is never authentic. It was a reaction to constantly reading the word 'authentic' in connection with bands. But what does that mean? A baby crying after being pushed out of its mother's womb, now that's what I'd call authentic.

If you're writing anything decent, it's in you, it's your spirit coming out. If it's not an expression of how a person genuinely feels, then it's not a good song done with any conviction.

When you write a song, you don't ask if it's good or not, or if it's gonna sell. When you write a song, you ask whether you've reached deep inside your heart and whether it's honest.

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.

We love a good, hyped sound, but when it starts to sound insincere, that's when I lose interest. I hope that our music, even if it sounds polished, doesn't sound insincere.

Anything I sing is supposed to be genuine. It's not supposed to be make-believe or I'm making something for the crowd to jump or to hold up their hands.

There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art of songwriting more than the commercial enterprise of it.

I've done bits of writing for other people but when I'm writing music as Years & Years, I'm using my life and my stories and my experiences. I want it to be authentic and real but also to work as a pop song - I never want to just put in a cheesy line.

People can hear my songs are coming from something real. I mean what I say; I'm not just writing to impress critics or young girls, or older girls. The way I talk is the way I write a song.

The music that I make is pretty sincere; it's from my heart and I love it, and what just happened is more people have started to connect with my heart, and I haven't followed some kind of marketing scheme.

For nothing reaches the heart but what is from the heart, or pierces the conscience but what comes from a living conscience