CeeLo Green Quotes

I think that we'll see the concept of 'genre' continue to die a slow and painful death.

I'm coming from a place that's more experimental and indulgent already, so for the last 10 years, it's been more like, "How can I defend my own sensibilities by writing a nugget of a little catchy pop song?" That's how I'm stretching myself, by writing something really simple.

We just did a bunch of songs, and there was a lot of enthusiasm for the songs that we made. We didn't feel like we had to do Miike Snow. We just did it because, I mean, I guess we felt like it would be a bit of a shame to leave it where we left it.

I was sick of fast, aggressive music; I felt like I needed to make a poppy thing. But, right now, I feel like I need to make a Hawkwind/Sabbath record. It gets boring if you just do the same thing all the time.

If it came back I would be thrilled. I would be delighted to write more songs. I need them now because I want to make an album and I have to depend on other people's music, which I've done for years. But still, it'd be really nice to be able to sprinkle it with my own.

Why, why, when one writes, does a sort of shackle bind one's imagination? I become conscious of a deadening mediocrity, perhaps a form of mental cowardice, and I long to break free, to let my imagination take wings. It doesn't - yet.

I just do as many songs as I can and then I put it together when I get sort of in the middle, maybe 30 songs, that's when I start really thinking about the name of the cd and what direction all the songs are going, that kind of stuff. But I don't ever want to corner myself, I just want to be able to express whatever I can express in songs and just pick after that.

One of the things I love about doing things that are creative is that I feel like it's my right as an artist not to be affected by the reactions of those people that are going to hear my songs.

I don't use iMovie and don't use shitty little cameras to try to prove something or say something because that's a part of the process. We do it just because that's what we like to use.

I want to be able to create characters for as long as I can and I want to tell stories for as long as I can but unfortunately I'm not given those opportunities because I'm often boxed into the former category...

So long as it doesn't get to the point where you don't remember whose opera you're listening to, I'm willing to experiment.

A lot of people ask me where music is going today. I think it's going in short phrases. If you listen, anybody with an ear can hear that. Music is always changing. It changes because of the times and the technology that's available, the material that things are made of, like plastic cars instead of steel. So when you hear an accident today it sounds different, not all the metal colliding like it was in the forties and fifties. Musicians pick up sounds and incorporate that into their playing, so the music that they make will be different.

The best songs come unasked for. You don't have to think about them . . . Summer is good for songs. When it's real warm, if you have a sense of freedom, not a lot on your mind, and a feeling there's plenty of time, it just seems to be a good climate for music.

When writing I just go with the song. I go with the song and try to tell the story. So the story may be "Wonderful Baby", which is a little song. Or it might be a gentle song, "Empty Chairs". Or it might be a rock and roll song like "Prime Time" or "Run, Diana, Run", or "American Pie". I don't know where it's gonna go. I don't have any idea what I'm doing. I just do it. I just keep doing it. I keep taking adva

I couldn't write a political song. There's just opinion; it's all arbitrary anyway. It's all subjective.

It's the way I enjoy making art - I like sitting down and making five beats; I enjoy that process. I can go two weeks without making a song and just making beats and I'll be OK.

I like the fact that I can rep New York, but my style does not - I'm not trapped in a New York thing. I can do art songs with other artists and it's seamless.

I'm usually way more pleased with the stuff that just kinda happens by accident and is no way a pop song. But sometimes the easiest thing for me to write is pop songs.

Take a bunch of little kids to the beach and they all make art. Adults are too stupid to call it art, but it is art. They'll use their imaginations, make drama, make up characters, make pictures in the sand, they'll make up songs that no one's ever heard before. All kids, I think, are creative, but they get it pounded out of them in school.

I'd meet a new filmmaker that I'd always loved, and I'd think, "Great! I'm in the right place." It's a weird way to look at it, but I don't care as long as I'm able to make stuff that I want to make.

You have to figure out as a band how a band becomes a business, and then you have to keep that business mentality separate from the creative one, which is good for the songs. It's always a work in progress.

In my head I actually think my songs are pop songs. I think, Damn, that's a pop song! I can practice in front of the mirror with my hairbrush for as long as I want to. But when it finally comes out, it sounds avant-garde to people. Right up until then, though, I think, "Of course everybody feels this way. This song's the same as the Greek national anthem."

I'm letting the songs breathe and change and become what they are without force.

Whenever new ideas emerge, songs soon follow, and before long the songs are leading.

I think from a major-label perspective, if you were on the flip side of things and that's the world you were used to working in, your interpretation could be, "Oh, they're having trouble writing songs," when really it's like, "No, I'm not ready to write songs, I don't want to write a song right now, if I did write a song, it would be forced."