Joe Cocker Quotes

When the magazines talk about artists they talk about the Paul McCartneys, the Paul Simons, they never talk about me. So their readers and contemporary artists are never going to check me out because they're not reading about me.

I wrote the music column in my high school newspaper.

People write to me all the time, and I write back.

The biggest problem in rock journalism is that often the writer's main motivation is to become friends with the band. They're not really journalists; they're people who want to be involved in rock and roll.

I don't want anybody to not recognize how appreciative I am of the volume of e-mails I get.

I'm a journalist; I love doing interviews, and I hope that will continue.

If the breaking news story had to do with hard news, politics specifically, I had a lot to do with it. If it had to do with music, Kurt Loder was more involved.

If people stop being interested, it's because you haven't written a good enough album. Music will always be the most powerful thing. It doesn't matter what record labels or journalists say. It's the song.

Fans are really important for me. And if they take pains to write me, it's the minimum that I answer myself.

I am a huge fan of using social media to connect with people because I think there was this 'ivory tower' aspect of journalism where people might read a byline for years but have no idea about the person who was behind it and never get to communicate with them or ask them a question.

Every music journalist I've ever met has been stunningly beautiful.

But I always communicate with the audience. I never pretend like I'm just in my bedroom making a track. The whole point of doing a gig is, like, a feedback thing between you and the audience.

My first real writing job was at 'Rolling Stone,' so I wrote about rock-and-roll and politics and the like. At the time, I really didn't know what I wanted to write, and I did a bunch of investigative journalism.

I came over here and worked for rock magazines, and I worked for Rolling Stone, which has a very high standard of journalism, a very good research department.

You know I take music seriously, right? So I expect journalists to take being a journalist seriously.

I couldn't imagine what it's like to be a journalist talking about music. You're left with empty descriptions; you probably have to make up a sort of weird cocktail of band influences and references to other music to get your point across.

I have this group of friends that I'll send my scripts to before I send them to a large audience.

I'm always very careful to make the distinction between music criticism and music journalism. A lot of people don't. But criticism doesn't require reporting. You can write criticism at home in your underwear. On the other hand, journalism takes legwork - you have to get out there and see things and talk to people.

The problem was the journalists who also did not understand much of my music, but they wrote about it. I think you fell into the usual trap laid out by parts of the press and other writers: that the poor musician has always to fight the evil companies and managers.

I love it when people travel to see one of my works, and I always make time to meet and talk with them.

I believe that music is another form of news. Music is another form of journalism to me so I have to cover all the areas with my album.

Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read.

Here's what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is to just press play.

As a journalist, I have wanted very much to find a way to write about the music industry, and it's been frustrating to me that that's never worked out.

It doesn't matter that millions read as long as you share it with somebody. So I don't really think about readers or editors. You especially should never think of editors - especially never think about reviewers.