Rivers Cuomo Quotes

You have to have that organizational principle behind the song.

Ever since 'Hail to the King,' we've been more cognizant of our chord progressions, our key changes, drama in songs, a lot of dynamics - we've really added a lot of that in there.

We were concerned with having good songs, not just songs that go two hundred miles per hour.

I'm not technical. When I listen to music, I gravitate more toward the sonic aspect of it. The technical stuff of it, I get bored with it. These long solos? OK, already. You know your scales, big deal. I know it, too, but I don't want to do that.

I guess a good song is a good song is a good song, ya know.

I like songs that have lots of different parts in them, an intro, an outro and a bridge.

I think I always had a musicality, and I think I could tell a good song from a bad song. And I would appreciate hearing something that was new to me.

I'm not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

I am moved more by melodies, song structure, and evocative textures.

Keep in mind, you can use Auto-Tune and you can know how to work it perfectly, but you still have to know how to write a good song.

There are certain choices you make as a songwriter, based on vowel sounds and melody and chord changes.

Pop is like a puzzle: to write a perfect pop song, you never know, and there's so much that can happen in a second with a song.

Music really does just boil down to basically, essentially songwriting chords and melodies.

When I listen to my favorite songwriters, they have such simple melodies and chords. I occasionally manage to stop at the right time, but all too often I keep on going until I have way too many notes and words. But that's just what I do.

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

There's such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn't necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff doesn't necessarily mean you've got a good song on your hands.

It took me a long time to learn how to write a good song.

I think the melody is the first time I hear in a song and if I like the melody, then I'll pay closer attention to the lyrics.

I think a good song is a good song is a good song.

Music is organized sound.

The more melodies and chord changes, the less good it is for the clubs, but the better it is for radio, because it makes it really emotional.

If you've got a good song, it's easy to play. But you can't make a bad song sound good no matter who you have to play on it.

I'm making a record that's half stripped down acoustic which is the way I perform a lot and half of it is very produced. It's really hard to keep music simple but I was trying to keep it simple and focus on one or two instruments and vocals.

I am really heavy into songwriting.

We knew we wanted to put a lot of melody into it - a lot more than what we did on our first album.