Thomas Dolby Quotes

I want to make an album with just great beats and big vocals and just amazing lyrics.

I write the songs, go in and record them, then I listen to everything and decide how it all fits together.

The records I make, I'm there from the writing of the first note through the click tracks to the miking of the drums to the editing of everything to the production to the vocals to the artwork.

I think it's his perception of knowing how to make a record build, keeping the integrity of the song in the music and really adding a lot of musical elements to compliment my voice and to compliment the song.

I had 25 or 30 songs. Sequencing the record, I left that to the producer. I'm not into doing that stuff.

I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.

A lot of getting a song done is booking the studio time.

I am always thinking about records I want to make.

When I walked into the studio, the chorus of 'Nobody Love' was already set. For me, the challenge was to make it have depth.

When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.

It's a very organic process, and it has a specific order to it. I love to write, and once you've written, then you arrange. After the arrangement, you record it, and then you tour it.

I don't think people realize how much work it takes to make an album.

When I've produced a song, I try to record a vocal over it, and sometimes it becomes really hard. Sometimes I've already said a lot that I want to say within the production. The vocal is just adding to it, rather than it being a song.

We'll set up a demo session and try to knock out eight or ten songs and make them sound as close as we can to a record with the money and time we have.

When I listen to a record, or when I'm making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble.

We always record with the whole band. That's key to capturing the feel, especially trying to get a good basic track.

The original 'Don't Let It Get to You' started with a beat. The drums came first. All the musical and lyrical elements were written over those drums.

With 'Under the Pressure,' I just found two chords I liked, and built it up, did like a ten-minute drum pattern.

Putting together a hit record is like putting together a puzzle.

Once I've got something that I feel is strong, if I get long enough to think about it, it'll turn into something. I'll start thinking about the drums - what the drums are doing, what the bass is doing. Then, if I can remember it by the time I get to a recording device, it'll turn into a song.

The producer should decide what kind of music is being made, what it's going to sound like - all of it: the why, when, and how.

For me, it's always just about playing the song and recording it and giving it what it needs as a song.

Usually, I write the music and am involved in the production.

You get the beats. You write to them. You go in the studio and lay it down. Hopefully, a song comes out sounding good. If it comes out sounding good, you put it to the side with the rest of the other good ones, and you try to decide which ones you're gonna use on the album.

To make a genuine record, it takes more than a cool beat and some auto tune.