Ike Turner Quotes

Music is changing. I'm just doing what I'm doing, and hopefully in the next 20, 30 years, some kids can take what I'm doing and change it again. If the music doesn't move, then it's dead.

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

I tried to take heavy metal... and balled it up and chopped it in half and really tried to create a new form of energy. I really tried to re-shape extreme music as I see it through my eyes.

I haven't written a score that's going to change the Western world or the musical as we presently know it.

We're not trying to change the world; just music.

Progressive music probably wouldn't even really exist if not for the people of the United States having picked up on it and nurtured it in the way they did. It really is an American form of music in the sense that it was nurtured here. So it belongs here. It has become part of the fabric of American musical culture.

Music's been around a long time, and there's going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it's a big record, that's the frosting on the cake, but music's the main meal.

I can't just turn over and sing disco or rock.

I'm not giving up my history and what I've done in my music because I love it and I'm very proud of it. I just want to open it up for more people.

When they look back on me I want 'em to remember me not for all my wives, although I've had a few, and certainly not for any mansions or high livin' money I made and spent. I want 'em to remember me simply for my music.

I equally love both, classic rock and hip-hop. I love all music, really, and I really use classic rock a lot. I'm heavily influenced by that melodically in my music. I can't really separate the two.

I'm a huge stadium rock fan, but I'm also a fan of everything from Massive Attack to Peter Gabriel, U2, the Police, Radiohead, and Coldplay. I've realized that I love all forms of music and get excited when any artist goes crazy and creates something that is an experience.

I think that Yes' music is kind of on its own out there, and it goes through different chapters, and that involves different people. I don't think it's a case of 'any year is better than any other.' They can all co-exist quite comfortably.

Beethoven's importance in music has been principally defined by the revolutionary nature of his compositions. He freed music from hitherto prevailing conventions of harmony and structure.

If you want to be negative about the whole thing you can say all guitar bands after the Beatles were just a waste of time because the Beatles were the best. I think it's far better to give new records a try.

Just the type of music that was around at the same time as I was writing. Some of it was wicked, definitely. But there was just one direction which I thought could be pushed that no one was pushing.

I didn't want to go out and change anything. I just wanted to make the music that was part of my background, which was rock and blues and hip-hop.

There is a terrible conservatism, like a cancer, right in the heartlands of music-making, a tremendous resistance to change, an absolute horror of the idea that more people might connect with music. That infuriates me more than I can say.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

Pop music has been exhausted. The innocence has been exhausted. I think we've lost the ability to be blown away by music.

When you look back on music history, it falls into these neat periods, but of course, the period you yourself are living through seems totally scattered and chaotic.

If you went to see me today, you might not like my music.

I never thought of us as a punk band, a metal band, or a new wave band. Just as a band band.

I think the '70s was a much healthier period for music because people were more innovative and creative.

If you look at these bands like The Beatles, they did something that was new for that time, whether it was shocking or just a new direction that they were going.