Stephen Malkmus Quotes

Michael's the ultimate entertainer. After Michael Jackson, it's Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Bruce Lee.

Before I was through my teens, I had been introduced and exposed to artists who would, in later years, become legendary.

When I had a record deal in the '90s, that was my dream - to make an album like Barbra Streisand's Broadway album - and they laughed me out of the room. Broadway wasn't cool. But artists like Michael Buble and Josh Groban have brought the classic genre back to the forefront, so I'm trying to find my way inside that market.

If you got every single artist in the world in one room, and you put Miles on one side and Prince on the other side, those are the two people that everybody would be trying to get a glimpse of. And Michael Jackson would be the other one.

Every once in awhile, the world will push up an Elvis Presley or a Beatles. But that's really outside the realm of show business.

What if Picasso had gone to the Moon? Or Andy Warhol or Michael Jackson or John Lennon? What about Coco Chanel? These are all artists that I adore.

James Brown and Frank Sinatra are two different quantities in the universe. They represent two different experiences of the world.

The Beatles meant everything to me growing up, and John was part of that. I loved Lennon's persona. He knew who he was and he knew what he represented to a worldwide public... I think he incited and inspired a whole group of youth to speak out and say what they felt.

Jim Dean and Elvis were the spokesmen for an entire generation. When I was in acting school in New York, years ago, there was a saying that if Marlon Brando changed the way people acted, then James Dean changed the way people lived. He was the greatest actor who ever lived. He was simply a genius.

It's a kind of honour when I see how many people are imitating the style of how I make films.

We all like people who do things, even if we only see their faces on cigar-box lids.

I don't know what to say to people. It's become so big. It's become part of the cultural environment. For the first and second Twiglight, I knew exactly what to say to people. If you don't know what the story is by now, then you've probably never been to the cinema before. How about, "Why not go to the cinema for once?" I don't know.

There are certain people in our popular culture that just capture people's imaginations. And in death, they become even larger. Now, I have to admit that it's also fed by a 24/7 media that is insatiable.

The plot details of B movies are irrational: accept that people do things that are contradictory, against their own best interests, have short term aims & limited attention span, and do incredibly stupid things while things blow up. Apart from things blowing up, this is just like the music industry.

There's enough people that do unfunny music. I'll leave the serious stuff to Paris Hilton and Kevin Federline.

I like all the old-fashioned icons. My friends are artists, so they make me up to look like certain people. I am more inspired by people like Jane Fonda or Brigitte Bardot - people who did something as activists.

They don't want to see rap music. They don't want to see the Beastie Boys. They don't care what we're doing. They want one thing and one thing only: that's to see Madonna come on stage.

A lot of people don't listen to the albums. They just listen to the singles.

I always thought I was commercial. I always thought I was writing hit singles. These days, whatever's on the radio is considered commercial. People like what's on the radio, whatever it is.

You see so many people doing quite nice and respectful work, but nobody like Warhol. Warhol is outstanding. I think he has a value that is far from fully understood. He's very special for younger generations.

As a matter of fact, when people ask where my 'point of view' comes from, it was there in one of the first sketches we wrote for [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis.

Rock music is stronger than sports. That's why. Rock rules. Around the world, who's more famous: Willie Mays or Paul McCartney?

I've been connected to the most culturally important albums of the past four years, the most influential artists of the past ten years. You have like, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Nicolas Ghesquière, Anna Wintour, David Stern.

Kiss is the number-one American band in gold-record sales. In the world, only the Beatles and the Stones are ahead of us. Every other band should be wiping my ass. The line forms over there to the left.

Rock 'n' roll started to make so much money and generated so much income for the record companies that suddenly it was no longer evil.