Mike Shinoda Quotes

I always tell the fans, 'Screw it! Like what you like. Listen to what you want.' Insisting that one type of music is better than the next is snobbery, and I have no time for that. Check out all the music that's out there. There's great stuff you're probably missing.

It doesn't matter the kind of music, it doesn't matter whether it's a cowboy hat or a yarmulke. I don't care if it's outer space or pop, the spirit is the same.

What we don't need in country music is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgement of what belongs and what doesn't.

I believe that music should really be without boundaries.

Music should be universal. My life perspective, my lifestyle - I'm not going to impose that on the people that listen to my music. That's kind of a perverse form of snobbery I like to reject.

What I like about Americans is if it's good music, that's the only thing that matters.

I am perfectly willing for my music to exist with somebody else's taste.

I've been in very many situations where I've not liked the other members of the band or they have not liked me. I grew up presuming that's the way music was made. It doesn't need to be that way. It's taken me years years to find that out.

When I look at music, everything is blurred, and I like it that way. I grew up like that, hanging out with different types of people who listened to so many different types of music. I never wanted to be part of any one clique. I loved it all.

It's really important to be free and be open and honest about the things you want to do. Just 'cause you want to make a solo record or another record with another band, it doesn't have to be an insult or a slight to the band you've been with for a long time.

There are those who discredit a style or a way of playing and those who accept all the different styles.

I don't know which way I'm going. My next CD might be country, might be Dylan, might be Mick Jagger. I don't know. I love a challenge.

I'm saddened to see that everyone's pitched out the baby with the bath, in that we say that it can't be one or the other, it could be both. I mean, just because we listen to classical music doesn't mean that we can't listen to jazz.

In regard to music, I just think that it's always best to have an attitude of being a perpetual student and always look to learn something new about music, because there's always something new to learn. Don't dismiss something out of hand because you think it's either beneath you or outside of the realm of where your interests lie.

It's funny; people get so doctrinaire about music. It should be the last thing you don't have an open mind about.

I like writing different types of music. I don't like being stuck into one thing.

I love getting into a studio with a bunch of friends. When the day's done, we've made something. We recognize that we're from different walks of the music industry, and there's no reason we shouldn't be collaborating. That's what I'm trying to create with thenewno2 - a sense of community.

I love all forms of music. I even like music I dislike, because the music you dislike is like going to a strange country, and it forces you to rethink everything and to appreciate its particular joys.

There's no type of music I don't like. I think it's important to be able to make fun of all types.

I just think if the song's good, sing it. I don't care who's doing it. I don't care if it's a country act. I don't care if it's a rock act. If the song's good, sing it.

What's great about music is it takes so many kinds of people, including me. Everybody is in a different place.

My father loved all different types of music. He wasn't a snob. He wasn't a purist.

Hip-hop is the only music in the world where you can take any instrument and make it hip hop. It's anybody's music. It's what you make of it. That's for anything you do in life.

For better or worse, I'm interested in just about everything: every different type of music I can imagine. I can never see a reason to choose just one type of music at the exclusion of everything else. Different types of music are capable of being rewarding in different kinds of ways.

And I don't feel any form of music is beyond me in the sense of that I don't understand it or I don't have some love for some part of it.