Clarence Clemons Quotes

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.

Music is constantly developing and changing.

I really consider myself fortunate to have been of age during the musical revolution that came in the form of the Beatles. People don't realize that previous to the Beatles, there really was no such thing as an album artist. People made singles. Then they would put a bunch of those singles together and call it an album. And that was it.

Rock n' roll was one thing, and then they chopped off the 'roll' and called it 'rock,' which became a sort of umbrella term for anything with a guitar in it. Like hair bands. How could we possibly believe that? It's just gotten downright silly, to the point where now it's sort of become like professional wrestling.

Music was segregated in the '80s, and then in the '90s the boundaries started to break down, and rock kids got into electronic music. But then you got this reverse snobbery where people would only listen to electronic music and not rock.

When rock came in, I wasn't bitter about it. I was puzzled.

Music in general is looking for something new overall.

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 got in my truck, you were listening to country music, and that's the way it was for a long time. I'm a little more open to other sources of music now, a lot more. But for the formative years, I was just very into country.

I really wanted the first record to be different from what I'd done with Genesis, so we were trying to do things in different styles.

One thing I love about Lady Gaga is I feel like her sound is always evolving and changing with her and her phases of life.

I just wanna make more music, legit music as opposed to keeping the same constant thing. I wanna show growth in the music, pretty much.

I think that we'll see the concept of 'genre' continue to die a slow and painful death.

I have a soft spot for 'Wind of Change' because it was my first one, and it was a departure from Humble Pie - very much so. It showed me the spectrum of what I could do.

If hip-hop is dead, then let it rest in peace and let's move on to something else.

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

Music is forever changing.

My mum and dad used to listen to a lot of R&B and soul, so this was the way I grew up. Hip-hop, of course. But then as I grew older, I started listening to everything.

Music needs to move forward.

R&B needs to see a new light. It doesn't have to be pigeonholed.

Music's always going to evolve, and we can't really stop that, so we have to figure out what's the next thing and how we move towards that as opposed to just being like, 'Oh, cool: let's just continue making tear-out EDM hits that are gonna last 2 months, and then somebody else is making the exact same thing under a different name.'

There are people who will always want the genre, whatever it is, to stay traditional, to stay what it was like when you were 15 years old, but I just don't think music does that. Music is always changing and evolving, just like us as people.

Anyway, you know, when Richard Meltzer said rock and roll died in '68, what he means is Jefferson Airplane were no longer his buddies, that's what he really means. He means it in a political way: that was when the artists and the audience found themselves on different levels.

MTV ruined music for us.

Music is always gonna change; it's just a matter of keeping up with the times.