Dennis DeYoung Quotes

I don't think I ever heard music playing when I was younger, other than the radio. My parents got me a Walkman and stuff like that, but I was always way more into listening to music than they were.

Since the early Nineties it's been very fashionable to say, 'It's all about the music.'

There are so many bands that I'm kind of aware of through media about them, and it ends up filtering my experience of the actual music.

I think I skipped a lot of music, like when I was 17 or 18. I didn't know about a lot of new bands because I was so immersed in older music.

There are the people who overthink making mix CDs and playlists, and how that works generationally is all really interesting to me.

In 1955 music wasn't that important. Music was a kind of a special thing you went and did.

The whole music world is based on the young, the very young people.

When I was growing up, I was surrounded by people that were listening to a lot of pop music.

You can still make music that people love, but there won't be more innovation. I started listening to electronic music a long time ago. But mostly I listen to rap. I think rap is the most interesting.

I can spend the day without writing or reading, but I can't spend a day without listening to music.

The average music-lover hears only the production under prevailing conditions.

Music is always going to be only as sophisticated as the culture that consumes it.

I feel like I'm a product of this generation where everybody listens to charts with diverse music.

Records were vitally important to the development of music and of all music cultures. With that being pushed by the wayside, I can't see an iPod uniting us. In fact it separates us, the streets are full of people bumping into lamp posts, listening to their own little universe, and there's no sharing in that.

Record covers helped me discover a lot of music that I wasn't aware of.

I meet young people who know me and are familiar with my stuff. They know the package. They might have cherry-picked five or six key tunes. That's how it seems to work. I sometimes wonder if they realise they are not getting the whole context.

I've lost touch with a lot of that boutique-type music just because of my age, and raising my son and the multiple jobs I have at this point.

People my age don't always know where their music comes from.

No, I don't know how to get young people to start listening to jazz again. But I do know this: Any symphony orchestra that thinks it can appeal to under-30 listeners by suggesting that they 'should' like Schubert and Stravinsky has already lost the battle.

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.

Being a musician has actually surrounded and immersed me in pop culture and youth culture from a very young age. But even before I was singing in bands and creating any kind of art, I was always fascinated by pop culture.

I had my first stereo when I turned 12, and every two weeks, I would save up money and buy one CD.

Our sons are the next generation who are more clued into the new trends of music. So if I want to understand the vibe of the new generation, and if I want to stay relevant with time, they are my source of learning.

I grew up in a very music-loving home with a lot of records, a lot of TV, a lot of radio, a lot of video - VHS cinema, basically.

Most youngsters are so well-connected with the rock music circle that they will know instantly if I attempt to imitate any rock star.