Album Composition Quotes

I sequence during the entire recording process. The sequencing changes as I'm recording and as I'm listening. From when I'm, like, four songs in, I start trying to figure out which song should come after which. Which is important, and it changes as the album goes.

I realized at a young age that sequence in an album is almost as important as the songs that are on the album.

You know, when you're making a record, you come up with 15, 20 songs. Then they start to fall by the wayside as your interest wanes. It's kind of like a process of elimination to determine which songs wind up on the record.

I think I've always approached making albums pretty much the same way. I'm just looking for a mixture of songs and topics that aren't the same thing over and over.

'6 Weeks' is broken up into two sections; both sections use the same set of samples, just in different ways.

We had always put ballads on all of our albums.

Twenty percent of my records, you'll find a loop, like two or three loops per album out of 13 or 15 songs. I'd rather keep it like that.

At times, I will get in the studio and force myself to just write an entire front-to-back record, and 'Let Me Go' is one of these.

Normally doing an album you go from track to track and go, 'Let's not work on this one today, let's go work on the other one,' and I think you tend to get more self-indulgent that way.

By the end of the writing process, which is about 80 songs per album, I look at the material and think, what's going to make a difference in someone's life.

I've turned down songs that would be much easier to play on the radio that I don't think should be on the album. Maybe I've shot myself in the foot.

I think when you write every song on your album - it's like having eleven or twelve children. It's hard to say I like this one song more or I like that one more. I love every song on the album. What's happening is that I'm hoping that everyone will be very satisfied. I think the single "Good Girl" will be adored by the people in the urban world and I think the "Best of Me" will be loved by people in the pop world.

The main focus for me is not trying to find duet partners. It's about just making great songs. I want most of my album to be in my voice because it's my point of view.

I do not have a problem with remixes but original songs are not being included in an album, this is sad.

Bob Dylan's first couple of records in the 60's weren't considered cover records, but he only wrote one or two original songs on each album.

Even though there are some great keyboard players on the album, there are a number of songs with no keyboard on them and the backing is all guitar oriented. This is first time I've ever done this actually.

When I compose an album, I don't think about how to adapt it on stage.

95% of the album is my writing, by choice, because it seems to be what the distributors want.

I look at albums like novels. If you write a really good scene or a really good moment, just because you wrote it, doesn't mean that it fits with the story that you're writing.

I listen to a lot of different kinds of music and rather than just doing one thing when I make an album, the challenge to myself is to write all these diverse tracks, but to make them work. It's like a jigsaw because if you've got a lyrical track going into a hard rock track... it's got to work. You've got to write things that will work together.