I'm trying to break down preconceptions about what pop music is.
I have always tried with my shows - win, lose, or draw - to take the boundaries of music as far as I can.
When I sing a pop song, I'm a pop singer. When I sing a country song, I'm a country singer. I've been very lucky to cross over, because by doing that, you can't be pigeonholed.
I think to try to make new music and new ideas, you have to push the boundaries of existing music.
Music continues to remind me that its boundaries are limitless.
It's the true meaning of music being a universal language, constantly fighting and going through different boundaries in order for new people to hear the music and be like, "Oh, sh*t! I mess with this Pitbull kid."
I love all types of music, and I think the genre lines are starting to get thinner every year.
I like all kinds of music. But I would rather people stop caring about lines.
There's this notion that music has to be confined to some small, simple place to be popular, something I never believed.
I'm still looking for the rules of what is and isn't pop music. I'm pop. I mean, of course I am. What isn't pop? There should be a pop amnesty where everyone reclaims it.
I would definitely say I'm a country girl at heart; I wanted to make sure that I established my music first at Country just because that is the artist that I am. But it wanted to spill over into pop too, which I don't have a problem with at all and I think is awesome because it spreads it to a broader audience of people.
I'm not interested in making folkloric records, but I like to push the traditional format around so that familiar patterns get knocked on the head.
I would not want the limitations held by the name of a classical musician. I want many people to enjoy my music much beyond just classical music fans. I think the term, 'violinist,' keeps me distant from the audience. I want to communicate with them more.
I'm a country singer, and I'm comfortable with that. But why does a country singer have to play only on country radio or a rock singer only on a rock station? I still don't understand why it's that big a deal.
Undeniably, I'm a country singer; I'm a country songwriter. But I feel like I make country music for people who like country music and for people who don't.
I don't look at it as mainstream country versus outsider.
I've always tried to expand what heavy or loud music was and where it can go and what it can do.
Country radio certainly widens the boundaries of what I can do. Other artists may do something more edgy that gets on radio and that opens the door for me to be more edgy, I think.
There's always going to be a fight between mainstream and underground because the mainstream is a very small bubble, and the underground scene is a very small bubble, and they both see themselves as secret societies. But I never saw it that way. I always thought music was open to all things.
