Music Classification Quotes

Pop music will never be low brow.

We were always just a hardcore band that came out and said what we believed in, but we also talked about the streets and the stuff that we were into and the struggles and everything we were going through. Once people found out we were Christian, it was always, 'Is that Christian music?'

I can't tell you what genre Maroon 5 is in. I don't know if they're rock or pop or alternative. I don't know what they are. I have a hard time separating that stuff. I just know what I like when I hear it.

Society wants to categorize everything, but to me it's all African-American music.

When 'Raw Like Sushi' came out in the U.S., I wasn't considered to be black enough. They didn't really know where to put me. The music wasn't 'black black' sounding. It wasn't R&B; it wasn't straight up hip-hop, although obviously in that dimension and world.

As big as Metallica are, they're still not like a pop act. As big as they are, they're still not U2 or Lady Gaga. It's still underground.

I don't compose rap songs or party numbers. I only compose folk.

I don't really think of myself as a folk singer.

We want to be considered a band, like Maroon 5 or Coldplay.

I've never considered myself a rapper. I know how to do it. I know how to make my voice project, and I know how to stay on beat and what have you, but I've never considered myself a rapper.

I was frustrated in the past, like, 'Wow, why do they have to throw me in the R&B urban adult contemporary lane?' 'Woman' was a no. 1 hit at Urban AC, so there's no disrespect to that lane. But did it get a fair shot at urban radio? No, I don't think so.

Genre, to me, is not all that important, and it never has been.

We're a rock band. We're proud of it. We're not an art band, a noise band, or an extreme band.

We're definitely a metal band. We push a lot of boundaries. But at the core we're a metal band.

My faith plays a big part in who I am: a Christian guy playing pop-rock music. I'm in a pop-rock band, not a Christian band.

I don't really know what 'folk music' means anymore.

I don't think I have a genre at all.

As the years go by, I realize how unique a style rock music is and how delicate you have to be with it sometimes; otherwise, you turn it into pop music or progressive rock or something else.

"Country" has become a marketing term. I see myself as a songwriter.

Pop just means popular - it can be any genre, and if it becomes popular, then it's pop music.

I write alternative, folkie pop. It's very acoustic.

Music is music; you can't change rock and say well this is punk rock and this is acid rock or rockabilly.

As much as we were very proud of being a pop band, I know we never felt like we fit into that category.

If you take 'Nothin' But a G Thang' by Dr Dre, that could also be an R&B record. 'Bonita Applebum' by A Tribe Called Quest could even be a jazz record. 'Bring Da Ruckus,' you gotta call it hip-hop.

Adele ain't soul.