Music Greatness Quotes

If someone can write great music... Paul McCartney is a genius. He's so prolific. All we should do is bow down to Paul McCartney.

The Rascals are something else. They're up there with the Beatles, and Stones and Byrds. That level of musicality. They have a real chemistry. It is like magic.

The art, the greatness of the music, the experience of the music is what I'm about. I think most African artists have destroyed their artistry by commercialization, and I don't want to belong to that bag.

I'm not trying to overcome my father or fill his shoes or reach any kind of level that he did. We're talking about a Mozart of rock music.

The greatness of a musician is measured by the degree of fanaticism he brings to his playing.

James Hetfield, I mean, the minute he plugs in his guitar and adjusts the tone knob, he comes up with the world's greatest riff.

Well, I think we're the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world.

I found out how great the E Street Band is. The reality of a band that you can't scoop aside, can't put in a corner.

If Mozart had power tools, there's no telling how great his music might have been.

All I've been trying to do all my life is to make great music.

If Woody Guthrie set the bar for American songwriters, Bob Dylan jumped right over it. No one I know will ever come close to possessing the beauty of melody and the use of language that Dylan shares with us, with ease.

Leonard Cohen is probably the greatest lyricist for music that's ever lived, you know?

I would say that longtime fans of the Rolling Stones will be thrilled with these results, and new fans will understand why they're the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world.

Beethoven can't really be great because his picture isn't on a bubble gum card.

Bach's music is really some of the greatest. I think, in some ways, Bach is the most profound composer of all.

He had a voice that was the truth, raw and unfiltered. You can't get any realer, any more tortured or any more alive. No one can do what George Jones does, and that's why 50 years later, he still stands out as one of the greatest singers in any genre of all time.

I really don't think I have that much of the gift; I have a little bit, but I wish I were Schubert or Chopin or Beethoven, though Beethoven had a very difficult time writing melody, too.

What is the best music is impossible to define. Just because it's played by a virtuoso player, doesn't mean it's great music. It might not reflect the soul of a people, which is really my criteria for great music.

I'll never outdo Hank Williams. That's impossible.

A song is a song. But there are some songs, ah, some songs are the greatest. The Beatles song 'Yesterday.' Listen to the lyrics.

I was a Gordon Lightfoot fan before he ever had a song out. You just knew he was pure talent and he was going to be successful. Gordon has written and recorded some of the greatest music ever.

I think when you have raw emotion in a song, it makes it great.

Of all the grunge bands to come out of Seattle, Alice in Chains were the greatest.

Hall & Oates is everything.

The great musics of the world are great for very similar structural reasons: good melody, good harmony, and a balance of feminine and masculine energy.