Music Prejudice Quotes

I can't help what people write or think. If somebody thinks I'm a serious archivist, they're wrong. That's been a problem. It's a shame people take that attitude, because it affects how they listen to the music. It's a big mistake to treat any pop music that way.

I grew up in a world that told girls they couldn't play rock 'n' roll.

I'm trying to break down preconceptions about what pop music is.

They wouldn't play my records on American radio because I had spiky hair. They said, 'Punk rock doesn't sell advertising, it won't make any money.'

I've always said I can't tell sometimes that people even have an album out until I see them nominated for a Grammy. I think country gets dumped on across the board by the Grammys.

Many elitists hate rap as much as they hate country, though they don't like to admit it for fear of appearing racially insensitive.

There is a lot of snobbery towards pop music, to me and pop in general - it's kind of a despised art form.

I hate the term 'emo.' It turned into this genre of music, when all music, if you connect with it, is emotional.

They thought we were just basically keeping ourselves underground on purpose. And it was just strange for people to approach music that way. And for rap, trying to get recognition, and be seen as a regular form of music like anything else. I mean, the Soul, R&B, Rock 'N Roll, they would dis the hell out of rap when it first came out.

There's a stigma attached to 'pop music,' like it's a taboo word. It used to make my skin crawl when people said it, and I'd say, 'I'm not a pop star! I want to be a respected musician!' But I think people have changed the way they think about it.

I guess, somewhere along the line, when we first came out, somebody thought it was a crime to be young and not wear a cowboy hat and sing country music.

If I were not a black artist but I was still singing, playing guitar, and singing ballads that are spiritual and cerebral, I'd be easier to market because people accept that from white female singer-songwriters faster.

It's a really unfair world because life is, where I am; all day long we listen to American music. So I don't see why the radios in the U.S. cannot even put aside one hour a day just to play music that is not American.

English music is white - it evades everything.

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.

I wasn't making music consciously when I was younger. I was a musician, but that has its own stigmas. Anywhere on the planet, it's one of the more undervalued positions.

If an athlete plays the guitar, they say, 'That's so cool, he can play the guitar.' But if a guy raps, they say, 'Please don't be another rapper,' only because the rappers are so bad. I promise I'm not anything like that.

No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.