Music Rebellion Quotes

Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn't their parents'. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.

I wouldn't specifically say rock n' roll is dead, but I don't see a lot of charismatic performers in the way of new blood who are edgy and dangerous on stage, like Marilyn Manson, who you never quite know if he's going to make it through his own show.

Punk-rock gave music back to people. For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16 and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that. Me and [Minor Threat and Fugazi vocalist] Ian MacKaye would go to these concerts, and it was fun.

I got into rock and roll to piss my parents off and the establishment around me.

When I started playing in bands, we had to be apologetic for what we did. We had to be apologetic because the mainstream was so bad.

That's one reason why it's pretty worthless, I can't totally buy it, if you think about it, it's things like the Phil Spector records. On one level they were rebellion, on another level they were keeping the teenager in his place.

I make music to make you sick of fake music, hate music like devil worshippin Satan music. So say your prayers, your Hail Marys and Jesuses. Take two sticks, tape 'em together and make a crucifix.

Initially, electronic music was anti-establishment, as punk rock and rock n' roll were. The music was shut down; the police were against the parties.

The music I listened to as a kid - the Stones, the Beatles - that was so rebellious at the time, it became mainstream.

I got out of that immediately was that now, all of a sudden, rock music had become a spectator sport, that corporate labels and their bands were the new establishment, and punk was there to fight them the way the activist hippies must have fought what the establishment must have been ten years before. And it was interesting to see the reactions in different parts of the country.

Don't you think it's kind-of cool to have a band that offends MTV, that puts out a video that real fans have to dig around for, or stay up late to see?

Rock 'n' roll will never die. There'll always be some arrogant little brat who wants to make music with a guitar.

The late sixties and early seventies were kind of a breeding ground for exciting new sounds because easy listening and folk were kind of taking over the airwaves. I think it was a natural next step to take that blissful, easy-going sound and strangle the life out of it.

I wasn't good in school. I didn't do sports. I sat in the bedroom and listened to records. Because the Beatles did whatever they wanted to, I took that as a kid and said, 'That's what rock is.'

For me, my awkward phase corresponded to an interest in rock n' roll. From experience, I'm guessing an insecure childhood is probably quite a common thing among people who start a rock band.

I want every girl in the world to pick up a guitar and start screaming.

Ain't nobody more punk rock than Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, even Little Richard.

Let’s be realistic about this, the guitar can be the single most blasphemous device on the face of the earth. That’s why I like it . . . The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar: now that’s my idea of a good time.

Growing up in the suburbs, I used to listen to punk rock, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday. And no one from my high school listened to it.

I've finally tapped into that spirit of self-destruction that makes rock-n-roll the king of music!

The more parents hate the music, the more their children will like it. It had been true with Elvis, and it had been true with the Rolling Stones. 'Straight Outta Compton' was music that parents could loathe with a passion. I knew we had a massive hit.

The white music was melodic and pretty, and you had beautiful women's voices like Gogi Grant and even the Andrews Sisters. Then I went directly to rhythm and blues, which had beautiful voices but not much melody in particular and pretty much the same chord pattern. I loved it, I was entrenched in it, but then folk music came in the middle of that for me, and made its own path. And it was part of the rebellion against bubblegum music, or music that is pretty but doesn't say anything.

As far as bands doing that in a way where they think they're going to fight the government, the only people they're really hurting is the fans.

I think there are certain genres of music where people are allowed to go on, but there is something about rock and roll, I guess because it originally started out to be a teenage rebellion.

Rock and roll's relatively new, in the sense of the Fifties, Sixties, right? They invented the first sort of rock stars, and they took it to excess, and then the excess became bitter, tormented. Then it became okay to succeed.