Quality of Music Quotes

The only music I don't like is bad music.

Music is either good or bad, and it's got to be learned. You got to have balance.

I think music can definitely be art; I also think music can be crap and not be art.

If a musician is making a mediocre, self-indulgent body of work, they have to know that, for the most part, people aren't going to be interested.

There are more bad musicians than there is bad music.

Everyone seems so excited by the fact that music is more accessible, people can find new artists more easily and it's cheaper, without focusing on the potential negatives, not least of which is that idiots can more easily listen to your favourite music.

I know people who have written big hit country songs that are really kind of terrible songs, but for the rest of their life, they're the guy who wrote that. You've got to be careful; if you don't want that to happen, don't write those songs.

Getting to No. 1 makes everyone feel better; of course it does. But it's swings and roundabouts with these things. Sometimes you make a great record, and it clicks with people. And other times it passes them by; there's nothing you can do. It's still the same record.

What's bad for the culture is wack rappers that get held in high regard like they're some great thing because it's the flavor of the month, but everybody knows they can't rap. I don't think it's hard, even for somebody who's not hip-hop, to know that that's not good. When you put them up against somebody that can really rhyme, you go, "Okay, I get it. This is what it should sound like."

I'm hoping that people will love the music, but at the same time, the most important thing to me is that I love the music.

The music scene as I look at it today is a little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same - 95 percent rubbish, 5 percent pure.

If I focus on being an activist and my job is to be a rapper, I'm not going to be as good of a rapper. I need to focus on hip-hop and focus on making the music, so that when the activists come to me and they need my voice to create a platform, then I've got enough people listening to me. Not because I'm conscious, but because I'm dope.

There is some brilliant pop music and some very poor classical music. And why shouldn't comedy be treated as seriously as drama?

Bands can become absolutely huge and actually be pretty terrible musicians, and bands can be the most amazing songwriters and musicians in the world and never play for more than 10 people. With that in mind, getting successful doesn't mean anything.

It's not that I don't love the song. My songs are like my children: some you want around and some you want to send off to college as soon as possible.

Not that there weren't great shows, and not that there wasn't plenty of fine music played. It's just that the consistency and the height of where we could take it, with the help of the audience, was less, I felt, in the '90s.

You should neither play bad compositions, nor, unless compelled, listen to them.

People just want the hottest records. It's not really about all the names attached to the project. It's about the work.

If our music survives, which I have no doubt it will, then it will because it is good.

When you play all that as a body of work there are four great songs, four mediocre songs and four bad songs. I didn't know it at the time; I was just doing my best.

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

All the songs that I'm not sure are good, everyone likes the best.