Popular Music Quotes

• Teen pop will never die as long as there are teens and popular music. It just takes a different head.

  Justin Timberlake

  Long, Different, Popular Song

  Justin Timberlake, Susan Black (2003). “Justin Timberlake”, Omnibus Press& Schirmer Trade Books

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• I think popular music in this country is one of the few things in the twentieth century that have made giant strides in reverse.

  Bing Crosby

  Music, Country, Thinking

  50 Copy quote

• Every now and again, the alternative culture is cherished by the mainstream for what it is, rather than how it should be, like the mainstream popular music.

  Thurston Moore

  Culture, Alternatives, Mainstream

  12 Copy quote

• James Brown and Frank Sinatra are two different quantities in the universe. They represent two different experiences of the world.

  Amiri Baraka

  Two, Different Experiences, World

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• Popular music sucks so bad right now.

  Kristin Hersh

  Right Now

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• The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musical Esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.

  George Steiner

  Life, Music, Fashion

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  If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

  Keith Richards

  Guitar, Rock And Roll, Rocks

  70 Copy quote

• Ask anyone. If it hadn't been for Elvis, I don't know where popular music would be. He was the one that started it all off, and he was definitely the start of it for me.

  Elton John

  Music, Would Be, Knows

  57 Copy quote

• I think we as a band, as individuals, understand that all popular music stems from blues and jazz and even pop, but rock 'n' roll especially comes from blues. What we're trying to do is play rock 'n' roll, but other people call it different things.

  David Johansen

  Thinking, People, Trying

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Rock musicians, and a vast array of popular-music musicians, due to their wealth, acquired through the mass of their notoriety, are able to be listened to and heard and thus are able to effect change on an international level.

  Bill Dixon

  Change, Rocks, Musician

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• To the average mind popular music would mean compositions vulgarly conceived and commonplace in their treatment. That is absolutely false.

  John Philip Sousa

  Mean, Average, Mind

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• We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals

  Tommy Shaw

  Lazy, Popular Song, Down And

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• Although we are being presented in Carnegie Hall, we have to furnish a budget for our guest stars, and for the music writing - which is a huge budget in any orchestra that plays popular music.

  Skitch Henderson

  Stars, Writing, Play

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• The idea that rhythm is intrinsically human — not just primitive — that we all have hearts that beat at a steady rate and don't stop...reminds me of life itself. In that sense my music is like certain popular music where the rhythm drives from beginning to end.

  Michael Torke

  Heart, Ideas, Beats

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• Parents...rigidly monitor the selection of television programs...and other forms of entertainment for your family. Foster in your homes a love of knowledge through uplifting literature; wholesome books; selective movies; classical and exemplary popular music; entertainment that uplifts and edifies the spirit and mind.

  David B. Haight

  Uplifting, Book, Home

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• The country experience was more of a departure. When you consider my education and my upbringing, you can see that was more of country rock outgrowth of my popular music aspirations.

  Tom Wopat

  Education, Country, Rocks

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• Very few opera singers in history have been able to cross into popular music.

  Renee Fleming

  Opera, Singers, Able

  "Larry King Live", edition.cnn.com. May 21, 2005.

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• The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world's popular music is a good thing, for the most part.

  David Byrne

  Records, Demise, World

  Interview with Anne Pasternak, creativetime.org.

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• We had various kinds of tape-recorded concerts and popular music. But by the end of the flight what we listened to most was Russian folk songs. We also had recordings of nature sounds: thunder, rain, the singing of birds. We switched them on most frequently of all, and we never grew tired of them. It was as if they returned us to Earth.

  Anatoly Berezovoy

  Song, Rain, Tired

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• Bill Withers, Van Morrison and Marvin Gaye are pioneers in popular music for the last century, and these are people who have influenced me as well, so it's pretty flattering. I've got a long way to go to reach anywhere near what those guys have done. But it's a good encouragement.

  Michael Kiwanuka

  Encouragement, Long, People

  Source: www.wbur.org

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• Composers are influenced by all the important music in their lives - and I suppose that since radio started playing popular music, that's as likely to be The Beatles or Aphex Twin as it is to be Verdi or Ravel.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Music, Important, Ravel

  "Music (For A Film): Jonny Greenwood Of Radiohead Interviewed". Interview with Chris Woolfrey, thequietus.com. February 18, 2014.

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• That seems like one of the differences in expectations of "serious" and "popular" music that you can actually depend on the liner notes to explain yourself? Yeah. Whereas in popular music you depend on photo shoots. A hardcore band who looked like Duran Duran would have to depend upon those liner notes.

  Stephin Merritt

  Expectations, Serious, Hardcore

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• Have you listened to the radio lately? Have you heard the canned, frozen and processed product being dished up to the world as American popular music today?

  Billy Joel

  Halloween, Frozen, World

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• We are living in a time when American popular music is finally being recognized as one of our most successful exports. The demand is huge.

  Billy Joel

  Successful, Demand, Music Is

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• Popular music formed the soundtrack of my life.

  Martin Scorsese

  Soundtracks

  "Martin Scorsese: '3D is liberating. Every shot is rethinking cinema'". Interview with Mark Kermode, www.theguardian.com. November 20, 2010.

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