Halsey Quotes

Even for the people in the business who are real music lovers it's really about putting things in the right boxes, and my style doesn't fit into a box.

Just being a singer in Nashville is hard because everyone does music here, and so many people do it really well. But then, the fact that I do this alternative kind of pop music, dreampop... It's like I'm the lone unicorn roaming around this town.

Years ago, when I was making music, I was sending it off to radio stations and getting told it was 'too urban.' But what else am I supposed to make?

I'm still looking for the rules of what is and isn't pop music. I'm pop. I mean, of course I am. What isn't pop? There should be a pop amnesty where everyone reclaims it.

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

When I sing a pop song, I'm a pop singer. When I sing a country song, I'm a country singer. I've been very lucky to cross over, because by doing that, you can't be pigeonholed.

I think the 'R&B singer' title came from me entering the business at a time when R&B chick singers were the trend. I was fine with that, but I have a lot more to offer.

Hip-hop and R&B is mostly what I listen to. I don't have a connection with punk rock - I just never had that experience.

'Paper Planes' by M.I.A. is very catchy. I like that, but I listen to everything from rap to Lenny Kravitz to Coldplay, depending on my mood. And my favorite song of all time is 'Always and Forever' by Heatwave.

My songs don't play on pop radio; they play on black radio.

Every time a new rock singer comes out they don't say, 'Are you the new John Lennon?' Every time a new rapper comes out, it's not, 'Are you the new Dre?' I am never sure why this sort of genre, the categorization is so strong. I have not earned the right to be called the young Sinatra, but give me time.

We grew up listening to alternative music from the '90s, and there was no shame in being on a major label and still making the music you wanted to make. I feel like rap rock came around and drew a line in the sand, and everybody that was like me ran away from that and started making indie-rock.

I am not a pop musician; I don't want to play bubble-gummy pop stuff.

I don't listen to the contemporary pop artists. They all sound alike, anyway.

I've had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, 'Your music sucks, you don't know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don't know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.'

Country radio went through a time where they were trying to pigeonhole everybody, and trying to make the gap really narrow, and I think that they've opened that up a little bit.

Metal is still the biggest music now in America.

I don't know why I keep saying this, and I don't know why I keep using their names... And I'm not dogging them. I'm not slandering them. I'm not saying they are bad musicians. But how can Taylor Swift or Justin Timberlake win for R&B and funk? They are pop singers.

I'd rather be just a Korean musician as opposed to, you know, a K-Pop musician.

The Beatles and Ray Charles were in the same charts together, and that was just called pop music - it wasn't called soul or rock. The best pop music just stands out as something that's just original, and I think it should all be called pop again.

Nirvana was pop. You can have distorted guitars and people say it's alternative, but you can't break out of pop music's constructs and still get extensive radio play and media coverage.

I was never attracted to the pop world. I listen to music that is pop sometimes. But I've never thought, 'Oh, I need to work with Ne-Yo now.' It's never really been my thing.

In America, music is more tightly categorized.

In the future I think the labels on most pop music are going to go. Everyone keeps jumping into everyone else's space.

I did a pop album, 'Sogno,' in 1999. I think it's important to record another pop album because many people love pop music. By this kind of repertoire, some people can later discover classical music.