Musical Classification Quotes

We're not really an underground band anymore, and we're not a mainstream band, either.

I don't think a song should be put in a category.

I hate the idea of genres.

It's impossible to tell how you're perceived. I think it's important not to think about it too much, because it really means nothing. Some people think we're a rock band, and that's ridiculous, and the idea of us being a folk band - you sit in a pub in Ireland and hear those guys play, and you're like, 'Yeah, we're definitely not a folk band.'

I've never claimed myself to be a particularly Asian R&B singer. I'm R&B, pure and simple, regardless of my skin colour. Should that matter? I think not.

I have a very difficult time describing my music. Because I run into people in the hardware store and they go, 'Oh, you're a musician. So what kind of music do you play?' And I go, 'Uh, I've been doin' this for many years - I don't know what to call it.'

I can spot a musical type. I can tell by looking at a woman whether she is a contralto or a soprano.

We're not a Screamo band.

I don't like to classify my own tracks as a genre.

I was introduced to classical music by my grandparents - my parents were mostly into folk and jazz. Even as a young man, I was literally unaware of the distinctions between any of that, and I still think it's pointless.

We were bunched up with Southern bands, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. We just wanted to make it clear we weren't a Southern band.

If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don't know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.

What makes one type of music classical and one bluegrass and one folk - these things aren't what's important.

This genre of music seems to want to push people into a certain time slot, which is unfortunate.

I've always tried to stay clear of being labeled, putting a label on what type of music that I make.

I think my music generally transcends a lot of genres.

A name doesn't make the music. It's just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.

One critic called me nothing but a blues singer, as though that was a slight. That is the highest compliment there is.

It's only people that aren't goths that think the Cure are a goth band.

We like to categorize things into showy things and deep things, you know, and things that are high music - important music - and shallow music. And I think that's dangerous, because there's often a mix of both.

I just consider myself an artist. I don't really rap. I don't really sing. I just do what I feel is good, and people like it.

They [the critics] deal with Schoenberg's early works and all their wealth by classifying them, with the music-historical cliché, as late romantic post-Wagnerian. One might just as well dispose of Beethoven as a late-classicist post-Haydnerian.

People in Britain always think of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' as a musical - it wasn't.

There are two genres of music: there's good music and there's bad music.

I think the artists are really the face of the music they make. It's no longer the genre that dictates it.