Musical Impact Quotes

People like Prince don't have to care about anything, but they care because they want music for the future to be great.

I remember hearing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Big Bill Broonzy, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and not really knowing anything about the geography or the culture of the music. But for some reason it did something to me - it resonated.

Talking Heads were a big influence on my comedy. For David Byrne, every album had to be different. With 'Portlandia,' every season has to be different. You gotta reinvent the look, all of it.

The Beatles have always had a big effect on me.

We told you Wu-Tang was forever, and some people forgot that. It's not some fad.

It makes me feel great, knowing my songs are being heard and of service to people.

I want to be like Bruce Springsteen or something, making songs that are relevant.

Some of the best records are the ones that really affect you the most - they're pure emotion and energy, and it's like you're in that person's brain. It's pretty cool.

There was nobody at the time who was playing slide guitar like Johnny, and nobody, or no white guys at least, that was playing country blues like that on the acoustic guitar. And it was at that point that I realized what Johnny had to offer.

I can't possibly overstate how much influence Rush had on me as a young teenager. I would say from about 1981 to 1987, they were my gods.

We're not trying to change the world; just music.

Me and music. Music was always my first love. It was my first love for sure. And still is a huge part of my life.

The biggest influence? I've had several at different times - but the biggest for me was Bob Dylan, who was a guy that came along when I was twelve or thirteen and just changed all the rules about what it meant to write songs.

When you do something in music and see it happen again in the next generation, you know you're on the right wave length.

I think doing a record with B.B. King allowed me the opportunity to blend two different generations across the board and make a song that I hope is extremely impactful.

It's a bit of a bold statement, but the Prodigy should be seen as an important cultural band.

Musicians are like a preacher, a teacher, an actor. You are the mediator who can transfer the energy of beautiful music to the others.

[Prince] could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll.

A musician's biography is written wherever he performs; everybody hears what he is playing.

Music should come crashing out of your speakers and grab you, and the lyrics should challenge whatever preconceived notions that listener has.

People know, lyrically, I go in, and you should never take me lightly on any record.

Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song. Until I heard 'Little Earthquakes' all my lyrics used really obvious analogies like rain for tears.

I feel like the Roses were a great group, but I never wanted to try to do it again. I knew I couldn't get a band that would compare to the Roses, that would have an impact like the Roses.

I think it's hard to really write a song that will educate someone because songs are meant to be ... you don't want to be too didactic in a song because it doesn't make for good music. And I think the role of songs can be to inspire people but there needs to education and prose to back that up.

Bob Dylan seems to me a totally pernicious influence - the nasal whine of death and masochism. Certainly, this would be a more cheerful world if there were no Dylan records in it. But Dylan and his audience mirror each other, and deserve each other; as Marx said, a morbid society creates its own morbid grave-diggers.