Musical Longevity Quotes

Nas' longevity comes from him having strong lyrical value in his songs, him being more like a poet and improving over time.

All the buzz can be very much here today and gone tomorrow, but my focus is creating music that will last forever.

I just hope that I'll stay around musically for as long as I can. I love to think that I will still be satisfying myself and other people as a musician until the day I die.

I don't know of any artist who started off in the 50's who's making it now with new material.

I think that Bob Dylan knows this more than all of us: you don't write the songs anyhow. So if you're lucky, you can keep the vehicle healthy and responsive over the years. If you're lucky, your own intentions have very little to do with this.

I think that hip-hop has done what it was supposed to have done, which is it defied all the laws of what is statistically a music genre and what statistically is not a music genre. Because it wasn't supposed to be here.

Music is fragile: people die, and it's forgotten.

I think it's something to do with the structural quality of the songs. We weren't actually trying to make stuff that was cool, or of the moment, although a lot of it was. We were trying to make stuff that was good enough to stick around and lo and behold, it has.

Ramones or AC/DC are two bands that have managed to keep their signature sound and their signature formula for years and years and album after album after album, without it seeming like a dead-end street.

Once you've heard the joke, it's not funny anymore, but it's the way it's told. And I think that's the same with the music: The reason some of my songs have lasted longer is there's a lot of stuff packed in there. You want to hear them more than once.

I think in some ways - only in some ways - but in some ways, rock and roll has let me down. It really doesn't leave you a way to grow old gracefully and continue to work.

I hate bands that hang around, like, 10 years too long - they're like the drunk at a party you can't get rid of.

My goal was always to be involved in music that would outlive me. And maybe that's actually happening.

We've always prided ourselves on making a record that we want to feel proud of, ones that are hopefully timeless so they can be around for a long time.

My my, hey hey... Rock and roll is here to stay. Hey hey, my my... Rock and roll will never die.

Maybe this is wrong, but I feel like I craft my songs carefully enough that I still find that fifteen years after having written one, it still works for me - I'm not cringing.

I just think that playing bass, like punk rock bass with a pick, wasn't meant to be done for 25 years.

Hopefully, as a band, it will grow and develop for a good length of time.

Most bands don't even last fourteen months let alone fourteen years.

One of the things that's happened in the music I love over the past five, 10 years is that some people have gotten very old and continued to make music.

I go all the way back to the Hot Boys days and being 13, listening to this dude. Just remembering the staple he put on the game back then all the way to now, to have that longevity years beyond it. So for him to actually acknowledge what I'm doing right now and seeing it as a path, the same way the longevity he created, it's a great feeling to actually share that same stage and a moment with him. Wayne ain't no new jack to this game. He influenced a lot of styles and a lot of sounds. I would say I was influenced by a recent sound and flow, and cadence that he brung to the game.

The choice that I made was from my best music, for the songs that I knew that the public liked. Then, when I recorded my new songs I found that my old material had not faded, it was still current, the music was good and the songs were great. I sat in my house and listened, got the chills, and I thought, how great is that? It hasn't dated, it hasn't gone anywhere, and it's great.

I just put people on my records that I think bring something really unique to the song, and that's what's going to make it live over time. Not the fact that an artist might be 'hot' at the time.

I always take care to have interesting chord progressions, because you can have the best sound design in the club, and you'll kill it in the club, but in five years, kids will have better sound design. But if your music is good, you'll always be able to listen to it, even in 20 or 50 years.

That's probably the key to our success and our longevity, sticking to our formula and what we do best, the hardcore Mobb Deep sound, rather than chasing trains. But we're always experimenting with the art and the creativity of hip-hop.