If you listen to the radio for a whole hour there's maybe one decent song. The rest is mass-produced garbage
I don't want to be oh-so-brag-about-it, but 'The Rain' is hot.
I think a good song is a good song is a good song.
You can tell if something feels special. But there are so many moving parts involved in making the song a hit. The radio has to deliver, the management has to deliver in terms of booking the right promotions... just being a good song isn't enough.
I think that every song has to be like it could be the biggest hit of my album.
With great artists like Elvis, sometimes the songs weren't the greatest thing about him. When I tried to perform some of the songs, I noticed some of the tunes weren't all that brilliant, but it was the performance that sold them.
I think the true test of a pop song, for me, and I've talked to a lot of other writers about this, is you take your demo, you pop it in your car and you drive down Sunset Blvd. to Santa Monica, and that's the Hollywood car test.
I guess a good song is a good song is a good song, ya know.
Keep in mind, you can use Auto-Tune and you can know how to work it perfectly, but you still have to know how to write a good song.
I started off playing my own songs, just because I saw it as a means to an end almost of, 'Right, if you want to play gigs, you have to write your own songs.' I mean, they were absolutely terrible.
I've covered Avril Lavigne. I like good pop songs, and I don't think there should be any kind of preconceptions about where good pop songs come from.
To be honest, I think about the clubs when I write. But I should probably start thinking about stadiums, because the songs sound even better there - and bigger.
The only way to have longevity is to have good songs.
It's so easy to make albums with overdubbing and editing these days, but I really prefer playing live and just getting the music to sound right because the musicians, the songs and the performances are good.
Some of the songs I've made, I'm really disappointed in how I mixed them.
I could say that 'Exile On Main Street' was my favourite or whatever, but I'm more about the songs and the artists and the sound that they bring.
I don't remember half of the new bands, though - and I think that's kind of where we're going. It's turning into just a big derby of songs. May the best song win.
But I think a song that is really emotionally packed, with a great melody that just will soar, that's the keeper.
My aspirations aren't to sell millions of records, but to write really good songs.
The quality of a timeless song is that it's catchy, meaningful and relatable.
[Sam Phillips] laughed at me. I just didn't like the way I Walk The Line sounded to me. I didn't know I sounded that way. And I didn't like it. I don't know. But he said let's give it a chance, and it was just a few days until - that's all it took to take off.
I felt my music wasn't aiming at anybody. Everything I was doing was because it was a good song.
With the Stone Roses, I always thought we'd be successful because we had some great songs.
Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter.
One of my side strange abilities is to hear a good song, no matter how it's being performed. Even if you get a bad performance, I can still hear that there's a good song.
