Pop Quotations | Page 2

I have come to terms with the fact that it's called pop music - that's what I play, and that is what I write. I think it is a pretty broad category.

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

I hear a really good pop song every now and then. 'ROAR' by Katy Perry, I love that! 'Poker Face'... Oh! What a song! And 'Rolling in the Deep'... Oh!

I just felt like I'd rather listen to even the worst metal song more than most current pop music.

I'm not thirsty. I'm not a pop star. I don't want to reign over all forever... I don't want to be famous! It makes me feel sick, the thought of being a famous person. It's just not me.

The mindset of chasing that next #1 record doesn't exist for me anymore. It's more about being a well-rounded entertainer than being a pop artist. Obviously, it would be wonderful to have a hit record but I don't base my happiness on that anymore. It's about the accomplishment of a project that satisfies me. I just want to enjoy the ride.

Where I came from in the country, there was no place to hear pop music like Little Richard and people like that. Later, I heard James Brown, Otis Redding, The Drifters, The Four Aces, The Ink Spots.

Every day I'd come home after school, pop the hood of my mom's car, put alligator clips on the battery, and wire into the house and go play on my computer. If I used it for too long, I'd wear down the car battery, and my mom would be all mad at me the next day.

When my life is stressful, my favorite game is called 'Pop It,' where you pop balloons and prizes fall out. It's a five-minute game that focuses my mind and gives me extra attention when I'm stressed.

I'm tired of being considered vapid for liking pop music or caring about fashion as if these things inherently lack substance or as if the things I enjoy somehow make me a lesser person.

Probably the biggest bring-down in my life was being in a pop group and finding out just how much it was like everything it was supposed to be against.

We've always described our sound as a bit more guitar driven than normal pop music. Kind of Pink in a boy band form. We've heard a few people say that so now we use it. I think Pink is amazing person to be compared to.

If you look at the history of music, you have classical composers, church music, pop music, etc. Music that's existed for centuries. I think there are some songs that are close to immortal. They will last longer than we will in this lifetime.

If you think about it, I was at college, and then three months later, I was a massive pop star. It's stress-making, especially when you're a bit of an oddball as I was, the black sheep left to your own devices, and then suddenly everyone's interested in you.

I really dig The Byrds. I think they are the most underrated - in their original form - pop group.

I truly thought I was going to be in pop music. And then I joined a choir to meet girls, and everything changed in the first rehearsal.

Oh, man, I love the Staple Singers. I love Pop Staples' guitar playing, too. He's one of my favorite guitar players.

My first album didn't come out until I was 27, which in pop years is late, you know. But when it came time to arrange it, I became a kid in a toy shop. I had a harp and a saxophone quartet and a symphony orchestra. I went berserk for a time.

I think 'pop' can be a bit of a dirty word. People are very cool in Australia. They don't like to admit that they like pop. There are people who listen to Triple J and cool stuff like that, but commercial radio is massive, and if you look at the sales of the pop songs every week, people love pop music.

My older brother was into Creedence Clearwater Revival and ZZ Top, and my sister was into pop radio. So somewhere along the line, I got into Ozzy Osbourne, REO Speedwagon, Heart, Pat Benetar, Journey.

I have the most eclectic audience - I've got gay, I've got straight, black, white, rich, poor, young, old, in 45 countries. And they don't all come because I'm the Sinatra kid, though that's a big part of it. My biggest successes have come from pop songs that I write myself.

I kept on buying records and listening to them. Finally, I was able to hear the relationship between the jazz improvisers' solos and the underlying structure that it's based on, the chord progression. That was pretty easy to do in the swing era, y'know, when jazz was, like, pop music, you know. It had made the charts and everything like that.

Personally, I'd like as many children as I can pop out, I reckon.

This obsession with celebrity culture is really unhealthy. I don't want to live my life like that, and I don't want to be a typical pop star.

I love to listen to pop music and I admire people who do that, but I don't think I would ever be a very good pop star. I always leave that singing voice for the shower! I wouldn't put it out in the world!

Thierry Mugler is about the power of glamour and walking straight into the future. He's been a god for successive generations in the fashion industry. He fused pop and high fashion, told a story in style and combined fantasy with reality.

Some of the most radical work is being done in the most commercially pop venues, and some of the most boring work is being done in avant-garde territory.

My dad was always busy. You would pop round for a cup of tea, and within minutes you would see him walking past with a step-ladder. He was always fixing things.

I think everything's experimental whether you like it or not. I think that people who do generic pop are experimenting with cliches. It's no less than I am experimenting with noise or unknown music - until you say, 'This is my song, or this is my composition' - it's all experimental, whether you like it or not.

I listen to a wide range of music, from country to pop to alternative rock, as well as Indian music. You know, what excites me are new ideas. And with a lot of the international hits - from Lady Gaga to Rihanna and others - you'd find excellent production and groundbreaking ideas that lift the music to a greater realm.

The nice thing about doing a pop opera - in the way that doing, say, 'Miss Saigon' or 'Les Miz' would be - is that, because the convention is set from the beginning that this is an opera and everything is sung, there is never that feeling of 'Why is this person bursting out into song?' because the whole thing is sung.

I wanted to be a rock star. I dreamed of it, and that's all I dreamed of. To be more accurate, I wanted to be a pop star. This was in the late '80s. And mostly, I wanted to be the fifth member of Depeche Mode or Duran Duran.

My mother was an opera singer and my grandmother a concert pianist, and they only liked classical music. If I put on a pop record, they would tell me to turn it off, so I only listen to classical.

One Direction. Proper pop band. There has to be a band that people want to scream at. I don't think I've ever behaved like a pop star.

I realized that, for me, great records always moved me with the lyrics and the melodies. And so I said, 'I think I can do it now,' 'cause I found a team of people who understand I didn't want a record that was 'drop it, pop it, shake it' just 'cause I can dance.

People assume that a lot of pop artists don't write their songs. That, for me, is super frustrating because I think it detracts from some of the art and some of the craft of what we do. I'm at the helm of it, and I think that is what people don't see.

Pop music can absorb so many peculiar talents, ranging from the completely nonmusical poseur who just uses music as a kind of springboard for a sense of style, to people who just love putting all that complicated stuff together, brick by brick, on their computers, to people like me who like playing conceptual games and being surprised.

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 love Lady Gaga, Rihanna - all the pop girls like Katy Perry. I think Miley Cyrus is very talented, too. Apart from the visuals, which you may like or not like, but her music is quite good, actually. 'Wrecking Ball' is quite a good song, and she sang it really nicely.

I often thought that if I had been working with Mark James at American Studios, I would have had a pop hit before I ever moved out of Memphis. But that didn't happen.

There are a lot of artists that come and go very quickly, and I understand why just because someone has a No. 1 doesn't necessarily mean they should be up for best male or female categories. I understand that Aria are protecting the integrity of what Aria is, but I do think that pop music isn't recognised enough.

It's particularly important for a young woman to be in control of her image - to a certain extent. I mean, there's only so much you can do, because people take photos with you and then all of a sudden they pop up all over the place, they're completely out of context and you have no control over how they're used.

Pop culture shapes our ideas of what is normal and what our dreams can be and what our roles are. Politics, of course, decides how the power and the money in the country is distributed. Both are equally important, and each affects the other.

Being in the pop group Eternal gave me the most wonderful opportunity to travel the world, and I have visited some spectacular countries.

Pop music has been all but relegated to the remainder bin at MTV and VH1, where high-maintenance concoctions such as Paris Hilton, Flavor Flav, and Hulk Hogan's biohazard clan of bleached specimens provide endless hours of death-hastening diversion.

Since becoming a pop star, I've experimented a lot more. I've gotten more creative with what I wear. My stylist is a bit more adventurous than I would normally be, but it's really worked, and the colours really work together. I think everyone should be a bit more confident: if it's a summer's day, wear some bright colours.

Coming up with ideas is really hard - they don't spontaneously pop into my head while I'm cutting vegetables.

I've always gone back and forth between acting and music, but for music I'm not trying to be a pop star - I just like to do it.

In Edinburgh, there was a lovely little Episcopalian Church of Scotland church on my way to the theater, so I used to pop in there and soak up the atmosphere.

I definitely feel I'm outside of the polished pop girl group, which feels right. I don't think I could keep up that polished surface on purpose.

There is a real formula to writing music, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. It's very formulaic. The subject matter that you can address in pop music is somewhat restricted. It just doesn't allow that same emotive quality that you can put into poetry.

I criticized the whole American songwriting industry and the pop side of it and I was bitter about it. And I stepped back and thought 'Why are you bitter? You can't just stand there like every other indie musician and criticize this so-called 'generic' music when you're not doing anything to challenge that.'

You'd never know it from reading the rest of the Native writers, but Indians actually grew up with American pop culture.

I'm talking like 10, 12 years old. Either junior brings Mom and Pop or Mom and Pop bring the kids. I'm talking young here, not a college drinking crowd.

MTV essentially killed 'American Bandstand' and 'Solid Gold,' because music videos are an easier way for pop artists to gain television exposure.

There's also a subplot about a guy who manages pop groups. Dave is a very ambitious boy, and he gets offered an audition but only wants to do it on his terms and conditions. He wants to maintain his integrity.

Postmodernists believe that truth is myth, and myth, truth. This equation has its roots in pop psychology. The same people also believe that emotions are a form of reality. There used to be another name for this state of mind. It used to be called psychosis.

'Iggy' was my dog - he was named after Iggy Pop - and 'Azalea' is the street where I grew up; together, they have the right amount of syllables to make the perfect name.

I'm trying to use people like Meredith Monk and Philip Glass and Terry Riley as the backing tracks for new pop songs. It's really hard trying to use the format and write a pop song on top of avant-garde music, so we'll see. It could be cool, or it could totally flop.

A lot of journalists like to suck up to celebrities, and then as soon as they're a safe distance away at their computers, they take shots. But that's the way society has become, especially in pop culture.

In the history of pop music, a lot of great records cost an enormous amount of money. There used to be a time where people that had means to experiment would do it, you know?

I do love dance music, but at the same time, I'm not looking to put out a big pop album. You've got to be the best you can be.

I was a kid at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s, so a lot of things changed. You had pop music coming up, with David Bowie, you had new television programmes and all these things. I was fascinated.

I think pop music is a great place to get new ideas across.

The only thing that exists to me is commercial pop music.

Musicians like James Blake were a big influence on me. How he uses his vocals is amazing. And then Yeasayer and Animal Collective, who aren't pop bands exactly, but they do something that is so catchy and undeniable and so much fun.

We didn't want to worry about the formula that has been implanted into our brains - this verse/pre-chorus/chorus format. When we were writing 'The Papercut Chronicles,' we had no idea about any of that. We didn't know how to count bars or how to write what's considered a well-formatted pop song.

I'm not trying to become a pop artist, and I'm not trying to make sure I stay a country artist. I'm just trying to make sure I make the best music I can, according to my way.

Parallels between classical and pop are not new. The whole San Francisco movement of John Cage and Terry Riley went hand in glove with what the Velvet Underground were doing.

I think people in electronic music are trying to get these big features: 'Oh my gosh, I'm gonna get the biggest pop star to feature on my track.'

No one told Miles Davis or BB King to pack it in. John Lee Hooker played literally up to the day he died. Why should pop musicians be any different?

I never minded being thought of as a pop star. People have always thought I wanted to be seen as a serious musician, but I didn't, I just wanted people to know that I was absolutely serious about pop music.

I like to make music because it's fun to do and it makes me feel good, but I have no desire to be a huge pop singer or anything like that. I just like to make it.

I have always wanted my children's dads to be involved in their lives. Not just the day-to-day aspect, but the emotional shifts that they go through, when little things pop up - they need to be included, absolutely, and for the children to feel that they are.

A lot of what I've done as Nine Inch Nails has been governed by fear. I was trying to keep the songs in a framework that was tough, and I learnt a lot from Jesus and Mary Chain about how to bury nice pop songs in unlistenable noise - the idea being if you can get behind that wall, you find there's a pearl inside.

If you had a successful TV show, people wanted to see you live. Promoters had had practice with pop groups, and 'Python' achieved a similar status. We also had lots of rock star fans - George Harrison, Pink Floyd, Robert Plant. Promoters saw that and liked it.

On 'America's Top Model,' I've always told my girls to smile with their eyes. We call it 'smizing.' Over the years, it's actually become part of pop culture. I would be walking down the street, and girls would say, 'Smize!'

I consider myself very lucky, essentially - I was put into a pop group even though my musical taste was very niche before.

I've always been a family entertainer. Every show I have done has been suitable for any age - parents never need to worry that, if they pop out of the room, I'll say anything untoward.

When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do. I don't wanna get ideas above my station, but why shouldn't this be comparable? Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later, and it means something to us, and it always will do. It's incredibly important.

I think of myself as a performance artist. I hate being called a pop star. I hate that.

I was lucky enough to grow up in an era when radio was less formatted. It was really special. You could hear a jazz song then a pop song then a show tune then some jazz. Basically, whatever the DJ felt like playing, he would play. He was educating you and exposing you to things you would never hear otherwise.

I love the Ronettes, the 'do-run-run-run' pop stuff. I love the lyrics, having 'blue, blue blue' being repetitive.

Right now I'm singing along to books on tape. I typically pop in something like Stephen King's 'The Stand,' and I love singing along to that kind of stuff.

I've always said that I count myself as a classical crossover artist. To be so, you have to have the core classical training, which I did for many, many years, but also be interested in the pop side of things. You can fit in somewhere in the middle. I feel I do that really well.

Bryan Adams might not be what I want to put on, but he's a pop singer with a great voice and great guitar tone. Plus, he's done more for Canada than Rush have, because he works all the time. I envy him for that.

I don't know how much more what I've done is any more important than what Ella Fitzgerald did. Ella crossed those lines, as did George Benson before me. There've been lots of people who brought a pop audience to jazz because they were able to link the two and give people easy access to the world of jazz.

I've never really thought of my real life - you know, the one I wake up to and fall asleep to at night - as being a pop star's life.

A lot of my fans are young and hip and enjoy my pop album and know the lyrics to those songs as well, which is a real compliment to me.

I feel like I'm doing something in Atlanta that nobody ever did as far as rap. If it happens to end up on the top 40 or the pop charts, it doesn't mean I meant to go pop. It's just where the music took me. It started at the bottom, and it rises.

In idling, the motor's running, but you're letting your mind take in anything. Things pop into it. Those are the gifts of subterranean conscious.

Starship was a whole different thing. It was pop rock. It made more money and had more hit songs than Airplane. There was no cultural or social ethic behind it. For me, it was like selling out. I was the only one selling out. The rest enjoyed doing what they were doing.

Superficial pop will always exist - there've always been Fabians - but when people like Dire Straits and Bruce Hornsby start having hits, it suggests that there's a revolution going on in music.

I think I've committed the one really bad English crime, which is I've risen above my station. I was supposed to be a pop star, and suddenly I'm claiming that I'm an artist of some kind.

I was such a massive fan of all the '60s pop bands, but if I had to single out one band, it would definitely be The Beatles.

I've never really spent too much or put too much gravity or placed too much importance on being a pop star. It's like, OK, great, does that mean I don't have to do anything anymore except walk around and be a pop star?

I lost a boyfriend over Elmore James. You know that moment when you send mixtapes at fifteen? He sent me pop hits, and I sent him Elmore James, and I never heard from him again.

I have a passion for music, and I enjoy the process of expressing myself within the parameters of a pop song, and I don't do it to seek anybody's approval, necessarily. Obviously, you go on stage, and you enjoy it when people respond to a particular song, but the overall concept of playing music I do for myself.

I know it's not the '80s anymore, but the '80s are back with a vengeance. Get yourself some neon; whether it's a cute sneaker, a pump or a cross-body bag, add to your wardrobe a pop of neon.

Since the beginning of my recording career in 1975, I have had a little difficulty because the pop stations think I'm a jazzer who doesn't have a feeling for pop, so it's hard to get my records played. Similarly, black urban radio doesn't understand that with my R&B roots, I am more than a jazz singer. So I get pigeonholed.