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" Elvis may have been my first hero, but you couldn't relate to him. "
Robert Hilburn
Been
First
May
Related Quotes:
" Country music tends to be so sentimental and homespun, it's easy to stumble into self-parody, but Haggard has brought a freshness to the themes that places him alongside Hank Williams and Willie Nelson as one of the greatest country music writers. "
Robert Hilburn
Country
Him
Music
" Johnny Cash was a good man. He tried to live up to his faith. It was just difficult. "
Robert Hilburn
Good Man
Faith
Cash
" I didn't have any idea that Gwen Stefani would evolve into this symbol of womanhood in America, but to me, that's not a musical story: it's a fashion story. "
Robert Hilburn
Evolve
Fashion
Me
" The way he tells it, George Michael was born to be a pop star. It's as if nothing else really mattered during his childhood. Even the name was part of the pop creation. "
Robert Hilburn
Born
Childhood
Creation
" I was driving to school at Reseda High School - I was a junior, and it was early 1956. I had a '49 Ford. I was listening to the country station, and 'Folsom Prison Blues' comes on... It didn't sound like the stuff I was hearing on the pop stations. "
Robert Hilburn
Driving
High School
Listening
" Take any celebrity - all we really know is what they choose to tell us or what they show us in public. "
Robert Hilburn
Us
Choose
Know
" The Internet has changed how young people listen to music. Television programs like 'American Idol' changed how people listen to music. It was no longer the songwriters that we celebrated; it was the singers. "
Robert Hilburn
Music
American
Young
" I don't want to be the cranky old guy, but a lot of critics are too forgiving of mediocre artists. When you see these 'American Idol' people on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' being written about as serious artists, there's something wrong with that. You can erase them from the history of rock n' roll, and you wouldn't notice. "
Robert Hilburn
Rock
People
You
" Even though The Cure helped pioneer the jangly, dance-oriented guitar and keyboard style it continues to embrace, there are other bands that now employ the post-punk style with greater flair. This leaves The Cure's live presentation seeming a bit anonymous. "
Robert Hilburn
Cure
Style
Now
" I'm guilty of being perceived as having narrow taste. I went after the artists that I thought were important - Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen and stuff. "
Robert Hilburn
Taste
Important
Guilty
" Kendrick Lamar is a great, great thinker. He's a tremendous artist. "
Robert Hilburn
Thinker
Great
Artist
" I first met Michael in the early days of the Jackson 5 at the family home in Los Angeles, and the memory that stands out is that Michael, as cute and wide-eyed as an 11-year-old could be, was eager to get through the interview so he could watch cartoons before having to go to bed. "
Robert Hilburn
Home
Early
Bed
" When I met Johnny Cash, I didn't know what to ask: where were you born, who was your favorite recording artist, what's your favorite color - I didn't know. "
Robert Hilburn
You
Born
Cash
" Without people like Dylan and the Beatles and people like Paul Simon, I think rock n' roll would have died out like Dixieland jazz. "
Robert Hilburn
Without
Jazz
Like
" What's amazing is how rock n' roll lasted. It started losing its commercial power in the late 1990s. But think of swing, which we think of as this big music before rock n' roll. It only lasted five years in total. So, rock going 50 years is amazing, because young people want new things. "
Robert Hilburn
Losing
People
Power
" Courtney Love is so famous among journalists for her loquaciousness that the joke is that you don't have to worry about questions when you interview her - just be sure you have lots of tape. "
Robert Hilburn
Famous
Love Is
Questions
" I don't understand why people take Beyonce so seriously. You don't feel like there's a living, breathing person. It's not flesh and blood. It's just flesh and flesh. "
Robert Hilburn
Seriously
Feel
Living
" Because record companies do not routinely release sales figures the way film studios do, the weekly charts in trade publications like 'Billboard' provide the best independent measure of record appeal. "
Robert Hilburn
Best
Way
Trade
" In the role of Ziggy Stardust, Bowie seemed in 1972 like a strange alien creature, not so much coming from another planet as from a future age. His purpose: to warn us about a dangerous society where values were to be turned inside out. "
Robert Hilburn
Society
Purpose
Age
" John Cougar Mellencamp - I didn't like him in the beginning. I liked some of the stuff around the 'Scarecrow' period. I go back and forth on him all the time, but I think he's a good artist. I don't know if he's a great artist or not, but he rose above his original level of achievement. "
Robert Hilburn
Good
Achievement
Great
" You had to read what I wrote if you lived in L.A. in 1975 and cared about pop music. "
Robert Hilburn
Pop Music
Lived
Had
" There's not a great danger in releasing the first single from an album without a video because the momentum from the last album will cause large numbers of fans to buy it. "
Robert Hilburn
Danger
Numbers
Momentum
" To many, Courtney Love smells like rock hype. Reviewers may be excited about her, but the rock audience may be skeptical of the credentials of someone who is more famous for her interviews and her spouse than for her music. "
Robert Hilburn
Rock
Someone
Music
" I loved Roger Miller. "
Robert Hilburn
Loved
Miller
Roger
" His belief in the power of music to convey ideas - not just entertain - has filtered down to musicians in every field, from alt-rock to hip-hop, from Bruce Springsteen and U2 to Arcade Fire and Kanye West. Popular music is different because of Johnny Cash. "
Robert Hilburn
Power
Musicians
Fire
" As soon as I started working at the 'Los Angeles Times,' people warned me not to get too close to artists because it could make it difficult to review their work, and you can never really tell if the 'friendship' is genuine. "
Robert Hilburn
People
Never
Me
" With the Internet today, it is possible to do some mixed media things where you can write about an artist and link to a song or video by that artist. But that was unheard of in the years I was at the paper. "
Robert Hilburn
Internet
You
Today
" By 27, Bob Dylan had already written 'Highway 61 Revisited,' the Beatles had released 'Rubber Soul,' Bruce Springsteen had recorded 'Born to Run' and U2 had delivered 'The Joshua Tree.' "
Robert Hilburn
Tree
Highway
Born
" One of my great frustrations for 35 years at the paper was the fact I couldn't play a record for the reader when I was writing about an artist. How can you describe the beauty of Emmylou Harris' voice without hearing it, the sensual lilt of a Duane Allman guitar solo without actually hearing it, or the growl of Johnny Rotten without hearing it? "
Robert Hilburn
Voice
Guitar
Great
" Thanks to the arrival of such spirited and purposeful groups as X, the Blasters, R.E.M., and the Replacements, American rock has made a spectacular comeback. "
Robert Hilburn
American
Thanks
Rock