Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I really thought I knew Johnny Cash. I thought I didn't need to spend a lot of time researching his life. But I wasn't within 50 miles of knowing Johnny Cash. I knew he was a good guy and a dedicated artist, but I didn't know the demons, the struggles he had in his personal life. "

Robert Hilburn

Good

Life

Demons

Related Quotes:

" The Cure is clearly above average but seemingly unable to rally itself to move to a higher plateau. "

" Some writers sit down every day for two or three hours, at least, to write, whether they are in the mood or not. Others wait for inspiration. "

" I learned how difficult it is to be an artist. There are always compromises. The record company wants you to do this, your fans want you to do this, your family - you can't concentrate on your work. "

" 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. "

" 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

" Take any celebrity - all we really know is what they choose to tell us or what they show us in public. "

Robert Hilburn

Choose

Know

" When I was in high school in the '50s, all pop music - Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard - was aimed at teenagers. I loved that stuff. "

" Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and The Sex Pistols may come and go, but rebellion remains a key part of the rock n' roll experience. However, that rebellion - the outgrowth of a youthful search for independence and identity - doesn't always take the same form. "

" 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. "

" Elvis may have been my first hero, but you couldn't relate to him. "

" I think Pearl Jam, greatly inspired by The Who, really did become a sort of musical conscience of a generation. I love such passionate songs as 'Not for You,' 'Wishlist,' and 'Long Road.' "

" 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. "

" When I began to interview people from the '60s, my first question was always, 'What was your favorite record?' "

" I loved Roger Miller. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The greatest impact of 'We Are the World' seems to have been the video, which lets us see the singers take their turns at the microphone without any sense of star ego. "

" Growing up in the icy isolation of Hibbing, Minn., Dylan, who was still Robert Allen Zimmerman then, found comfort in the country, blues, and early rock 'n' roll that he heard at night on a Louisiana radio station whose signal came in strong and clear. "

" 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? "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You had to read what I wrote if you lived in L.A. in 1975 and cared about pop music. "

" The first time I saw Pearl Jam, I thought Eddie Vedder had seen too many Jim Morrison videos, and I didn't like the music very much. But by the third album, I really liked them after all. "

" Through the '80s, nobody cared about Johnny Cash. "

" It's a hard thing to be an artist and not give up. "

Robert Hilburn

Give

Thing

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "