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" 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
Related Quotes:
" 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
" 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
" 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
" It's a different world because of the Internet and bloggers. Now, every editor is concerned about speed because every minute counts. Speed is more important than content. Whoever gets a review out first becomes the authority. "
Robert Hilburn
Speed
Important
World
" 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. "
Robert Hilburn
Star
World
Without
" 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
" 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
" I loved Roger Miller. "
Robert Hilburn
Loved
Miller
Roger
" 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
" I took a musician friend of mine to a Rolling Stone concert once, and all he did was cringe. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, 'Keith Richards' guitar is out of tune.' But 'Tumbling Dice' still sounded great to me. "
Robert Hilburn
Friend
Said
Me
" I was getting calls in 1970 from teenagers, little girls, and they'd say, 'Oh, I like your stories about so-and-so so much. How old are you? 20?' 'No. Older than that.' '30?' 'No. Older than that.' And they'd hang up. "
Robert Hilburn
You
Teenagers
Say
" 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
" David Bowie, who spent most of the '70s establishing himself as a master of psychological disguises, is spending the '80s trying to convince us that he's just a regular fella - or at least as close to one as a millionaire pop star can be. "
Robert Hilburn
Star
Master
Trying
" 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
" In 1980, after 10 years at 'The Times,' I was at a crossroads in my personal life. I loved my family, but I was also so obsessive about my work that I found myself devoting more and more time to it. I wanted to be everywhere there was a good story, and that meant I had to choose between that and being with the family on important days. "
Robert Hilburn
Family
Time
Good
" I didn't know if I should tell people that Johnny Cash had an affair with his sister-in-law while his wife was pregnant. How much does the public need to know about a performer? "
Robert Hilburn
Know
People
Tell
" 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. "
Robert Hilburn
School
Music
Loved
" 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. "
Robert Hilburn
Growing Up
Early
Strong
" 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
" Through the '80s, nobody cared about Johnny Cash. "
Robert Hilburn
Through
Nobody
Johnny Cash
" 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
" 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. "
Robert Hilburn
Time
Music
First Time
" 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. "
Robert Hilburn
Company
Work
Want
" 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
" 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
" Johnny Cash was a good man. He tried to live up to his faith. It was just difficult. "
Robert Hilburn
Good Man
Faith
Cash
" It's a hard thing to be an artist and not give up. "
Robert Hilburn
Give
Up
Thing
" 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
" 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
" Elvis may have been my first hero, but you couldn't relate to him. "
Robert Hilburn
Been
First
May