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" What makes the Stones' arrogance so divine is that we all believe that long ago and far away they weren't rich and famous but poor and struggling, just like us. "
Jon Landau
Famous
Rich
Long
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" To her audience, Janis Joplin has remained a symbol, artifact and reminder of late Sixties youth culture. Her popularity never derived from her musical ability, but from her capacity to link her fantasies of freedom and immortality with ours. "
Jon Landau
Culture
Audience
Youth
" The Rolling Stones are violence. Their music penetrates the raw nerve endings of their listeners and finds its way into the groove marked 'release of frustration.' "
Jon Landau
Music
Way
Violence
" There is absolutely no doubt that the extraordinary Donna Summer belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "
Jon Landau
Doubt
Fame
Rock
" Elton John can be a master of the sleight of hand. The arrangements make it seem like there are substantial melodies underneath the tracks - but almost nothing demands repeated listenings. Similarly, he always sounds like he's singing up a storm, but his voice glosses over the material, reducing most things to an uninteresting sameness. "
Jon Landau
Storm
Voice
Always
" The Stones were always exemplary of one of the best of all rock qualities: tightness. They have always been economical, the opposite of ornamental. Having a very clear idea of what they wanted to say they could go into a studio and make it all up on a three minute cut. "
Jon Landau
Three
Always
Best
" Aretha Franklin's 'Let Me in Your Life' is one of the few recent R&B albums that places the emphasis entirely and deservedly on a voice. Many R&B producers have been making records on which the singer is outshined by the song, the arrangement and the sound. "
Jon Landau
Life
Voice
Song
" Soul was the music made by and for black people. For most of the Sixties it was thoroughly divorced from white popular music, but by the end of the decade several artists with their roots firmly in both soul and R&B traditions had crossed over. "
Jon Landau
Soul
Black
End
" One gets the impression that Elvis Presley does what his business advisors think will be most profitable. My advice to them: Put Elvis Presley in the studio with a bunch of good, contemporary rockers, lock the studio up, and tell him he can't come out until he's done made an album that rocks from beginning to end. "
Jon Landau
Good
End
Business
" Elton John himself never seems pretentious but Bernie Taupin's lyrics often do - sometimes pretentious in a clever sort of way, but pretentious nonetheless. There is a conflict between Elton's and Bernie's personal styles, no doubt about it. "
Jon Landau
Sometimes
Way
Clever
" There is something complete about Stevie Wonder, and one senses that he is not only exceptionally important today, but will continue to be for as long as he chooses. "
Jon Landau
He
Important
Wonder
" Bob Dylan has always sealed his decisions with the unexplainable. His motives for withholding the release of the magnificent 'Basement Tapes' will be as forever obscure as Brian Wilson's reasons for the destruction of the tapes for 'Smile.' "
Jon Landau
Decisions
Forever
Smile
" James Taylor is the kind of person I always thought the word 'folksinger' referred to. He writes and sings songs that are reflections of his own life, and performs in them in his own style. All of his performances are marked by an eloquent simplicity. "
Jon Landau
Style
Thought
Simplicity
" On first listening, Joni Mitchell's 'Court And Spark,' the first truly great pop album of 1974, sounds surprisingly light; by the third or fourth listening, it reveals its underlying tensions. "
Jon Landau
First
Spark
Great
" The greatness of Mac Rebennack, alias, Dr. John, also known as John Crieux, rests on his command of the musical use of idiomatic expression. Not a technically well-endowed singer, nor a great songwriter, he leaves his mark through the discipline and control he exerts over all that he touches. "
Jon Landau
Great
Discipline
Control
" It is by now beyond question that Elton John is a competent and classy entertainer. Few people who have achieved his popularity have succeeded in maintaining his standards for performance and professionalism. "
Jon Landau
Performance
Professionalism
People
" The Rolling Stones have been the best of all possible worlds: they have the lack of pretension and sentimentality associated with the blues, the rawness and toughness of hard rock, and the depth which always makes you feel that they are in the midst of saying something. They have never impressed me as being kitsch. "
Jon Landau
Rock
Best
Blues
" Since her landmark 'Tapestry,' Carole King has both oversimplified and over elaborated that masterful album's style until her music has become something more overtly but less effectively personal. "
Jon Landau
Style
Her
Over
" Bob Dylan was the source of pop music's unpredictability in the Sixties. Never as big a record-seller as commonly imagined, his importance was first aesthetic and social, and then as an influence. "
Jon Landau
Never
Aesthetic
Big
" As long as Elton John can bring forth one performance per album on the order of 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight,' the chance remains that he will become something more than the great entertainer he already is and go on to make a lasting contribution to rock. "
Jon Landau
Great
Life
Long
" Part of me believes that the completed record is the final measure of a pop musician's accomplishment, just as the completed film is the final measure of a film artist's accomplishments. "
Jon Landau
Pop
Me
Artist
" While the Beatles always had George Martin around to clean up their act, the Rolling Stones had Andrew Loog Oldham to coarsen theirs. "
Jon Landau
Clean
Always
Act
" 'Let's Get It On' is a classic Motown single, endlessly repeatable and always enjoyable. "
Jon Landau
Single
Classic
Always
" The only criticism heard with any frequency of Elton John's first American album, 'Elton John,' was that the production was too grandiose. The melodies were superb, and lyrics frequently very good, and the performances flawless. "
Jon Landau
American
Good
First
" When the Beatles cut old rock n' roll, they were recording music still in their performing repertoire, and besides, they never thought of the music as old. "
Jon Landau
Thought
Never
Old
" The early Bob Dylan was compulsively drawn to the conflict between stability and the search for immortality. "
Jon Landau
Immortality
Search
Conflict
" 'Call Me' is not an exceptional Al Green album, but it is as solid as a rock at its center. "
Jon Landau
Solid
Green
Call
" The title song of David Bowie's 'Young Americans' is one of his handful of classics, a bizarre mixture of social comment, run-on lyric style, English pop and American soul. "
Jon Landau
Young
Style
American
" The Beatles production is often so 'perfect' that it sounds computerized. 'Sgt. Pepper' really does sound like it took four months to make. "
Jon Landau
Perfect
Like
Four
" Joni Mitchell seems destined to remain in a state of permanent dissatisfaction - always knowing what she would like to do, always more depressed when it's done. "
Jon Landau
Like
She
Done
" Bob Dylan may be the Charlie Chaplin of rock n' roll. Both men are regarded as geniuses by their entire audience. Both were proclaimed revolutionaries for their early work and subjected to exhaustive attack when later works were thought to be inferior. Both developed their art without so much as a nodding glance toward their peers. "
Jon Landau
Art
Rock
Thought