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" 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. "

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

" Some people will never take Madonna seriously - just as many never took Marilyn Monroe seriously. Novelty images - especially that of a sex symbol - are hard to erase. "

" When the Eagles were starting out in the early '70s, it would have been hard to imagine anyone in the fledgling, country-accented rock group someday seriously challenging the artistic punch of Neil Young or Joni Mitchell. "

" At the 'L.A. Times,' I always wanted to write about artists I thought were meaningful. So I interviewed Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Eminem, White Stripes. And I could understand how almost everybody I interviewed had a sense of artistry. "

" Without people like Dylan and the Beatles and people like Paul Simon, I think rock n' roll would have died out like Dixieland jazz. "

" 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. "

" I think there's a lot of writers who took rock music more seriously: Greil Marcus, Jon Landau. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Kendrick Lamar is a great, great thinker. He's a tremendous artist. "

" It's important to realize that everybody who went into country music, and most everybody who went into rock and roll in the '50s, they had no more goal than a hit on the jukebox. Johnny Cash, from the very beginning, had a goal that he wanted to make music that lifted people's spirits. "

" 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. "

" I thought the message of the artist was more important than the writing style. I tried to be clear; I wanted everyone to be welcome. I think some of the more serious writers wrote to a more elite audience than that. They're the ones who were defining the seriousness of rock n' roll. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

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

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" Like David Bowie, Madonna visualizes music so that her best work seems equally designed with the stage or screen in mind - not just the jukebox. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "