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" 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. "

Robert Hilburn

Early

Group

Rock

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" Johnny Cash was a good man. He tried to live up to his faith. It was just difficult. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

Robert Hilburn

Give

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. "

" 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 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? "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

Robert Hilburn

Think

Music

" 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. "

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

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" If you care about who I want to write about, I'll write about the people you want to read about. "

" 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? "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "