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" 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
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" 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. "
Robert Hilburn
Power
Musicians
Fire
" 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 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. "
Robert Hilburn
Rock And Roll
Music
People
" Elvis may have been my first hero, but you couldn't relate to him. "
Robert Hilburn
Been
First
May
" I think there's a lot of writers who took rock music more seriously: Greil Marcus, Jon Landau. "
Robert Hilburn
Think
More
Music
" 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
" When I began to interview people from the '60s, my first question was always, 'What was your favorite record?' "
Robert Hilburn
People
Question
Interview
" 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.' "
Robert Hilburn
Tree
Highway
Born
" 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
" 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
" 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
" It's a hard thing to be an artist and not give up. "
Robert Hilburn
Give
Up
Thing
" 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
" 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. "
Robert Hilburn
Music
American
Young
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Robert Hilburn
Wait
Three
Down
" 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
" 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
" You had to read what I wrote if you lived in L.A. in 1975 and cared about pop music. "
Robert Hilburn
Pop Music
Lived
Had
" Kendrick Lamar is a great, great thinker. He's a tremendous artist. "
Robert Hilburn
Thinker
Great
Artist
" The Cure is clearly above average but seemingly unable to rally itself to move to a higher plateau. "
Robert Hilburn
Move
Average
Above
" 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. "
Robert Hilburn
Good
Achievement
Great
" If you care about who I want to write about, I'll write about the people you want to read about. "
Robert Hilburn
People
Care
You
" 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.' "
Robert Hilburn
You
Think
Road
" I loved Roger Miller. "
Robert Hilburn
Loved
Miller
Roger
" Even though The Cure helped pioneer the jangly, dance-oriented guitar and keyboard style it continues to embrace, there are other bands that now employ the post-punk style with greater flair. This leaves The Cure's live presentation seeming a bit anonymous. "
Robert Hilburn
Cure
Style
Now
" 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
" 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
" 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