Music Generation Quotes

#1. I always wanted to do music that influences and inspires each generation.

Michael Jackson

#2. The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

Michelle Obama

#3. Each kind of generation of bands forgets how they got here. Waylon Jennings came out and they're like, 'That's not Patsy Cline.' And everyone panicked, like, 'I don't know what happened to country music, but this isn't it.'

Kristian Bush

#4. The '60s was one of the first times the power of music was used by a generation to bind them together.

Neil Young

#5. A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they're stuck in that safe place.

Dave Grohl

#6. It is interesting seeing young people these days and watching how unimportant music is in their lives compared with our generation.

Alison Moyet

#7. I'm wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, 'I am my musical taste.' I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that's a thing that people romanticize: 'Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.'

Zooey Deschanel

#8. Trends in culture all serve a purpose and that's always indicative in fashion and music, you can always tell what's going on culturally in the mindset of the young generation if you look at those mediums.

Marina And The Diamonds

#9. I've always loved hip-hop, since I was a kid, that's the music that I loved. I think everyone of our generation kind of fantasized about hip-hop in some ways.

Joaquin Phoenix

#10. I know, for me, you know, my generation - I never would have known anything about Robert Preston's performance in 'The Music Man' if there hadn't been a film where he played the part. I just heard how great he was on Broadway way before my time.

John Lloyd Young

#11. There is a wealth of twentieth century music that is being re-discovered by a generation that hasn't heard it.

Helen Reddy

#12. I really believe we in the music industry can work together to find a way to bond technology with integrity and just really hope we can teach the younger generation the value of investment in music rather than the ephemeral consumption of it.

Taylor Swift

#13. We're genuinely happy if some musicians of this younger generation are influenced by our music, as we were ourselves influenced 10 years ago by older musicians.

Thomas Bangalter

#14. Maybe it's because I grew up during the MTV generation, but to me a perfect song is one I can imagine a music video to, a song that can take you into a dream.

Dan Chaon

#15. Music has always been in my family down to my dad through my uncle. I'm just the next generation, since it's always been around me when I was younger when I looked up to my mom and dad, to Michael Jackson, and B2K was my favorite band growing up.

Jacob Latimore

#16. I knew it was coming. I knew they didn't have the nerve.
Three days in and they've got faces like vexed tomatoes, their skins flaking sci-fi style: burnt to fuck. They were an embarrassment; not only to me and the wife and The Fall fans but to their own generation.

Mark E. Smith

#17. When I started Rolling Stone in November 1967, the magazine's initial chapter was to cover rock & roll music with intelligence and respect. Even then, we knew that the fervor sweeping our generation encompassed more than just music.

Jann Wenner

#18. Nothing is more singular about this generation than its addiction to music.

Allan Bloom

#19. I come from a generation that was surrounded by popular music, but I don't know if anybody's ever going to move the ball forward as far and as fast as the Beatles did.

Steven Soderbergh

#20. Music, Rock and Roll music especially, is such a generational thing. Each generation must have their own music, I had my own in my generation, you have yours, everyone I know has their own generation.

Ronnie James Dio

#21. Now in my middle fifties, an irrelevant codger, I find it discomfiting to see this generation dancing to the music of apocalypse and carrying their psychic burdens in front of them like infants in arms.

Julie Schumacher

#22. The first generation of CDs sounded terrible. Any chance to remaster would make the music sound better than what was already out there.

Lou Reed

#23. Morley is one of the outstanding voices of her generation, as a singer, songwriter and bandleader she's in a class of her own, transcends all categories and is making a major contribution to contemporary music.

David Amram

#24. I didn't have a philosophical understanding of music until I came to New York. I didn't understand how it applied to my kind and my generation. I thought it was just old people talking.

Wynton Marsalis

#25. I don't want this music to die.The older people are passing it on to the younger generation so the younger generation can pass it on to the next generation.

Vy Higginsen

#26. Unfortunately, the young generation, who I believe have their own place in the sun like I had mine; but I wish it was possible there were other ways to have them understand this music was here before they came, and the reason that it was here.

Ruth Brown

#27. Music's cyclical. There's always that next generation that always comes along.

Eric Church

#28. Trance had become a dirty word. Thanks to Ian Van Dahl, Lasgo, Flip 'N' Fill and DJ Sammy, a generation of kids has grown up thinking trance is the shittiest music since country and western.

Paul Van Dyk

#29. Barney Kessel was 'Mr. Guitar,' the foremost jazz guitarist of his generation. He had an amazing imagination, his solos were incredible, he swung his tail off, he was a heck of an arranger and could out-read anybody ...

Larry Coryell

#30. I feel like I'm a product of this generation where everybody listens to charts with diverse music.

Carrie Underwood

#31. When Kenny first came to me, I think he was thinking of making a nice little folk record, but in my opinion, folk music had come to an end and I felt he needed to go to the next step, the next generation.

Jim Messina

#32. Webern was a kind of 'Kamchatka of music,' an unknown country of music. That's true; for me and people of my generation, he was a radical - you couldn't be more radical than he was.

Pierre Boulez

#33. We not only grew up on Be-Bop; Be-Bop raised us. For my generation, Be-Bop came on like a light bulb going flash behind the eyes.For us, it was not only an intellectual movement, but a way of life. We walked, dressed, and rapped Be-Bop.

Ishmael Reed

#34. My studio is a laptop. Everybody I work with is the same. We make computer music, we're the laptop generation.

David Guetta

#35. I grew up with the Woodstock generation. I went to Woodstock, and like everybody in my school, I wanted to be in a rock-and-roll band, and most of us were. But I also grew up with a lot of piano lessons and a lot of classical music training.

John Tesh

#36. When you talk or write or film, you work with the music inside you, the music that formed you. Different generations have different musics in them, so whatever they do, it's going to come out differently, and it will speak in beats of their own generation.

Robert Krulwich

#37. We live in a generation of not being in love, and not being together. But we sure make it feel like we're together, because we're scared of seeing each other with somebody else.

Drake

#38. A lot of artists are used to their music being reused online and have come to accept and embrace it. You have a generation who go on YouTube and remake and remix music online all the time. They remake and upload songs and videos, and then other people remake the remakes; it just keeps going.

Girl Talk

#39. I think 'Horace Silver' was actually the first live jazz group I ever heard back when I was a kid in St. Louis. So along with most players of my generation, I have a real affection for the music of 'Horace Silver.'

David Sanborn

#40. I think the amazing thing about gospel music is that not only does it lift up the death and resurrection of our Lord, which is consistent with the Gospel, but it is uniquely communicated depending upon the generation.

T.D. Jakes

#41. There are a lot of people, especially the younger generation who don't feel that they need to support the artists by buying their music because they grew up learning that record companies are evil.

Bob Mould

#42. I just don't want to live in the past. I'm really disappointed by so many people of my generation who - in order to promote their new work, they have to constantly lean on their past. I don't want to be that type of artist ... I see a lot of people out here doing really marginal music.

Billy Corgan

#43. Kids don't care about rock and roll as much as they used to, as the other generations have. It's already turned into nothing but a fashion statement and an identity for kids to use as a tool for them to fuck and have a social life.

Kurt Cobain

#44. Every generation thinks their music is the ultimate. But there's great stuff from every generation.

Delbert McClinton

#45. I wish to share and pass down some of my generation's traits, and encourage young people to create their own art, music, and literature.

David Amram

#46. I'm not too embarrassed to say I'm the definition of the target audience. This is my generation, the one of exalting music in album form.

Jonathan Lethem

#47. Jazz is very much alive. Everywhere I go there's a new generation of musicians playing Jazz music.

Toots Thielemans

#48. I received a beautiful welcome to the world of music. I want to give something back to the younger generation.

Luciano Pavarotti

#49. All I'd ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities. I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of.

Bob Dylan

#50. There's a lot of really inspiring music coming around the bend - we tend to believe that to sound classic or timeless is to sound vintage or retro. It's a little bit dangerous, because you'll really miss a chance to make your mark as a generation.

Brandi Carlile

#51. Jonny Lang has the power to move the music into the next millennium by reaching the ears of a new generation. The great musicians have the power to break all of the 'isms'-race, age, sex, et cetera. Jonny Lang is one of those musicians.

Luther Allison

#52. Their eagerness for the big-band music and their ability to grasp the essence of it made me realize that today's generation has not been properly exposed to the big-band sound.

Illinois Jacquet

#53. When today's generation reads Jack's books or they listen to the music created by some of us, I believe that they see there is a different way of approaching today's life and today's sometimes seeming hopelessness that can provide answers.

David Amram

#54. I was part of punk's second generation, so, not the first wave of '70s punk, but the American hardcore scene. I had a really strong love for music prior to that, but punk created a new template.

Bucky Pope

#55. It's rare when an artist's talent can touch an entire generation of people. It's even rarer when that same influence affects several generations. Elvis made an imprint on the world of pop music unequaled by any other single performer.

Dick Clark

#56. I have a responsibility to pass on to the next generation what I learned from my teachers, ... It keeps me young and reminds me where I came from. Teaching young artists is like giving water to a flower.

Isaac Stern

#57. The mythology in rock n' roll is that I'm a bit of a loose cannon. Yet I've produced more music than anybody in my generation. So how much of a loose cannon am I? But the general public believes that I'm a loose cannon, so let them believe it. I'm not going to correct them.

Billy Corgan

#58. A culture which doesn't believe in region and religion is like a rock music, noise for old generation & nirvana for the young ones.

Megha Khare

#59. I love his music because he was my generation. But then again, Elvis is everyone's generation, and he always will be.

Margaret Thatcher

#60. Without courage, our generation is doomed to another decade of political disenfranchisement and shit music.

Laurie Penny

#61. I feel connected to my generation through the music, but I also fear for us. We're in a very self-destructive state where we're addicted to outside opinions and we all feel like we have fans.

Drake

#62. The reason music became so powerful to our generation is that it's art you can consume in your car, and we were driving around a lot.

Steve Earle

#63. Generation after generation can't just be loaded with more and more nuclear weapons and not ultimately dance to that music.

Marianne Williamson

#64. When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.'

Robert Smith

#65. Hip Hop Generation "captures the collective hopes and nightmares, ambitions and failures of those who would otherwise be described as "post-this" or "post-that."

Jeff Chain

#66. Being Irish and a citizen of the world, has made me truly appreciate Irish culture, music and history. Whether you're first, second generation Irish or even with no connection to Ireland, you should visit in 2013 for a unique experience.

Liam Neeson

#67. It's a wonderful thing to be able to see your music going from generation to generation.

Alex Lifeson

#68. The kids I talk to are convinced their generation will make the best music. And the greatest artists have yet to be discovered. I walk around with that thought every day.

L.A. Reid

#69. We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard ... Everything was 10th-generation Led Zeppelin ... Overproduced, or just junk. We missed music like it used to be.

Joey Ramone

#70. Since the dawn of recorded music, every generation has felt shocked by the musical tastes of the next.

Dan Hill

#71. I'm the lead singer of the Beach Boys and an ambassador of this amazing music that touched a generation.

Mike Love

#72. I am continually influenced by the feeling that music culture captured in the late 60s - for my generation, it was a time to rebel, against our parents, against everything.

Renzo Rosso

#73. I didn't really identify with the music of my own generation, but I was very curious about the music of others.

Tom Waits

#74. I am probably the last of a generation able to gain an education in country music by osmosis, by sitting in a '64 Ford banging the buttons on the radio.

Dwight Yoakam

#75. Part of me also knows that this generation is the least racist and most pro-gay, so that's great. But they have a real lack of gravitas. And they have no taste in music. Vampire Weekend? Can we play some music, please? Can we rock out for a minute? Where's your Metallica?

Greg Behrendt

#76. I want kids of this generation to see that everything is cool, that there's some kind of unity in hip-hop. We all found something that's really important to us, and music is all we've really got.

Missy Elliott

#77. We come from a generation that wanted to make electronic music accepted, at a time [when] it was not.

Thomas Bangalter

#78. The truth of country music, the real stuff, will prevail ... generation after generation.

Marty Stuart

#79. Now that the generation that grew up on '80s indie-rock has attained influential positions in the culture, that music is the new yardstick. And that will shift yet again some day.

Michael Azerrad

#80. The interesting thing about the Beatles was: The music was one thing, but we kind of symbolized a certain kind of freedom at a time when people of our generation were just growing up and just becoming adults.

Paul McCartney

#81. I saw the Internet as being something which would allow power mongers to control us, and that we would willingly go to that if it promised us salvation - if it promised to show us who we were and let us find ourselves as we had, uniquely in our generation, through rock music.

Pete Townshend

#82. I always want to do music that inspires or influences another generation. You want what you create to live, be it sculpture or painting or music. Like Michelangelo, he said, I know the creator will go, but his work survives. That is why to escape death, I attempt to bind my soul to my work.

Michael Jackson

#83. You have an entire generation of kids who grew up with the idea that music is something that you can download for free.

G-Eazy

#84. Rock is young music, it is youth oriented. It just speaks for a generation.

Ruben Blades

#85. My parents' generation was definitely pre-telly, and they knew how to entertain each other. Everybody knew something that they could do - a song or a poem, or a piece of music. At school, I remember being a cat and then a budgie and then a bumble bee. I obviously thought all that was marvelous.

Lindsay Duncan

#86. I wear jeans and a T-shirt sometimes. I just like clothes - since the first time I can remember, like age ten or eleven; I was just obsessed with music and clothes. Just like a lot of people in England from my generation.

Paul Weller

#87. I don't think radio has to be sectioned off where you listen to the music for your generation and your son listens to the music for his generation.

Donnie Simpson

#88. They're a different generation, those kids; kids that are under the age of twelve. They're not that impressed by rock music, you know what I mean? They're like, it's cool and everything, but whatever. They're just as impressed by YouTube.

Frank Black

#89. A whole generation of young whites have involved themselves with traditional Negro music.

Archie Shepp

#90. When I started making music, we'd lost a lot of our great people. Rock was moving in a direction I didn't like. Rock was my generation's revolutionary, sexual, poetic, and political voice, but it had become corporatized. It was going into stadiums. It was so far removed from its basic roots.

Patti Smith

#91. Cause we're the here and now generation. 24/Seven

Big Time Rush

#92. Times were changing. Clothes were changing. Morals were changing. We went from romantic loves songs like I used to do to rock 'n roll. Now that has changed to rap. So, there's always a new generation with new music.

Bobby Vinton

#93. The difference between me and other people in my generation is instead of saying the Internet's killing the record business, I say, 'Who cares about the record business, the Internet is enhancing music.'

Daryl Hall