Quotes & Sayings About Music And Style

I love the mix of people who hang out at nightclubs now. Their individuality is an inspiration to me. The music they listen to, the clothes they wear and the way they wear them defines a street style that I love. — Donatella Versace

Composition in photography is almost as varied as composition in music or words
melodic or atonal, safe or daring
and can enhance subject, theme, and style. Every photograph you take involves you in some compositional decision, even if this is simply where to set up the camera or when to press the button. — Michael Langford

That was one of the big problems when I was at Harvard studying music. We had to write choral pieces in the style of Brahms or Mendelssohn, which was distressing because in the end you realized how good Brahms is, and how bad you are. — Elliott Carter

The dance is the silent partner of music and participates in a division of labor: music presents a stylized version of man's consciousness in action - the dance presents a stylized version of man's body in action. — Ayn Rand

I am a big fan of music and clothing style of the 1960s. Whether in England or the United States, I like everything from that time. — Robert Pattinson

Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music. — George Gershwin

My background is Protestant so I benefited from the great Bible teaching that was provided there. I did love the more culturally classical things, like Irish music, which I think is some of the most congregational-style music when you think of St. Patrick's Breastplate (and) Danny Boy. These are traditional Irish melodies. I think being brought up there (Ireland) gave me a sense of melody that is very attuned to congregational singing. — Keith Getty

In general, those from outside the southern culture built a style around exaggerations of southern music, and missed the lonesome hillbilly and blues feel that was its core. In the quest for abandon, they also failed to understand that southern music is lazy music - at any tempo. — Colin Escott

I really tried to push every genre that I could into this record. I wanted every song to have this feel, where as soon as the listener tunes in, they say "That's CoJo, that's Cody right there." That being said, it is a little different. There's Americana, there's Bluegrass, there's some rock, there's some really George Jones-style stuff on it, slow-style Ray Price country elements, there's some modern country, a little of this and a little of that. We tried to push a lot for show versatility, because I grew up with a lot of versatility in my music. — Cody Johnson

STREET by 50 is all about giving our fans the finest music experience we possibly can. The response to the limited edition colors so far speaks for itself - the fans want the opportunity to match their headphones to their personal style, and we definitely want to make sure to give them what they want. — Curtis Jackson

Back in the "leather and lace" eighties, I was the fantasy editor for a publishing company in New York City. It was a great time to be young and footloose on the streets of Manhattan - punk rock and folk music were everywhere; Blondie, the Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, and Prince were all strutting their stuff on the newly created MTV; and the eighties' sense of style meant I could wear my scruffy black leather into the office without turning too many heads. The fantasy field was growing by leaps and bounds, and I was right in the middle of it, working with authors I'd worshiped as a teen, and finding new ones to encourage and publish. — Terri Windling

No matter what I do, my songs come out in a certain style, and if that sounds like Dead Kennedys, then there's probably a reason for it. Don't forget, I wrote most of those songs, music and lyrics. — Jello Biafra

They were bound together by a common love of a certain kind of music, physical beauty, and style - all the things one shouldn't throw away an ounce of energy pursuing, and sometimes throw away a life pursuing. — Andrew Holleran

I think Taylor Swift is a really good artist. I feel like her personality shines through everything she does, her music, her fashion, her style. She won Album of the Year, and she's a really good writer. I'm a song writer so I respect artists who write their own songs. She won Album of the Year when she was 18 or something like that so, I think she's dope. — Mike Posner

We are devastated to learn of the death of Alexander McQueen, one of the greatest talents of his generation. He brought a uniquely British sense of daring and aesthetic fearlessness to the global stage of fashion. In such a short career, Alexander McQueen's influence was astonishing - from street style, to music culture and the world's museums. His passing marks an insurmountable loss. — Anna Wintour

I have so many songs, it's ridiculous. I love so many different types of music and tend to write all over the map, style-wise. R&B, rock 'n' roll, screamers, pop, good-time songs. — Taryn Manning

A collection of bad love songs, tattered from overuse, has to touch us like a cemetery or a village. So what if the houses have no style, if the graves are vanishing under tasteless ornaments and inscriptions? Before an imagination sympathetic and respectful enough to conceal momentarily its aesthetic disdain, that dust may release a flock of souls, their beaks holding the still verdant dreams that gave them an inkling of the next world and let them rejoice or weep in this world. — Marcel Proust

[My] style evolved, not changed, but I think evolved as I grew and matured. I don't think there was any kind of change I did in a deliberate way - I think I just evolved. — Kenny Burrell

With respect to excellence of style and composition, it may perhaps be said that to practised ears the most pleasing music is such as has the merit of novelty, added to refinement, and ingenious contrivance; and to the ignorant, such as is most familiar and common. — Charles Burney

For me, style is something that I've always loved. It's more than just, "Oh I make this type of music, so I should dress this type of way." But it's very important. On the other hand, if I was on stage in a hoodie and some baggy jeans, it wouldn't give off the same feeling. People appreciate the music, but people want to see the whole visual thing. — Leon Bridges

I'm always trying to push myself into unfamiliar places with the music, sometimes without success, I have to admit. But I'd rather be there than relying on a style that people recognize and want to follow. — Michael Gira

Some people get medals and awards and all that, and maybe not intentionally - maybe the world is making them do it - but they sort of just follow what they were doing. Repeat or follow what they were doing all their lives, in their style of music or whatever. In my case, I always try to start from scratch. It's very nerve-wracking actually, but it's interesting. — Yoko Ono

A game may be as integral to a culture, as true an object of human aesthetic appreciation, as admirable a product of creativity as a folk art or a style of music; and, as such, it is quite as worthy of study. — Michael Dummett

I come from an African Caribbean background. I've been influenced by a reggae church music style, contemporary gospel, and rock all fused together. — Laura Mvula

The mind, and the unconscious mind in particular, is a canvas. We paint on it constantly. Art and music can add such colors, such style. — J.D. Robb

Gary Numan had a huge influence on both my music and my style. He had his own unique fashion sense - that futuristic space style. It was out there. — Mayer Hawthorne

Basically the subcultures formed in the U.K. because the mainstream was not satisfying the needs of certain people like myself. So through music and through style, we found our tribe, we found like-minded rebels. — Don Letts

This is sad. I just think it's a little ridiculous we are still only looking at the surface of one another. Red hair? Blue hair? Pink? Blonde? Short? Long? Whatever. We might as well shave our heads. Hair has nothing to do with the reason we playing music. It's a style. Something that will never last as long as the songs we play and the words we sing. Listen up ladies in bands, I'm so proud to be one of you and I don't care if we all look exactly alike or if we are all carbon copies of each other. We have things to say and it's up to us to get people to not just look but to LISTEN! — Hayley Williams

There is much more to playing the clavier than playing written music. Do you realize with accompanying there is often nothing written out but the bass line
the left hand? There might be a few notations as to a suggested harmony, but it is up to me to fill in the music, at the proper volume, style, and harmony for the soloist
often instantly. I've heard it said that Bach questioned wether the soloist or the accompanist deserves the greatest glory. — Nancy Moser

My style of music is the great American songbook meets the pop world of the Seventies and Eighties. — Barry Manilow

Music is a matter of taste. Bitching at someone for liking a certain style of music is like yelling at someone for liking broccoli with melted cheese (which, might I add, is awesome). I don't understand why there are so many snobs out there who deem it necessary to force-feed their opinions to others, and claim that their experience i ... n the matter makes their statement any more credible than the next, when, as I said before, its all a matter of taste. If you dig it, awesome. If you don't, awesome. Its just another plate being served at the world's biggest (in this case musical) buffet. Don't make some kid feel guilty for listening to what he / she enjoys. — Alex Gaskarth

I've always described my taste in fashion and music as being very eclectic and uniquely based off my feelings that day. That's the wonderful thing about style. You can be whatever you want to be. You can describe yourself however you want to describe yourself. — Hayden Panettiere

I think my style revolves around the philosophy that less is more, that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. That goes for my taste in design and in clothes, and even affects the way I approach music. I'm all about keeping things simple, and minimal, but being able to convey something powerful through that approach. — G-Eazy

The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musical Esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud. — George Steiner

I've never really had a certain style of music in mind that I make, or am really adamant on how something should sound, but I like the process of not knowing, of just seeing what happens and what comes out. — Courtney Barnett

Aggressive music has always been a liberator for me; however, hard tunes with no soul quickly wear thin. H.R. exhibited soul where it could not be found previously. His lyrics contributed an urgency fueled by spirituality and a call to social justice, which substantiated the ferocity of the Bad Brains' earth-shattering soundscapes. This included the instances when Bad Brains broke it down to a mesmerizing, skank-drenched reggae rhythm. H.R.'s vocal style was otherworldly; ever vacillating between combative and graceful expression; all the while thrusting forth a righteous dose of rebellion served with a side of hope. — Howie Abrams

I think my brand of country music is that's been influenced by not just the rough-stock rodeo side or Ted Nugent's "let's get crazy style", but also the stand-up and sing style's like George Strait and Merle Haggard, and also the wild side of Chris Ledoux — Cody Johnson

I don't really have a style icon but I really admire the way people dress like Gaga, Rihanna and Gwen Stefani. It's good to be inspired by singers who write music and dress incredibly - rather than models and people in the fashion industry who dress immaculately anyway because it's their style. — Ellie Goulding

I grew up in a Southern Baptist-style church with a choir, a band, and music, but I've been asking myself my whole life, "Why is my own church, my own community, rejecting me because of my sexuality?". — Roger Ross Williams

I can play punk rock, and I love playing punk rock, but I was into every other style of music before I played punk rock. — Travis Barker

I was a folk singer who became totally over the edge with country music. I found my voice and style working with Gram Parsons. I learned how to listen to George Jones records and the Louvin Brothers. — Emmylou Harris

We live in a modern world, and in contemporary music the central fact is contamination. Not the contamination of disease but the contamination of musical styles. If you find this in me, that is good. — Ennio Morricone

Gangsta rap often reaches higher than its ugliest, lowest common denominator, misogyny, violence, materialism and sexual transgression are not its exclusive domain. At its best, this music draws attention to complex dimensions of ghetto life ignored by most Americans. Indeed, gangsta rap's in-your-face style may do more to force America to confront crucial social problems than a million sermons or political speeches. — Michael Eric Dyson

As Erykah Badu, it has nothing to do with me, the way I look, my hair wrap, my style, it's about you and what you feel for my music. If I can make you feel like the way that people who influenced me made me feel, that's completion. — Erykah Badu

John Fahey, thought during his lifetime to be possibly more than a little crazy, was the author of some thirty albums of gnomically introverted droning guitar instrumentals, which I listened to heavily in my teens and twenties; I even produced an hour or so of banjo music in an imitative John Fahey style. — Madison Smartt Bell

The greatest thing about music is everyone has their own style, and I respect all styles of music. — Adam Hicks

Bob Marley is a huge influence. I love reggae music, but I also love the purpose of the songs he writes and the style of the music - it takes your worries away and makes you feel good, and I think that's what music is about. — Colbie Caillat

Music and fashion go hand in hand. I think music inspires all types of arts; it inspires life, emotion, mood, and all of those things are reflected in my fashion and my style. One doesn't go without the other. — Rihanna

Six months into the bliss of edible sex, free-style music, challenging books and the company of an easy undemanding Bride, the fairy-tale castle collapsed into the mud and sand on which its vanity was built. And Booker ran away. — Toni Morrison

Whether or not you agreed with the group's incendiary style, one thing most people will agree on: N.W.A had a deep, trans-formative and lasting effect on hip hop ideology. — Carlos Wallace

Music helps define the character and is an extension of the character somehow, so that you are able to use both the songs themselves and the way that you sing them to tell something about the character and his story, as well as develop a performance style. — Alessandro Nivola

Andres Segovia literally created the genre of classical guitar, which hadn't existed before around 1910. There was flamenco, which he borrowed from, but he actually arranged the works of Mozart and other classical composers for guitar, something that had never been done before ... Segovias' style is not slick or contrived, but it's still very clean and his timing is impeccable ... it's got a feeling of casual elegance, as if he's sitting around the house in Spain with a jug of wine, just playing from the heart. — Roger McGuinn

Mozart in his music was probably the most reasonable of the world's great composers. It is the happy balance between flight and control, between sensibility and self-discipline, simplicity and sophistication of style that is his particular province ... Mozart tapped once again the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breath-taking rightness that has never since been duplicated. — Aaron Copland

No matter what though, there's always rock & roll. There's rock 'n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock & roll in pop music, there's rock 'n' roll in soul, there's rock 'n' roll in country. When you see people dress and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock & roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star. — John Varvatos

I think the biggest influence for me is when I hear a great piece of music, whatever the style, I'm kind of inspired by that greatness and I'm inspired to try and obtain something that comes close to that greatness. — Paul Weller

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

In order for a musician to grow, he's got to pay his dues. Some musicians ask me, 'well, what do you mean? You're saying I have to 'starve' and pay all these dues just to play jazz?' And my answer to them is, well, to some degree, yes! Because in order to play jazz you have to live it. Those notes mean something. They don't just come from your brain, they come from your heart and soul too. And in order to have that heart and soul you have to experience life. So I relate my music to my life and my life style. You can't separate the two. — Woody Shaw

For me, music and life are all about style. — Miles Davis

For me, even if I'm not a fan of the band in general or maybe it's not the style of music I want to put on for my daughter and me when we're waking up in the morning, there's always something that I can learn from it. And I think those are the things that are surprising. — Jon Foreman

Personally, I love the cookie monster grunts. I like how they alienate listeners. We sound the way we sound. We're individuals. We don't all like the same music. Everybody contributes their own influences, style, and history. — David Pajo

Everybody wants to know about my style and how it came about. It's no big secret. It's the way I feel. — Ella Fitzgerald

I think my style is quite grungy and punky. I love the '90s and the music from that time, and I love punk music. I'm also a fan of mixing vintage with some high fashion, which links back to my musical taste because I tend to mix old music with newer songs. — Chelsea Leyland

It is really amazing to be able to do cinematic, big feature style film music on a weekly basis and do it in LA, on a big scoring stage, on a studio lot, and do it with the right players and make it sound great. — Christopher Lennertz

I always wanted to make a cover album consisting of obscure psychedelic music from the 1960s - all re-shaped and customized, Ulver style. — Kristoffer Rygg

I've stopped showing actors what to actually do. I rather just talk to them about it. Then I usually play music. That's a great way to convey inner emotion, bring the power of style and acting together. That's really what it is, very good acting without talking. — Nicolas Winding Refn

There's so much music out there, and so many different styles that I've been influenced by, so each album reflects some of that knowledge or influence that I've had. — John Legend

I wanted to give people a taste of my own music through the sound and style of my covers. — Birdy

Christina Aguilera has her own style, so good on her. I don't think anyone's every told her to put on some leather chaps and get her noonie out. She's an amazing singer but a lot of her music I can't even hear. — Amy Winehouse

It's true that I tend to daydream. I'm the same person in business as I am in music: I can be distracted and absentminded. It's my style. — Gordon Getty

I love to perform not only music, but to make performances extremely visual, and create almost a magical fantasy. It's really an uplifting style of art that combines visuals and music in very dreamlike ways. — Lindsey Stirling

The things I see every day inspire my sound and lyrics, like certain people and situations that stick out in my mind. There are also certain musicians I love whose music and styles inspire me. — Birdy

Most people think its sex, money, and drugs but Hip-Hop is about lyrics, storytelling, and everybody having a different style. That's just another idea of beautiful, being yourself and creating music that represents you and what you like. — Rapsody

My daughter Meredith Moon from my second wife has a band that does Appalachian music, with five-strong banjo, clawhammer style. I may have to direct her somewhere. Meredith was my middle name. I would have to direct her because I am always directing something. She's in the musician's union and she is only 21. Your kids surprise you. — Gordon Lightfoot

I didn't want to make a record that's just drones or completely experimental. A lot of the time bands that make this psychedelic style of music are just a bunch of dudes hanging out together and jamming. — Tamaryn

The realm of classical music is so vast - not only in terms of style but of era, age and the purposes for which it was composed - it is an enormous art form. — David Finckel

Dad had a music store, and he'd often bring home comedy albums that I would listen to. I started listening to Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby, and developing taste. They really influenced my style of comedy. — Billy Crystal

I hear it still. As I lay down my pen and take to my bed, I am aware of the bow being drawn across the bridge and the music rises into the night sky. It is far away and barely audible - but there it is! A pizzicato. Then a tremelo. The style is unmistakable. It is Sherlock Holmes who is playing. It must be. I hope with all my heart that he is playing for me ... — Anthony Horowitz

I got so much love for classical music and I hear so much incredible music.You should know a bunch of music and have respect for all sorts of genres and styles of music. — Bruno Mars

I'm not just influenced by the '60s - it's who I am. I grew up with Allen Ginsberg and Che Guevara. I flirted with various forms of communism when it was way out of style. It was this really strange and creative time in music and culture, and it was fabulous. — Thom Mayne

I just love music, and I'm not as genre specific as most songwriters. A lot of my buddies just listen to country, or just Americana, or whatever their style is, and I just listen to everything. — Kevin Fowler

My [singing] style really has no style, because I try to sing each number differently. I've always believed that if style takes precedent over the words and music, the audience get's cheated. It's like when people see a fine play or movie. They imagine themselves in the leading role. I want them to imagine that they're singing - not just listening to someone else. — Judy Garland

I love Drake
he is very talented and I like his effortless attitude in terms of his style and music. — Italo Zucchelli

Everyone has their own sound, and if you're heard enough, folks will come to recognize it. Style however, is a different thing. Try to express your own ideas. It's much more difficult to do, but the rewards are there if you're good enough to pull it off ... — Chet Atkins

I've lived in N.Y. and L.A. for many years, but I still gravitate to New Orleans - it's so unique and so European. There's nothing else like it in the country. It has its own music, its own food, its own style and its own way of life. — Bryan Batt

Music and literature, the two temporal arts, contrive their pattern of sounds in time; or, in other words, of sounds and pauses. Communication may be made in broken words, the business of life be carried on with substantives alone; but that is not what we call literature; and the true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, involving it around itself; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve and clear itself.
-ON SOME TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LITERATURE — Robert Louis Stevenson

It's very strange how electronic music formatted itself and forgot that its roots are about the surprise, freedom, and the acceptance of every race, gender, and style of music into this big party. Instead, it started to become this electronic lifestyle which also involved the glorification of technology. — Thomas Bangalter

I was in rock music in London when it was the height of Brit pop, with The Kinks revival and Suede and Blur and Oasis, and all of those really great bands that were of a certain style. If I'd really been smart and commercially minded, I would have just got myself a blazer and some Stay Press and some Fred Perry tops, and just gone out and tried to do it like everyone else. Instead, I did this ridiculous thing of trying to do this music. — Gavin Rossdale

We have quite a large area, and that makes it more fun for us - certainly more satisfying, because it doesn't restrict us to one particular idea or one particular style. The result, I think, is pretty interesting ... we don't expect to make a fortune at it or ever be popular or famous or worshipped or hit The Ed Sullivan Show or the circuses or the big top. As long as we can play, we'll play, regardless of what it's for, who it's for or anything. It's fun for us - that's the important thing. — Jerry Garcia

I basically taught myself how to DJ, but I've been inspired by DJs throughout my whole career. I have some good friends that would hook us up with music. You learn some little things here and there from each DJ and you just take it and put your own style into to it. — Pauly D

You know what it is, the reason so many 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds are saying 'Drive' is their favorite movie is that 'Drive' is a 90-minute trip into what a lot of seventies filmmaking was. It encapsulates the best of a certain kind of style, and a style that a lot of people haven't seen before, with the music and the way it's edited. — Albert Brooks

Styx has their own style of music, and I think that's justifiable, the same way that Asia and Yes have had - Yes particularly has a unique style that seems to have transcended all styles of music for 43 years. — Geoff Downes

I liked experimenting with a lot of different styles. So, it always saddens me when I see young people, or even older people for that matter, who are limited to one specific type of music. They don't really allow themselves to experience so many types of music out there that are so wonderful to listen to. And there's good parts and bad parts, I guess, to all of them. — Travis Tritt

It's hard to view myself sometimes as even in the same league as other musicians, mainly because there's so much music before me. I feel overinformed by different styles and different possibilities. — Ryan Adams

I would say that I'm a really eclectic music lover, so I love the fact that one month I will be doing one kind of music and the next month I will be doing something very different and I think that really works for me in terms of my own personal tastes and styles. — Christopher Lennertz

I've been able to have broad kind of education and all sorts of different music and a lot of kind of films and also different styles and genres. And so, all of these things have influenced me along the way and I take a little bit from everything I do. I've been lucky to work with a lot of great people and learn from them. — Steven Price

The elements of voice and style are braided together like twine, consisting of these attempts to copy other artists, or an instrument, or even the sound of a bird or passing train. Added to these characteristics are emotions and thoughts that register as various vocal quirks, like hiccups, sighs, growls, warbles - a practically limitless assortment of choices. Most of these choices are made at the speed of sound on a subconscious level, or one would be completely overwhelmed by the task. — Linda Ronstadt

My mom is a painter and an artist. She would play music, and she always had very good taste in music, fashion, and art. She was also a young single mom, so I think she had really good style; she was really free ... just really inspiring in her own way and allowed me to find the direction I wanted to take in my life. — Ruby Rose

I play American and World music, Texas style. — Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

As I've gotten old I've really listened to a wide spectrum of music, whether it's The Carpenters, Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z or Lauryn Hill. I've kinda' run the gamut, and in listening to so many different styles, you come to take bits and pieces from all of it. — Brooklyn Sudano

Pop music can absorb so many peculiar talents, ranging from the completely nonmusical poseur who just uses music as a kind of springboard for a sense of style, to people who just love putting all that complicated stuff together, brick by brick, on their computers, to people like me who like playing conceptual games and being surprised. — Brian Eno