Pop Rock Music Quotes & Sayings

Punk was sort of an angry stance against things that had happened just before, against the pop of glam rock, against progressive rock. Music had become very staid and it was about the playing and people obsessed. Eric Clapton was God and we needed an enema within the art form, and punk did do that. — Gary Kemp

Times were changing in the world of id. They had finally fired Jason, narrowing the group to Carmack, Romero, Adrian, and Tom. But something else was in the air. The Reagan-Bush era was finally coming to a close and a new spirit rising. It began in Seattle, where a sloppily dressed grunge rock trio called Nirvana ousted Michael Jackson from the top of the pop charts with their album Nevermind. Soon grunge and hip-hop were dominating the world with more brutal and honest views. Id was braced to do for games what those artists had done for music: overthrow the status quo. Games until this point had been ruled by their own equivalent of pop, in the form of Mario and Pac-Man. Unlike music, the software industry had never experienced anything as rebellious as Wolfenstein 3-D. The — David Kushner

There's rock n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock n' 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 n' roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star, you know? — John Varvatos

Everything is starting to make a little more sense to me now. I love the idea that, first of all when I made the record I don't look at the music by classifying it. People have a problem classifying me as pop, or rock, or folk, or alt. The beauty for me is that a thirteen year old girl can fall in love with the record and so can her mom. I tend to gravitate towards artists that are timeless and don't sound dated. — Courtney Jaye

The music we made then was so amateurish, compared to the rest of mainstream pop or rock and roll. But what differentiated us from what everybody else was doing in the business was the fact that you could tell that these people came from different reference areas. — Kevin Ayers

Now my music is kind of pop-rock, right? If I'm 25 and singing still, I don't want to be singing music like that. — Hilary Duff

That's the beautiful thing about the saxophone. It can peacefully coexist with just about anything - whether it's hip-hop, rap, rock music, pop, R&B or jazz, there's a place for the saxophone in all of those styles. — Dave Koz

I listen to a wide range of music, from country to pop to alternative rock, as well as Indian music. You know, what excites me are new ideas. And with a lot of the international hits - from Lady Gaga to Rihanna and others - you'd find excellent production and groundbreaking ideas that lift the music to a greater realm. — Shreya Ghoshal

I don't want to pooh-pooh modern pop. I appreciate that as well, but my personal favorite kind of music is guitar-based rock. I like grunge and garage bands and alternative music, but that's more my personal taste. — Al Yankovic

I think of rock 'n' roll as a combination of country blues and swing band music, not Chicago blues, and modern pop. — Bob Dylan

My music has always been sort of in between categories. Sometimes record stores - back when there were record stores - they'd put my records in the country music section, but other record stores would put my records in the pop or even the rock section. As long as it's in the store somewhere, I'm OK with it. — Lyle Lovett

I think Lady Gaga is great and is changing pop music and bringing back a certain rock 'n' roll spirit, swagger to the game. — Adam Lambert

liked the idea of using pop bubblegum music, rock 'n' roll for 14-year-olds. That's what I grew up with as a teen in the '70s. And I thought it's a great ironic counterpoint to the roughness and rudeness and disturbing nature of the film to have this 'What's wrong with this picture?' music playing along with it. — Richard V. Greene

We love all kinds of music: We love pop music, we love rock music, we love R & B and country, and we just pull from all our influences. So I don't really take offense as long as people are coming out to the shows and buying the records and becoming fans of the music. At the end of the day, the music is what's gonna speak to you. — Charles Kelley

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

In Nashville, there is a historic tendency to work the lyric to death while settling for music that works. In pop or rock, it can be the other way around. — Michael Kosser

The biggest question I have is if you're a rock singer or a rock 'n' roll band, or if you're a pop singer ... if you've made your way in another genre of music and now you want to make a country record, why? That's my question. Why? — Joe Nichols

It's an honor for me to close out Mysteryland. In American music history this is hallowed ground. I think electronic music has a lot in common with the spirit of rock and roll and what Woodstock had going on at the time. We are kind of the new kids on the block and this music isn't accepted by everyone so we are still kind of getting into pop culture and I think its appropriate that this festival is here and kicking down the door. — Kaskade

If anyone asks you what kind of music you play, tell him 'pop.' Don't tell him 'rock'n'roll' or they won't even let you in the hotel. — Buddy Holly

Pop stardom is not very compelling. I'm much more interested in a relationship between performer and audience that is of equals. I came up through folk music, and there's no pomp and circumstance to the performance. There's no, like, 'I'll be the rock star, you be the adulating fan.' — Ani DiFranco

And I like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All pop music today-jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones, rock and roll, hip hop and on and on- is derived from the blues. — Kurt Vonnegut

inquiries. You will feel it in the music and cherish it as the most magical part of the jazz idiom. If you don't, you can always leave the jazz club and check out a rock or pop covers band. That's perfect entertainment for people who want to live in the realm of perfect replication. Jazz, in — Ted Gioia

I explored rock culture and what the guitar can do though people like Jimmy Page and John McLaughlin, and the music moves away from pop. — Johnny Marr

The music that I have always liked has always been more rooted in anger or sadness or alienation or any of those inspirational factors that drove rock'n'roll, gospel, and blues. I tend not to value a more pop aesthetic. — DJ Shadow

To us, it's vey natural. Initially, it sounded kind of strange to people, because it is different to put traditional Irish music in a pop and rock mode. But they get used to it
it is our sound. — Andrea Corr

Traveling all over the country and all over the world, I think you've got a lot of pop acts and a lot of rock acts that are making a point of traveling to different places and making people aware of their music and their shows and the whole deal and I think country music has always sort of stayed, for the most part, in the states. — Jason Aldean

I like pop music. I consider rock 'n' roll to be a branch of pop music. — Tom Stoppard

The music of the westerner comes from Africa, whether they like it or not. The majority of the instruments of the music, of the pop music, rock and roll, or R&B, hip hop, whatever it is, their roots trace back to Africa. So if you are black, white, yellow, or red, whatever you do, it doesn't matter, because your DNA is back in Africa. — Angelique Kidjo

This is just the way it goes: there's always a cycle with music - it goes up and it goes down, it goes risque and it goes back, it goes loud then it goes soft, then it goes rock and it goes pop. — Suzi Quatro

It's nice that psychedelic music is kind of a buzzword. When I started with Vincent Black Shadow, stoner-rock was getting big, but it was more of a riff-oriented thing. Now people are starting to get into the 60's-Pink Floyd-acid-pop viewpoint. — Mike Romano

Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it's not OK, but you can change it. — Bono

Stylistically speaking I would put us in the pop/rock vein. Although our songs tend to have a darker or moodier current running through them than usual pop/rock. I would say our music is very honest. We're not trying to be anybody or anything for anyone — Sherri DuPree

My faith plays a big part in who I am: a Christian guy playing pop-rock music. I'm in a pop-rock band, not a Christian band. — Nick Jonas

I think a great artist should be able to create any style, any form, anything from rock to pop to gospel to spiritual, just wonderful music where everybody can sing it ... — Michael Jackson

Composers don't just sit in a room and write things that are in their heads, they actually listen to a lot of music, pop music, jazz, rock and roll, any combination of music that catches their ear. — Hilary Hahn

I've always been much more of a guitar picker, but I began to feel forced into a position of being the epitome of a rock & roll guitarist. Originally, TYA wanted to make it without having to compromise to pop. It worked for a while, but after five or six years, the fun went out of it for me; a lot of the music went out of it. — Alvin Lee

As a kid, my parents had the typical stuff going on in the home, like Bee Gees, The Carpenters. Then I got exposed to what my brothers were listening to: a lot of classic rock, Led Zeppelin. It was around the mid-'80s when the whole Electro-Techno-Pop-House music thing started happening in Chicago. — Kaskade

The weirdest thing I've been fascinated with nowadays is the new contemporary country music, which to me sounds like very strange '70s pop, and sometimes like rock music. But some of the themes in there - maybe it's because I know how the songs were written, but it really does sound like it was written by two or three people, with the idea to appeal to the most general audience. — Ryan Adams

The female rock-'n'-roll-country-pop songwriter is back, and her name is Taylor Swift. And it's women like her who are going to save the music business. — Stevie Nicks

Everybody was sorta going to sleep twards the end of 1983, and I felt that they had to be woken up! — Morrissey

[H]e asked Renee, "What does rock and roll have today that it didn't have in the sixties?" Renee said, "Tits," which in retrospect strikes me as not a bad one-word off-the-dome answer at all. The nineties fad for indie rock overlapped precisely with the nineties fad for feminism. The idea of a pop culture that was pro-girl, or even just not anti-girl
that was a 1990s mainstream dream, rather than a 1980s or 2000s one, and it was real for a while. Music was not just part of it but leading the way
hard to believe, hard even to remember. But some of us do. — Rob Sheffield

You have a lot of educating to do hip-hop wise in Europe. When you tour, when you go out there, most of the people that come see you at the venue listen to a lot of different kinds of music, not only hip-hop; they're not heads. From time to time you're going to do a little concert in front of three or four hundred people that are only hip-hop heads and they're going to understand and know all about the gimmicks and the swagger but the rest of the people are just regular European people that listen to pop [or] rock & roll. — K-Maro

I was drawn to love songs, but I was just drawn to great music - no matter if it's hip-hop, pop, R&B or whether it's rock n' roll or country. It could be a Garth Brooks song, and if it's a smash, then I'll love the different wordplay and different melodies. That's what I'm a fan of - great music. — Nayvadius Cash

I grew up with rock and pop music from the 70s and 80s. I had to play guitar in school - it was a music college and we had to take instrument classes there - so I think guitar playing and guitar sounds have always been an influence. — Christian Fennesz

I listen to a lot of crazy stuff like pop, techno, rock, hip-hop, rap, baladas, bachata ... my iPod is crazy. I like listening to a lot of stuff in different languages, so my music is always out there for me. — Prince Royce

I really do listen to all types of music, not only rock, but everything from good pop music - which is usually older pop music - to R&B and indie rock. I love indie rock more than a lot of the commercial stuff that you'd expect. — Amy Lee

There's room for everyone. There's room for pop country, for 'rock & roll' country, for stone-cold country, and everything in-between. Great music is great music. — Miranda Lambert

With a pop album you can listen to one or two songs from it, but a music album is really an experience. It's not something a whole lot of rock bands do. — Dylan Baldi

In the '60s, people were still very protective of each field that they belonged to. Avant-garde artists didn't know about rock or pop or jazz. And the jazz people of course didn't want to know about any other music. They were all just kind of protecting their territory. — Yoko Ono

I grew up listening to Switchfoot. I love Switchfoot; they're a great band. John Foreman is awesome. I really dig mainstream pop music, but I also have a heart for jazz and rock. Oh! Coldplay! I cannot miss Coldplay! I think 'Fix You' is one of the most brilliantly written songs ever. It's, like, my favorite song of all time. — Shane Harper

I think we as a band, as individuals, understand that all popular music stems from blues and jazz and even pop, but rock 'n' roll especially comes from blues. — David Johansen

Pop music has progressed. The singing voice has changed dramatically in pop music, and people now just sing the way they want to, in their speaking voice, instead of putting on some great transatlantic rock and roll sneer. — Steven Morrissey

We're a gumbo of American music, and aren't ashamed to play pop or soul or rock because we all grew up on radio. — Jonathan Cain

Hip-hop is mostly what I listen to, other than jazz. I've given up on pop music and indie rock. — Jess Row

Rock and roll by its nature is sexual. So girls playing rock and roll is saying to the world, "We own our sexuality." I think that pop music is sort of about "you can do what you want to me" kind of energy, while rock and roll is "I'm going to do what I want to you" kind of energy. — Joan Jett

You certainly don't hear any country music on pop radio today. But for a while you did, and it was a lovely thing to have all the different genres of music cohabitating the Top 40 - the folk sound, The Beatles, the British sound, the Motown sounds, that kind of light country - it was a welcome relief after a few hard rock records. Everyone was sharing the airwaves, and I think it was a beautiful time for American music. — Jimmy Webb

In pop music, you say, 'You can do what you want to me.' Rock 'n' roll says, 'I'm gonna do what I want to you.' — Joan Jett

I grew up listening to all kinds of music, everything from country to rock, pop, R&B and even rap, so for me, music is music and a great song is a great song. — Jason Aldean

Every time I finish a song ... most of the time it's in my own head, like this sounds too much like a Townes Van Zandt song, or whoever. I realize there are so many melodies and chord progressions in pop and rock music that are so similar that you can kind of trace it back to other things. Most of the time it's just in your head. — Conor Oberst

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

'Punk rock' is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies, the bodies, the hearts, the souls, the time and the minds of young men who give everything they have to it. — Iggy Pop

Latin music has many international influences - pop, rock, country, Brazilian sounds, and alternative styles. — Ednita Nazario

From the beginning, I've always had a knack for catchy melodies. But I went through a period when I was trying to be rock n' roll and have a rock n' roll attitude. I was fighting my nature by trying to play really hard and sing really hard. But at a certain point, I realized that I loved syrupy pop music with tons of harmony. — Juliana Hatfield

I've always liked pop music. There was a bit of a misunderstanding with the avant-garde rock scene, because I think I was sort of swimming the wrong way, really. — Robert Wyatt

There's a great energy and drive that takes precedence in a lot of rock and pop. It's about making a strong visceral connection. That's something that I think great classical music can have, too. — Joshua Roman

The whole thing about rock music, pop music, is it's really for kids. — Juliana Hatfield

I felt that the elegance of pop music was that it was reflective: we were holding up a mirror to our audience and reflecting them philosophically and spiritually, rather than just reflecting society or something called 'rock and roll.' — Pete Townshend

As hard as it is, as ghetto as it is, hip-hop is pop music. It's the sound of music getting out of the ghetto, while rock is looking for a ghetto. — Bono

It was around this time that I'd begun trying to perfect the art of fucking with people's minds. I'd figured out that when someone else was hogging the limelight, you could cut him down to size by bringing up a subject he didn't know anything about. If the other person knew a lot about literature, I'd talk about the Velvet Underground; if he knew a lot about rock, I'd talk about Messiaen; if he knew a lot about classical music, I'd talk about Roy Lichtenstein; if he knew a lot about pop art, I'd talk about Jean Genet; and so on. Do that in a small provincial city and you never lose an argument. — Ryu Murakami

The Beatles and Ray Charles were in the same charts together, and that was just called pop music - it wasn't called soul or rock. The best pop music just stands out as something that's just original, and I think it should all be called pop again. — Eliza Doolittle

I'm a businesswoman. I am a music lover. I like for people to like my music. When you listen to top 40 radio, you hear pop stuff. You hear rock stuff. You hear all these different influences. — Lee Ann Womack

I like all kinds of music - classical, pop, rock, electronic. — Ha-Joon Chang

I actually do see rock and roll as pop music. I think the distinction I was making was that I was going out of my way to have a very consistent approach to production, where nothing kind of punctures the reality - or, I guess, the fake reality - of the album and what you're listening to from beginning to end. — Dan Bejar

People who love R&B will love my music, people who love rock will love my music. It's soulful, it's pop. It's a sound that relates to everyone. — Jessica White

I listen to all those kinds of music, from classic soul to hip-hop to Brazilian music to, you know, jazz to indie to alternative. So whatever. I listen to all if it. Classic rock and classic pop, all of that. — John Legend

Anti-parent music seems to be all the pop-rock market wants. — Amity Shlaes

The classical music industry, has been an industry of covers. So we do covers, and if I compare this with the rock and pop side, what is the most exciting event? — Esa-Pekka Salonen

Slade was never pretentious. It was just music to them. Pop, rock, soul ... it was all the same to Slade. They wrote great songs. And, besides, I'd like to raid their wardrobe. — Noel Gallagher

You know, just because you think bubblegum pop on the radio represents all that is wrong with society, that doesn't mean there's not someone out there who needs that shitty pop song. Maybe that shitty pop song makes them feel good, about themselves and the world. And as long as that shitty pop song doesn't infringe upon your rights to rock out to, I don't know, Subway Sect, or Siouxsie and the Banshees, or whichever old-ass band it is you worship, then who cares? — Hannah Harrington

It came from my mother. She was a singer, and literally every day of the week she sang at a different club in a different genre of music: country, R&B clubs, jazz clubs, church on Sunday morning where she was the music director, pop hits, soft rock. I grew up listening to all this music, so it was never one thing for me. — Robert Glasper

When I hear the name Michael Jackson, I think of brilliance, of dazzling stars, lasers and deep emotions. I think he is one of the world's biggest and greatest stars, and it just so happens that he is one of the most gifted music makers the world has ever known. I think he is one of the finest people to hit this planet, and, in my estimation, he is the true King of Pop, Rock, and Soul. I love you Michael. — Elizabeth Taylor

What I love about '80s rock music is the amazing, fantastic melodies. In pop music, it's all about the techno beat to dance to in the club and the repetitiveness, whereas in rock music there is literally, like, balls-to-the-wall singing and playing. I love it. — Julianne Hough

My influences are jazz, blues, European classical music; they are rock music and pop music. So many kinds of music. World music from different countries like India and China. I think that would be a shame not to take advantage and do something ... not unique, because I don't have this pretension. — Rokia Traore

For the longest time I was brought up listening to only two genres of music, pop and rock. So in the past few years I've been trying to expand my interests because I think that you can only write to the extent of your knowledge, and if your knowledge is limited you can't write past that. — Jacqueline Emerson

I started playing guitar at the age of 8 or 9 years. Very early, and I was like already into pop music and was just trying to copy what I heard on the radio. And at a very early age I started experimenting with old tape recorders from my parents. I was 11 or 12 at that time and then when I was like 14 or 15 I had a punk band. I made all the classic rock musician's evolutions and then in the early nineties I bought my first sampler and that is how I got into electronic music, because I was able to produce it on my own. That was quite a relief. — Christian Fennesz

New Age is a very small box. It was a term that was brought in by the music industry to classify music that is neither jazz, classical, pop or rock. They didn't know what to call it or what to do with it. So they threw it all together under this one name. — Yanni

I have truly eclectic taste in music, and I seem to cycle through phases in terms of to what's inspiring me. I'll go from Beethoven to Sigur Ros; world music, Brit-pop, classic rock, blues/jazz, even the odd bit of heavy metal. — Rachel Miner

I'd call my music rock but with pop hooks. — Taylor Momsen

After the shooting of John Lennon and the early death of so many great stars and the utter naked venal mercantile marketing of pop music and rock music, I don't think anyone really believes that music is anything more than another commodity. — Stephen Fry

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

You think that drinking with a serial killer takes you into the midnight currents of the culture? I say bullshit. There's been twelve TV documentaries, three movies and eight books about me. I'm more popular than any of these designed-by-pedophile pop moppets littering the music television and the gossip columns. I've killed more people than Paris Hilton has desemenated, I was famous before she was here and I'll be famous after she's gone. I am the mainstream. I am, in fact, the only true rock star of the modern age. Every newspaper in America never fails to report on my comeback tours, and I get excellent reviews. — Warren Ellis

The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind ... The way that Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind, and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock'n'roll for ever and ever. — Bruce Springsteen

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