Rock Genre Quotes & Sayings

Rock n' roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community. — Steven Van Zandt

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

Gospel was the root of everything in my house, so there's a touch of that in everything that I do. If soul counts as a genre, I would also say that's the common thread throughout everything I do. There's rock and soul influence, too. The pop element comes at the very end and making the song catchy so people will remember it. — Tori Kelly

When I began to cover songs for YouTube, they all tended to be in the super pop-genre.. as in, smash-hit songs. My writing process was heavily influenced by this - I went from a more heavy punk rock style to straight up sugary-sweet pop. — Alex Goot

RJD was pretty much heavy metal personified, a tiny 5-foot-4-inch sorcerer with a mangy mane, demonic eyes and sly grin, all coupled to a simply huge, operatic voice, a diminutive powerhouse who prowled the stage like a feline elf and who was, it turns out, also finely intelligent and well spoken, an actual gentleman in a genre known all too well for its bombastic, monosyllabic doltbuckets. A rare thing indeed. — Mark Morford

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

Hardcore without punk isn't music, it's a genre of porn. And punk isn't a genre of music, it's a thought process. — Dominic Owen Mallary

I'm a hybrid-genre person, which a lot of people find confusing. I grew up listening to American country music and rock n' roll made between 1955 and 1959. The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry were my first musical loves and are still what I am most moved by. Roy Orbison came a little bit later. — Teddy Thompson

I've never recognized 'emo' as a genre of music. I always thought it was the most retarded term ever. I know there is this generic commonplace that every band that gets labeled with that term hates it. They feel scandalized by it. But honestly, I just thought that all the bands I played in were punk rock bands. The reason I think it's so stupid is that - what, like the Bad Brains weren't emotional? What - they were robots or something? It just doesn't make any sense to me. — Guy Picciotto

Sixties folk rock was my original muse and the folk audience-people who listen to music off the beaten track-fostered my career. I definitely don't want to abandon the genre but I also need to make sure I'm Dar Williams first. — Dar Williams

A lot of singers find a musical genre people like and stick with it. That's being a conformist. I sing ballads, rock, salsa, rap. — Thalia

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

I am genuinely into soul, R&B and hip hop - all these genres that get slapped under the 'soul' genre. That spoke to me more than it did to my punk-rock friends. And punk spoke more to me than it did to my soul friends. I basically didn't fit comfortably in either world. — Patrick Stump

If Music is a Place
then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple. — Vera Nazarian

A live performance is the same no matter what genre it is. Wrestling, rock 'n roll, hosting, acting - it's the same thing. — Chris Jericho

When I was a kid, you listened to a certain genre. Now it's like, "I love indie rock, I love hip-hop, jazz, funk." Also, we knew it couldn't be the same thing each year. — Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Everything changes in every genre, whether it's pop, rock or country. — Mary Chapin Carpenter

I've always found that whatever you say about indie rock, it is the most inclusive genre or title for anything. It doesn't pin you down too much, like other labels would. It's just newer, it has less baggage. I'm happy to be in that category. — Andrew Bird

Basically, this industry is mostly run by men, and I think women have a harder time ... I've had enough of the "Women in Rock" issues of magazines and all of that. There's no reason why we should have our own separate little genre; that's just ridiculous. Besides, what is the genre? I certainly don't fit into the whole "Lilith" thing (thank God), but I am a female musician. And there are enough other great females in music that don't have to fit into it, either. — Princess Superstar

I've always been a prog rock fanatic, even before Vengeance. However I think I started to love the genre with Pink Floyd, yeah. I love them from the very beginning, also the Syd Barrett era. — Arjen Anthony Lucassen

Every time a new rock singer comes out they don't say, 'Are you the new John Lennon?' Every time a new rapper comes out, it's not, 'Are you the new Dre?' I am never sure why this sort of genre, the categorization is so strong. I have not earned the right to be called the young Sinatra, but give me time. — Michael Buble

I can't tell you what genre Maroon 5 is in. I don't know if they're rock or pop or alternative. I don't know what they are. I have a hard time separating that stuff. I just know what I like when I hear it. — Blake Shelton

A lot of people are surprised by my love of heavy metal. I fell in love with heavy metal almost before any other genre. One of the first concerts I went to was a Donnington Monsters Of Rock concert. — Jamie Cullum

I get most of my inspiration from two places: my own life, and reading. I read widely - in my genre (romance), and in all sorts of different genres, from urban fantasy to literature. Then there's your own life. Romance is a fantasy genre, but if the rock core of your characters doesn't come from your own life, from emotions you know intimately, the book won't fly. I don't mean you have to be married to Casanova - I mean that a heroine will feel genuine to readers if she shares some of your fears or triumphs. Craft the emotional part of the plot from truths you learned from your own life, from watching your friends' lives, or from reading books. — Eloisa James

Humor, drama, romance, whatever genre of entertainment you create or consume is only effective if it is challenging to your sensibilities. When the sexuality of seeing a woman's ankles became trumped by her calf, society changed. When the calf was later trumped by a woman offering shots of alcohol from her vagina on Rock of Love, society changed again. My hope for this world is that we can soon run out of shocking body parts and can finally see the humor in our aetheric bodies. — Christy Leigh Stewart

Everyone's been on the "hip-hop is dead" campaign for years, and now it's the most unsure-of-itself genre ever. — Aesop Rock

My goal is to always contribute a part of myself to my music that will result in it sounding authentic, timeless, and real. I feel that this truly comes across in my new album, which is in the Rock genre. — Wendy Starland

Like almost all of Beefheart's recorded work, [Trout Mask Replica] was not even "ahead" of its time in 1969. Then and now, it stands outside time, trends, fads, hypes, the rise and fall of whole genres eclectic as walking Christmas trees, constituting a genre unto itself: truly, a musical Monolith if ever there was one. — Lester Bangs

There are all the offsprings of people who are influenced by punk. It sounds completely different - but it's still rock 'n' roll. When hip-hop came on the scene, it was the last legitimate creation of a new genre. — El-P

One of the mistakes I made was believing that the rock n' roll genre as a genre was much more free than the whole pop or R&B scene. — Joan Jett

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

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 don't like rock. Honestly, I like to listen to it, but it's not for me. There's a lot of musical genres that I find interesting, but they don't suit me. It's one thing to listen to different genres, but to perform a genre that isn't yours is counterproductive. — Luis Miguel

For me, where genre ends and literature begins doesn't matter. What matters is whether a given novel hits me with high impact. If it does, it probably is fulfilling the purpose of fiction. It has drawn me into a story world, held me captive, taken me on a journey with characters like none I've ever met, revealed truths I've somehow always known and insights that rock my brain. It's filled me with awe, which is to say it's made me see the familiar in a wholly new way and made the unfamiliar a foundational part of me. It both entertains and matters. It both captures our age and becomes timelessly great. It does all that with the sturdy tools of story and the flair of narrative art. — Donald Maass

People are very adamant about maintaining a certain sound or a certain era, like, "There were three years of rap that were great, so let's just keep doing that." The genre itself is just stuck in place. It's been treading water for a while. — Aesop Rock