Top 115 Recordings Quotes

Singles needed to come back. And what I tried to do in my online experiment was to change the rules for myself and make available at a more regular pace the fruits of my labour, for people who decided they wanted to support my recordings.

DUST includes rarities, demos, unreleased songs and instrumentals, live recordings, and more.

Orphans, dead parents, lonely children at Christmas, morose spoken word recordings, everything you love about the holidays. Move the turkey over so you can fit your head in the oven.

I’m always on the prowl for the kinds of recordings that can inspire and potentially make a difference.

As I started to study old blues recordings and really pay attention to my favorites, it really started to come to me that all of my favorite pieces of music weren’t produced, they were performed. The producer is nearly invisible: no thumbprint other than the composition and the performers.

I like to collaborate with other people for studio recordings because I believe collaboration, in any form, makes music better.

One of the greatest live recordings, I think, in the history of the world is Ray Charles in Atlanta… And they didn’t even have a big mobile recording thing set up. The word on the street was they only had like two microphones, one for the band and one for him. Perfect recordings. I think it’s mono.

Most of my recorded material has been in small group configurations. I have not released large orchestral works as recordings because it hasn’t been within the realm of possibility.

I don’t listen to recordings of my songs. I don’t avoid it, I just don’t go out of my way to do it.

My favorite song as a boy was definitely ‘Downtown’ recorded by Petula Clark. I still love it! And the original cast recording of ‘Gypsy’; I played my mother’s cast recordings until there was no vinyl left.

Well, in the sense that we do not tour or record together anymore – then I suppose not. But if our old recordings get heard more we shall be delighted.

I didn’t make my first solo record until 1981 so I don’t have any 60’s or 70’s recordings but I am working on a large boxed set called DUST to be released next year, the 20th anniversary of my first solo record.

People become so deeply attached to the sound of one period that they blow a fuse when you move on. I’ve heard people complain bitterly about recordings they haven’t even heard.

I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.

The thing to remember when you’re re-recording pieces from the past is that you have to have respect for the original performances, recordings, and arrangements.

My dad documented my whole life on video and there are so many recordings of my sister and I dancing and singing along to Michael Jackson’s music.

You just go where poetry is, whether it’s in your heart or your mind or in books or in places where there’s live poetry or recordings.

I love the excess of Christmas. The shopping season that begins in September, the bad pop star recordings of Christmas carols, the decorations that don’t know when to come down.

As for song recordings – well, that’s something that just happens. I’ve been working with music directors like Harris Jeyaraj sir, A. R. Rahman sir, and the experience is great.

In some of the greatest recordings ever made, the performance is a part of the recording. Dylan’s ‘Rainy Day Women No. 12 and 35’ is all about the esthetic of that performance. You can hear the room.

I had some really early recordings when I was 16 or 17. I was rapping over jungle beats with my friends. We used to do pirate radio stations in my area, down near Brighton. They were pretty terrible.

If I think about the way I was drawn into the music, it was much more by recordings than by live performances.

Quite honestly, if I were doing work related to a living being or historical being where there was visual or audio recordings available, I would find that extremely difficult because I don’t know how you would avoid the process of mimicry. And mimicry, to me at any rate, is a very dull prospect.

Our recordings, you feel that it’s been, not labored, but you feel that it’s been constructed in a way where sometimes it’s hard for us to create the feeling that this was done in a room.

I don’t believe that recordings should sound radically better than the artist, I think that’s dishonest. For example, I’m not a great singer but if I spent enough time tweaking my vocals, I could sound like one. But I don’t, what you hear is pretty much what I sing.

I take photos, I used to make films, I journal incessantly, and I really value the documentation of life. Because it’s almost like you are making something special by wanting to make it exist in an object – on paper or even just in the computer – making these recordings, making this music.

HeyHey is my favourite app. It’s like Instagram but for sound recordings, with little soundbites from people’s days. We spend far too much time looking down at our phones, so it’s nice to have your head up while you listen to what other people have uploaded.

I used to think that all great recordings happened at about 3 A.M.

I played cello on my early recordings, but that doesn’t mean I’m a cellist, you know?

I played cello on my early recordings, but that doesn’t mean I’m a cellist, you know?

Right now, I’m thinking in terms of just having a good band, man. Having a good act for the stage. Being a good performer, you know? Connected to that is future recordings, and future tunes, that kind of stuff.

Kishore Kumar is the voice of India, M.D. Rafi taught me to sing romantic numbers, while Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s live recordings helped me prep for stage shows.

The thing is, it really did take us too long to get these recordings done. We’ve had our rough times in the studio in the past, but after four weeks most of the material would have been recorded. This time it seemed like it just goes on and on.

I remember when I first saw ‘Guided by Voices’; those earlier recordings are so deconstructed, kind of like four-track music, and so artful in their collage and in their weird fragility.

I enjoy albums, not a song here and there. The recordings I like have been a soundtrack to a universe.

I think maybe the vehicle for me was ‘Sam Cooke’s Greatest Hits.’ It has a song called, ‘Touch the Hem of His Garment.’ Do you know that song? I kind of got obsessed with that song and started exploring and getting more of his old recordings with the Soul Stirrers and really getting into that super, super deeply.

It was step by step that I earned my way into the lives and hearts of people by giving them recordings that I grew to love and as I found my listening audience also grew to love.

I think recordings have been a terrific advance because now, when you have a piece of music, particularly something that appears to the listener very complicated, there’s really a push to the world to try to figure out what it was that he was hearing.

When an old tape machine makes pitch wobble, some people would say that compromises fidelity and would try to get rid of it. But to me that wobble adds richness, it instantly brings back the feelings you associate with old recordings.

I finished the recordings I had started with Eleven. Matt Cameron joined for the rest of those sessions.

I try and manufacture recordings to sound spontaneous. Then, some things are spontaneous.

I love the sound of ’70s glam records. I love that snare sound. The recordings I like, it’s all based on if the snare sounds good. The drums have to sound great.

What does New York sound like? For me, the Charlie Parker at the Royal Roost recordings on the Savoy label are the total embodiment of the New York music experience.

One of the things that’s influenced me musically was my experience at Brown University. I was surrounded by musicians that I really admired, and felt challenged to come up with music, lyrics, and recordings that stood up to the expectations of those musicians and myself.

As for song recordings – well, that’s something that just happens. I’ve been working with music directors like Harris Jeyaraj sir, A. R. Rahman sir, and the experience is great.

I joined my father for recordings when I was 11 or so. By then, I could play a dozen instruments. My first professional recording was around that time. I played the vibraphone for Shankar-Ganesh in a Tamil film.

I’d done recordings, little demos, since I was in college, which I used to get gigs. But I never thought I’d have a record label.

I finished the recordings I had started with Eleven. Matt Cameron joined for the rest of those sessions.

My true memory has been tainted by old home videos of my sister and I, ages 3 and 5 respectively, singing karaoke to Britney Spears’ ‘Lucky’ in our living room, and tape recordings of my parents trying to elicit songs out of our throats at a similar or younger age.

I don’t listen to recordings of my songs. I don’t avoid it, I just don’t go out of my way to do it.

I realized I liked being in the studio and working on translating the ideas into recordings.

I’ve come to realize that you live on through recordings; they’re like a musical diary, a window into somebody’s soul.