We were completely DIY and very opinionated. We weren’t the type that sat back or do what we’re told… We never listened to many people.
I’ve waited for the day my debut album is released my entire life, so naturally I’ve designed it to be listened to from start to finish – so every song flows into each other in a way that tells a sonic story.
I think it is important the communities are listened to and that their voice is heard, particularly with local government boundaries more than parliamentary boundaries, because you are talking very much about communities. It can be a very emotive thing.
One day when I was like 9, I heard the Beatles on the radio, and I asked my dad who they were. He told me they were the best band in the world, and I became obsessed. He started giving me their albums in sequential order, and I listened to them – and only them – until I was probably in high school.
I was a snot-nosed teenage skater at one point, who listened to only punk records and hung around people that had that idea of what is okay to do and what isn’t okay to do.
The crew taped the intercom conversation. There’s somebody giggling and laughing all the way up. And we listened to it for quite a while to try and figure out who that was, only to come to the conclusion that it was me. I mean, I laughed and giggled all the way up. It was such a fun ride.
From the pop side, people like Usher, and when they first came out, I listened to guys like K-Ci and JoJo; that ’90s R&B thing really caught my ear.
I grew up in a house full of musicians, and my mum really taught me that when you listen to an album, you respect that it’s somebody’s art, and that the B-sides are just as important as the singles, and we should really listen to the album all the way through the way it was intended to be listened to.
I wish I would have listened, when I was a kid, to my elders or people who had my best interests at heart, and then I wish I would have been more conscious at that age also.
I listened to George Carlin when I was a kid and knew every word of his routines.
I listened to all types of music, and obviously when I got to Seattle I was very much aware of the music scene there.
For me, I listened to a lot of female jazz artists. And of course, the Motown and Philly sounds, all that stuff was very influential. And church and gospel.
John Denver I listened to when I was in elementary school.
Growing up, flute riffs was big in rap back then. It’s what I listened to.
Our ambition isn’t just to be big, it’s to be listened to and supported by people. And to have the success – if we deserve it, of course.
I’ve listened to blues my whole life. I know it, I play it, I understand it.
I listened to all kinds of music: rock, pop, R & B. But country was always my first love.
I listened to John Denver and Simon & Garfunkel. Edith Piaf was a huge favourite. Then I discovered musicals – I loved ‘Les Miserables’ – and, at about 14, I started listening to David Gray.
I grew up partially with classical music but listened to a lot of rock when I was young – I like acoustic, and folk from Mali and Armenia and Turkey.
When I was growing up, I was the most pretentious person I have ever met. I only read obscure books and watched obscure movies and only listened to obscure music.
The joy I get while listening to my daughter, Poonthendrel, speak is incomparable. I’ve listened to several other kids speak but have never enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed listening to my daughter.
I’m a fan of all music, and probably my first – well, not the very first music I listened to, but back in the late fifties, when I first started hearing rock & roll, it was definitely tinged with doo wop and also Elvis and all those great songs.
Then the album created a tremendous furor and got me kicked off Christian television for two months, and then restored after they settled down and listened to the music and realized there was nothing wrong with it.
You have to believe in yourself and only trust your own vision and instincts. If I’d listened to what other people thought about my work in the first 10 years that I was a writer, I never would have made it to begin with.
I listened to the rock music of that time, but as you know and can easily hear: my music of that era had nothing to do with the common music of this era. I was experimenting, I was searching for something new.
My dad was a huge Bob Dylan fan, so we listened to his music, Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, and all that kind of stuff.
I never really thought I was going to be a singer, honestly. I never listened to singers; I always listened to rap music.
My school reports always used to point out that my concentration levels were appalling. I never listened in class because I was always daydreaming about racing. I never thought for a moment about doing anything else. There was no guarantee that I’d make a career in it but I never had any plan B.
My biggest influences when I was a kid – I listened to a lot of top 40 radio, so whatever the big artists were, so, like, the mid-’80s.
For Lennon and me, we grew up with Laverne and Shirley or Lucy and Ethel. For us, those are our inspirations. And I think Amy Poehler and Tina Fey led the way for us to be fearless in the way we kept shoving our message and our comedy voice down people’s throats until they listened.
My parents listened to a lot of James Taylor and Hall and Oates. My mom and I used to listen to Liz Phair and Indigo Girls a lot in the car, too.
There were a lot of moments in my life where I could have died or I could have ended up serving 20 years to life in prison. I overcame those things, those obstacles, because I listened and I obeyed that higher power that was speaking to me at the crucial moments in my life when it really counted.
I listened to King Oliver and I listened to Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp… I listened to everything I could that came from that place that they call the blues but, in formality, isn’t necessarily the blues.
If you listen to everybody’s opinions, I mean, I always say I’d be digging a ditch on the side of the road now if I had listened to what everybody told me what to do. You know, you have to follow your heart, you have to.
I don’t feel like I sound like anybody from Houston. I don’t really feel like I have that Houston flow, that Houston sound. I feel like it’s a mixture of all the things I’ve listened to growing up, or even my mom, in a way. I feel like I have my own style.
I listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a lawyer, because I knew how to read people’s signals.
I listened to all the Misfits albums growing up and Red Hot Chili Peppers, too.
Being listened to and being heard is an experience that doesn’t happen terribly often. To listen compassionately or nonjudgmentally to another person – not to get too heavy about it – but I once heard somebody say that was a form of real prayer.
I listened to everything. To the early Motown groups – the Four Tops and the Temptations – to Johnny Mathis, Gloria Lynne – my sisters loved her. Sarah Vaughan. Everything.
I told Mother of my decision to study medicine. She encouraged me to speak to Father… I began in a roundabout way… He listened, looking at me with that serious and penetrating gaze of his that caused me such trepidation, and asked whether I knew what I wanted to do.
I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.
I always wanted to be involved with music that would stand the test of time, being on one of those definitive things that you have to have listened to at some point.
You know, if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough, I would be convinced we’re in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we’ve got to do something about the unemployed.
My parents and grandparents listened to bacheta heavy, the true bachata from back in the day – Juan Luis Guerra, Anthony Santos. I liked the genre, but I remember thinking, ‘OK, enough of this.’ I would sing Usher’s ‘U Remind Me’ to the girls in school.
I remember listening to my first World Cup in 1966. I was with my parents, helping them build our house and listening to it on the radio. We still didn’t have a TV back then, but fortunately the first time I listened to a World Cup Jose Maria Munoz was commentating, and he’s one of the best there is.
We listened to a lot of Rolling Stones and Beatles records when we were recording. They were really good at not playing loud, but generating really big sounds out of everything.
I don’t talk about Amy Winehouse as a ‘singer.’ She’s a pioneer. I listened to her endlessly when I started writing.
But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.
The first time I listened to jazz was when I was 8.
