I’ve always felt you are only as good as your next album or next show. What you’ve done is done. When you get a gold record, you hang it on the wall, and then it’s like, ‘Yeah, next?’
I have got an anthology album out. The American version has got the same mixes but the European version, I remixed them in the studio and added a couple of things that I have always wanted to add.
When you work on an album for three and a half years, you’re kind of ready for it to get out there. To have your songs reach people.
‘True Romance’ was definitely, in part, still me finding my voice as a writer. I was nervous, and I was a lot more shy. The album sounds bruised.
But when I started writing songs, I stopped painting completely, and the only art things I do are connected to the career, like album sleeves and, to some extent, posters and things like that.
I think it’s really cool when artists have song titles or album names that are a really conversational sentence.
It feels great to have a #1 album.
I had a very active inner life as a kid. There’s a good album or two worth of stuff that I can bring out on a rainy day if I have a loss for inspiration or whatever – even now.
My main concern is getting out an album that I feel really proud of.
When I finish an album and I find myself listening to it in the car, because it makes me feel a certain way, that’s the time to try to let other people know about it.
I cut off my dreadlocks, but I couldn’t face throwing them away. They were so hard to grow, man. There’s a lot of work goes into those things. Some people keep a diary or a photo album to remind them of their past lives – well, I’ve got hair. Who knows? One day, maybe my grandchildren might want to see it.
Every night I fell asleep to a different Beatles album. So I’m very familiar with the Beatles; Ringo was my favorite Beatle until I grew up and then changed. I made the switch over to George Harrison just in time to regain my cool.
I hadn’t been a recording artist all that long when albums came on the scene, and I was one of the first singers to point the way to how varied an album’s contents could be.
If I can put on my album in a car or on my headphones and listen to the whole thing and love it, that’s what I’m going to be happy putting out there.
An album is a whole universe, and the recording studio is a three-dimensional kind of art space that I can fill with sound. Just as the album art and videos are ways of adding more dimensions to the words and music. I like to be involved in all of it because it’s all of a piece.
There are always some doubts when you do a new album though. You wonder whether you succeeded or not, especially when you waited as long as I did for this one – seven years. You’re never really sure if it will be a nice record or not.
I wouldn’t just have other people write songs and me go out and sing it. I would sit down with a guitar and write 11 or 12 good songs for an album and that is gonna take a long time.
Any time you can give consumers more of what they want, it’s a good thing. Unbundling the album is a good thing. In the case of music – because it is content that you can slice into songs – doing that is of huge benefit to consumers.
I wanted to be a poet. I fell in love with poetry around eight years old, but not through literature. Instead, it came through hip-hop lyrics and my obsession with reading liner notes. Queen Latifah’s ‘Black Reign’ is the album that stands out the most.
I was really inspired while I was pregnant and I wrote a whole album for my baby. I wanted to write a kids album that didn’t annoy parents. I used The Beatles ‘Rocky Raccoon’ as sort of a starting place for my writing.
I love Sell Out, I think it’s great. I love the jingles. The whole thing as an album is a wonderful piece of work. The cover. Everything about it. It’s got humor, great songs, irony.
A development deal is where they’re giving you recording time and money to record, but not promising that they’ll put an album out.
I’m narrating the television series Biography. I’m still involved in my music – I have a new album out. I have an animated project in development. I’m writing a lot of things and you never know if one of them is going to become a six or seven year project.
For me, my favorite Mariah Carey songs were never the singles, ever. My favorite Mariah song of all time is ‘Sent From Up Above’ from her first album, or ‘Vanishing,’ songs no one talks about.
I’ve basically got an album full of singles.
My first flight was to Majorca as a 17-year-old and I went to Seattle to visit a friend after that. But the first time I really ventured out abroad to Canada and Japan as well as to Europe, to France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, was to promote my first album.
With AC/DC, we’ve always started with rock, and we’ve just kept it going. The critic’s view is always, ‘They just made an album and it’s the same as the last one.’ I’ll have fifteen of them, anytime.
When I started recording, I thought I’d be able to do all kinds of records: jazz, country, dance – and I’ve always wanted to do a gospel album.
I loved the last album, and it was one hundred percent me. But this is like me two years later, who understands a little bit more about music and understands a little bit more about making an album. I wrote a lot more.
Five years ago we were working on a new album when my health began failing.
The opportunity to record the song came when Phil Collins’ record label, Atlantic, was doing a tribute album to him and they asked all these different artists to do renditions of his songs.
An album is like a child and after a while I was ready to give birth!
I think every album you have to stretch further and further, give people another piece of you. But then I always try to deviate from the norm.
I’m remixing an R.E.M. track called ‘I’ve Been High’ from their last album, ‘Reveal.’ It’s a beautiful song, but record execs didn’t put it out as a single because it didn’t sound like the R.E.M. we’re used to. So I asked Michael Stipe if I could have the tapes to do a remix, and he agreed.
I had no album title, and the album is like a journey in that it’s a complete body of work. It’s not just a couple of catchy songs and filler, so I felt that I needed to capture the essence of the album.
I was 14 when I decided I wanted to start doing music and stuff. I was a really big fan of Ben Howard, and he put out a really amazing album in 2014, and then, after being inspired by my dad and Lady Gaga and Ed Sheeran, I wanted to start writing songs.
James Morrison just had a new album come out and I think he’s incredible. I’d love to work with him, his voice is insane.
I always thought my best album was ‘Trouble in Paradise.’ I was the happiest with that one.
When I think about my new CD, the word ‘joy’ comes to mind. I sincerely hope that each listener will feel the earth, spirit, and aggressive creativity emanating from this album.
A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family and, often, is all that remains of it.
I thought I’d do everything on four-track, and then I’ll record every instrument myself in a studio, and then I’ll have a solo album released by spring.
But for the first time, we haven’t made a huge leap forward in sound from our last album. Fans who own Kid A should be able to get their heads around it.
If you’re looking for a deep album or you’re looking for me to talk about past situations, it’s not even about that. It’s just 14 hot records that are gonna make you dance.
In 2015 we released our first ever. It was our first album, but it was also our first original album.
Obviously I try to make the best music that I can, but after about two years of making an album, you start to worry: ‘Is it going to come out all right? Is it all going to sound churned out?’
I went along and basically learned a few of the songs they were doing at the time, which were quite a few of the songs we ended up doing on our first album.
It’s like whether you’re in a huge movie or you’ve just recorded an incredible album you’ve got to do the next thing, and that’s part of being an artist.
At 57, to have a No. 1 album, I wasn’t expecting it.
What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.
I could never say Rza’s trash. But he didn’t come with the right formula on ‘8 Diagrams.’ I think ‘Cuban Linx 2’ will have the Clan back where they need to be, but then it’s up for the Clan to be back where they need to be, too. ‘Cos it ain’t just the album, you know what I mean? It’s everything.
I don’t have to be working on an album to record a song.
If I can, I will make an album each year, but time shall tell if this works out. I have other things to do in my life as well.
I’ve had this song in a drawer for a long time, maybe seven or eight years. Every time I’d do an album, I’d take it out and listen to it, and always liked what it had to say. Plus when Garth came in and sang on it, that made it really special.
I’ve never listened to an album once I’ve finished it. All I hear is what I should’ve done different. I beat myself up over it.
‘Inside’ was the second LP album of a comedian’s performance before an audience.
I have the time needed to support the album and tour.
Actually, recording the Suite Chic album was so much fun and while working on this new album, people that I’ve worked with from Suite Chic has lend their voice.
