I like a lot of older rock ‘n’ roll artists, like legends like Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. They really influenced me to be very, very androgynous and very commanding, and very very – I wouldn’t say odd, but I would say eccentric.
I’ve been greatly influenced by the music of R.D. Burman and Sudhin Dasgupta, and I took it as a challenge to bring back the golden days of Bengali music.
I say that I do soul, R&B music. I have so many influences, from Billie Holiday, Nina Simone to Stevie Wonder and Prince and even Al Green and Bjork. And a lot of hip hop music has influenced me a lot – you know – De La Soul and Digital Underground and A Tribe Called Quest.
Historically, black music has influenced other cultures and other genres and created other genres.
I think I’m influenced a lot by Drake in specific ways in my writing.
Rather than working for all, power and public policy is increasingly influenced by wealthy elites that are able to bend the rules – and hijack democratic institutions – to their favour.
I’m not sure there’s a difference between books that affected the way I see the world and books that influenced me as a writer.
What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably… have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.
At 18, I moved to L.A. with my heavy metal band Avant Garde, which was very much influenced by Metallica. At 19, I got a job at Tower Records, and everything started to change very quickly. I started listening to the Velvet Underground, Pixies, early Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and also earlier music like the Beatles.
My dad was a very funny man – he’s the one who taught me life would be awfully hard without humor! I’m sure his Irish wit in some way influenced my decision to become an actress.
When you have a political environment that is being so heavily influenced by the Tea Party that calls for shrinking the size of government, you can’t ignore it. There are political realities.
I set a Google Alert for myself, and now I’m seeing people say my music influenced them and how great it is all the time. Sometimes I listen to this stuff that’s supposed to be influenced by me, and I can’t hear myself in it. But I’d rather they say it than not.
For me as an artist, pop culture has so much power and influences society on a regular basis – I see it in the kids; I see it in everyone that I encounter. Everyone is influenced by pop culture whether we want to be or not.
From where I’ve come from, I look back at everything, all these people that influenced my life as a kid growing up in a really bad environment, it just makes it all worthwhile in terms of the recognition.
My grandmother has strongly influenced my approach to beauty. She has always cared for her skin by cleansing and washing her face with warm water in the morning. At all times, she has lipstick on and her face is immaculately powdered – she follows the same routine to this day and looks great at 94.
I think a lot of bands are influenced by religious symbolism and not even necessarily Christianity or Catholicism.
I’ll be the first to admit when I’m influenced by something.
An actor should never be influenced by the surroundings, because you have to submit completely, and trust me, it’s not a good feeling when you know that your father is going to come and watch you work every day!
Growing up in the Libya of the 1970s, I remember the prevalence of local bands who were as much influenced by Arabic musical traditions as by the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. But the project of ‘Arabisation’ soon got to them, too, and western musical instruments were declared forbidden as ‘instruments of imperialism.’
This familiarity with a respected physician and my appreciation of his work, or the tragedy I experienced with the long, tormented agony and death of my mother might have influenced me in wanting to study medicine. It was not the case.
As a songwriter, I was influenced by David Bowie – a great writer. A class above everybody in so many ways. Lennon and McCartney, of course. Class stuff. David Cousins was my favorite lyricist.
I think probably I’ve been influenced by Chekhov and Walt Disney, if you see what I mean.
I really prefer light-eyed models, They photograph more easily. Of course, I come from a light-eyed background, so maybe that influenced my taste.
Our music did not sound like the Beatles in any way, shape or form. I could never find it in myself to use those Beatles tricks in Styx records because they were sacred to me. But what they did always influenced my thinking.
We are always influenced because we do not live in a vacuum together with our intentions. We are in a relationship with everything that occurs.
I knew before going into the studio that I wanted to make a Western record, featuring a combination of traditional Western folk and cowboy songs and some tunes that I had written that were heavily influenced by that kind of music.
The eventual place the American army should take on the western front was to a large extent influenced by the vital question of communication and supply.
Elvis was a giant and influenced everyone in the business.
I’m influenced by a lot of filmmakers; I like English filmmakers because I feel a kin to them.
I always feel like my writing is consistently influenced by everything I watched and listened to growing up, so it’s just this crazy collage of everything, you know.
There are more books in the world than hours in which to read them. We are thus deeply influenced by books we haven’t read, that we haven’t had the time to read.
I can’t look at TV without seeing something that’s been influenced by rap. Even commercials for cereal. When I was small, I was a fan of cartoon characters – now the cartoon characters are rapping!
I’m into Incubus. Growing up, I was a huge Taking Back Sunday fan. I’m still a fan, but I don’t listen as much as I used to. When I was 13 or 14, I started getting into emo-pop-rock, so that influenced me. I also love Drake… I have a pretty diverse collection.
If you’re looking for a book that’s not been influenced by 21st century popular culture and that’s guaranteed to be a good read because it’s stood the test of time, you can’t go wrong with the classics.
Their films would probably be better if they’d seen a few more films, which runs counter to this idiotic theory that you run the risk of being influenced if you see too much.
The addictive pleasure of abandoning yourself to a book, of losing consciousness of your worries, your body, and your surroundings, to become a ghost haunting other worlds has influenced me in many ways.
I’m sure I’ve been influenced by every fine writer I’ve ever read, from Dickens and Austen to Auden and Jane Hirshfield. And also, the short stories of Updike, Cheever, Munro, Alice Adams, and Doris Lessing. And the plays of Oscar Wilde. And paintings by Alice Neel and Matisse.
I would say Tupac influenced me the most to start rapping, but as far as a female icon that I’ve looked up to since I was six or seven is definitely Gwen Stefani.
It’s been in my musical DNA since I was a little kid. I think musical theatre has really influenced everything I’ve done.
Northeastern folk music influenced me from a very young age. Sachin Dev Burman is one of the inspirational musicians in Indian film music. The way he fused folk music with his signature style is amazing. So, I am aware of the beauty of northeast folk music.
A lot of movies were influenced by ‘Logan’s Run,’ like ‘Minority Report’. A lot of films have those elements in them.
I know I am an actor and whatever I say people are going to get influenced by that.
As more wealth and political power is amassed – as bitcoins rise in value – Congress and various lobbying groups will be influenced to an ever greater extent by the interests of Bitcoin owners who – in turn – will lobby to keep the Internet and Bitcoin alive and growing.
I’ve never felt influenced by Ernest Hemingway though I suppose there is something inevitable there.
Mike Mignola’s ‘Hellboy’ was influenced by Lovecraft big time. He wanted to make his monsters Lovecraftian. But I think many other films have been influenced by Lovecraft – like ‘Alien,’ which is almost an outer-space version of ‘At The Mountains Of Madness.’
I felt that I had been influenced by being in the city enough and I wanted to go off by myself to see what was going on. I remember going out there and looking in the mirror and thinking I wasn’t anything.
I’m starting to realise that there are certain themes that I return to, those being that there is no such thing as normal, and people finding their voice and living authentically. And also that you can be influenced and helped through an extended family.
Every performer who ever performed in rock and roll or even close to it is lying if they tell you that they weren’t influenced in some way or another by Elvis Presley. He turned the world around.
Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.
I’d love to do a live album, like a little bit old school but still progressive, influenced maybe by more electronic music. I like everything, but I don’t know anything about music. So it comes in to a lot of different ingredients. I love hip hop.
