Critic Quotes

I took a musician friend of mine to a Rolling Stone concert once, and all he did was cringe. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, 'Keith Richards' guitar is out of tune.' But 'Tumbling Dice' still sounded great to me.
I was driving to school at Reseda High School - I was a junior, and it was early 1956. I had a '49 Ford. I was listening to the country station, and 'Folsom Prison Blues' comes on... It didn't sound like the stuff I was hearing on the pop stations.
I was getting calls in 1970 from teenagers, little girls, and they'd say, 'Oh, I like your stories about so-and-so so much. How old are you? 20?' 'No. Older than that.' '30?' 'No. Older than that.' And they'd hang up.
If you care about who I want to write about, I'll write about the people you want to read about.
I'm guilty of being perceived as having narrow taste. I went after the artists that I thought were important - Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen and stuff.
In 1980, after 10 years at 'The Times,' I was at a crossroads in my personal life. I loved my family, but I was also so obsessive about my work that I found myself devoting more and more time to it. I wanted to be everywhere there was a good story, and that meant I had to choose between that and being with the family on important days.
In the role of Ziggy Stardust, Bowie seemed in 1972 like a strange alien creature, not so much coming from another planet as from a future age. His purpose: to warn us about a dangerous society where values were to be turned inside out.
It's a different world because of the Internet and bloggers. Now, every editor is concerned about speed because every minute counts. Speed is more important than content. Whoever gets a review out first becomes the authority.
It's a hard thing to be an artist and not give up.
It's important to realize that everybody who went into country music, and most everybody who went into rock and roll in the '50s, they had no more goal than a hit on the jukebox. Johnny Cash, from the very beginning, had a goal that he wanted to make music that lifted people's spirits.
John Cougar Mellencamp - I didn't like him in the beginning. I liked some of the stuff around the 'Scarecrow' period. I go back and forth on him all the time, but I think he's a good artist. I don't know if he's a great artist or not, but he rose above his original level of achievement.
Johnny Cash was a good man. He tried to live up to his faith. It was just difficult.
Kendrick Lamar is a great, great thinker. He's a tremendous artist.
Like David Bowie, Madonna visualizes music so that her best work seems equally designed with the stage or screen in mind - not just the jukebox.
One of my great frustrations for 35 years at the paper was the fact I couldn't play a record for the reader when I was writing about an artist. How can you describe the beauty of Emmylou Harris' voice without hearing it, the sensual lilt of a Duane Allman guitar solo without actually hearing it, or the growl of Johnny Rotten without hearing it?
Some people will never take Madonna seriously - just as many never took Marilyn Monroe seriously. Novelty images - especially that of a sex symbol - are hard to erase.
Some writers sit down every day for two or three hours, at least, to write, whether they are in the mood or not. Others wait for inspiration.
Take any celebrity - all we really know is what they choose to tell us or what they show us in public.
Thanks to the arrival of such spirited and purposeful groups as X, the Blasters, R.E.M., and the Replacements, American rock has made a spectacular comeback.
The Cure is clearly above average but seemingly unable to rally itself to move to a higher plateau.
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