Stephen Malkmus quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Stephen Malkmus

Stephen Malkmus Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Stephen Malkmus on Wise Famous Quotes.

Lyrics are back, maybe. It seems like there was a bit of an attitude that lyrics are not important.

I like that band Get Hustle. They're cool live. I haven't heard their records, though.

I don't even think my voice is really good.

When a band means a lot to you, you build the fantasy more than the reality. Always.

Most people want to be seen or heard. You want to shine. That's my way of shining.

The word "down," is very musical. It just always comes.

A good voice isn't so important. It's more important to sound really unique.

I never decided to start singing, to be a singer.

I like visual imagery in my head.

There's always a chance, a goal to make something different and get it right, finally.

I'm not dying for things to say.

So much of rock lyrics is just a mirror of real feeling. It doesn't feel dangerous to me. They just feel like "rock lyrics."

I think it's just entertainment for people that are interested in the form. To sing along to and be psyched by.

What producers did was mostly recording in the studio, so it never changed our sound just that much.

If a voice is just too nice, without an edge, it kinda all flows by. You forget it. You don't listen to the lyrics.

I just imagine that every song in and of itself is great, but when you add them all up, it's too much of me maybe.

I guess the majority of people who want to ban certain musicians are the ones who are so proud of everything America stands for.

We [ Paverment] were definitely unafraid of playing wrong notes and singing wrong things. We could be fearlessly bad!

Obviously songs and musicians mean a lot to people.

George Oppen wasn't a larger than life personality, but I'm not either. And he lived a long time, so he was happy. Going down in flames is fine, too.

The best I do, if I'm just playing around and riffing in a fantasy world, and then I'll write something down. Hopefully I write it down.

There's something in life that's cool, it's relatively cheap, and fun, and populist. Even when it's elitist.

If there can be some paradigm shift thing that you can be part of, that's cool.

I thought The Doors were the greatest band for a while.

Almost every band has somebody who's the main songwriter and who has a vision, a very clear idea of how a song should be.

Despite my own doubts of being marketable or crushworthy, my goal was to write a record of peppy pop songs, hopefully without annoying anybody.

You don't realize that when you're young, and you're surprised there's a lot of people at your gig - you just think it's general British-press hype.

I'm more into describing a scenario and I move around in that scenario.

Besides, going on tour and playing songs and arranging things, going to practice, it's all I know to be productive.

Family is the best. I can honestly say, it's a gift that is beyond making art. I didn't know that when I got into it.

There's no point that an album should sound like a watered down version of another album.

I'm thinking, I'm singing like Ozzy Osbourne, but I don't sound like him enough, ever.

We're not on a desperate mission to write chart compatible stuff.

Basically, no one else gives me any opinions on lyrics. I don't ask for them. If they did, I would listen.

If you have no shame, and it's your goal to get people into bed, how much higher could your success rate possibly be?

Something taken off the page can sound great, I guess. Usually it doesn't. It seems like lately Pitchfork is trying to champion lyric writers more.

Don't go to the same studio twice, or work with the same engineer twice.

I didn't really like confessional poetry or things. They seemed sort of dated to me, or just corny.

Usually [the lyrics] go from one word to the next word - there's no finish line. The music was that way, too.

Some people, they've had a lot of fun, even if it was dumb fun and a shitty body of work.

The lyrics are different from Nick Cave songs and lyrics. His songs are very narrative.

I don't really know where the songs are coming from often. Many of the best things I made up were just off the top of my head.

Men are men and women are women, but the men are dumber than the women, usually.

That's why you go to a nice studio. You can get a magic take. You don't really have to do anything to it.

I really do think everybody can sing.

I'm better when I'm an autodidact and things just come. Or you're just blessed. I'm not bragging or anything, it just comes to you.

I don't know if you look back on your life and just see successes, but probably the first things that pop up are the regrets.

I still hate [the Eagles] ... . There's levels of evil in it to me.

I've lost my writing skills since college. I couldn't write a book. It would take a long time.

I did some writing. I was just taking the kids to school. I did a couple things and we did some tours. It was a lot of downtime.

Well, yeah, I sang to some songs on the radio or in the shower.

We always did our own mixing.

I'm not dying for everyone to hear everything we do. Forty minutes every two years is sensible.