Music Criticism Quotes

Wine is similar to music in that it's a purely experiential realm, and it's a purely subjective practice. That's sort of the funny thing about wine criticism or, for that matter, music criticism. At times, those are useful guides, but ultimately it's all about how you react to that music or wine. ~ Mike D

...there is a void in my guts which can only be filled by songs. ~ Jessica Hopper

The immoral profession of musical criticism must be abolished. ~ Richard Wagner

The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

They [the critics] deal with Schoenberg's early works and all their wealth by classifying them, with the music-historical cliché, as late romantic post-Wagnerian. One might just as well dispose of Beethoven as a late-classicist post-Haydnerian. ~ Theodor W. Adorno

There are more things I refuse to tolerate (pretentious music criticism, clove cigarettes, slow-moving ceiling fans, restaurant hostesses who pretend they own the joint, people who walk and text on a crowded sidewalk, Hostess Snowballs, people who drop subzero in their conversation when they aren't talking about the Arctic winds, people who bring their own bedroom pillows onto flights, pharmacists who yell out your prescription in front of other customers, Time Warner Cable, Sting's chest hair) but I'll get into that later.... I may not do that...though, because I refuse to tolerate lists. They're lazy. And listy. ~ Greg Gutfeld

I got the writing bug in the fourth grade when a poem of mine was published in the school newspaper. Music criticism came a little later, when I was in high school. ~ Ann Powers

I'm always very careful to make the distinction between music criticism and music journalism. A lot of people don't. But criticism doesn't require reporting. You can write criticism at home in your underwear. On the other hand, journalism takes legwork - you have to get out there and see things and talk to people. ~ Michael Azerrad

Music criticism should be to musicians what ornithology is to the birds. ~ Yuja Wang

My song 'Play It Again' is a perfect example of my music because the verses go so hard, and they're so urban; and then this pop hook comes out of nowhere and socks you in the face and makes you want to dance. ~ Becky G

I love pop music because you can really see what's currently happening in society. ~ Marina And The Diamonds

Music is my biggest passion and Ive just been obsessed with it. Like, always. ~ Ariana Grande

When the mind runs free , write a song . music pours happiness into the soul and a happy soul creates eternal success ~ Kelsey Valentine

Love The Wild Swan
I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade's curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch
One color, one glinting
Hash, of the splendor of things.
Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets of wax,
The lion beauty, the wild-swan wings, the storm of the wings.
This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.
Better bullets than yours would miss the white breast
Better mirrors than yours would crack in the flame.
Does it matter whether you hate your ... self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan. ~ Robinson Jeffers

How has it come about that we are so bewitched by our self-hatred, so impressed and credulous in the face of our self-criticism, as unimaginative as it usually is? And why is it akin to a judgement without a jury? A jury, after all, represents some kind of consensus as an alternative to autocracy… We need to be able to tell the difference between useful forms of responsibility taken for acts committed, and the evasions of self-contempt… This doesn't mean that no one is ever culpable; it means that culpability will always be more complicated than it looks; guilt is always underinterpreted… Self-criticism, when it isn't useful in the way any self-correcting approach can be, is self-hypnosis. It is judgement as spell, or curse, not as conversation; it is an order, not a negotiation; it is dogma, not overinterpretation. ~ Adam Phillips

I think the word soul has gotta come into it. Music that's created just for consuming lacks that soul, that swing, that feeling. ~ Michelle Shocked

Romantic music really stirs my soul. And, of course, I love Chinese music; it makes me feel closer to home. ~ Liu Wen

I never wrote poetry, just prose. I don't really consider songwriting a form of poetry either. The words are important, of course, but they're dependent on the music. ~ Michael Gira

Hegel is well aware of the fact - personally experienced in his youth - that a "deviation" (Abweichung) in thought from what is "publicly recognized" can be the expression of a genuine, albeit unhappy, consciousness, one which is justifiably "severed" (entzweit) from actuality. In certain periods criticism is the only possible form of philosophy. Nothing can be said a priori about the time at which a situation arises in which a philosopher can only be true by dissenting. Ontological principles, a universal belief in providence or the conviction that reason is strong enough to be victorious do not answer the question of whether our current factual situation is in agreement with reason. Even if one believes or knows for certain that the universe and history as a whole are rational, one still does not know a priori the degree to which the present situation realizes what history as a whole (if this word means anything) and the entire actuality make actual. ~ Adriaan T. Peperzak

Jake La Botz is a creator of dark poetry and haunting song, the kind of music that gets in your bones and rides you for days, a sound and vision only those who've been to the bottom and clawed their way back up can generate. His midnight gifts evoke Hank Williams and Skip James as much as Tom Waits and Dylan. Not everybody will get this music - because not everybody is ready for the truth. ~ Jerry Stahl

I have played lots of clubs since I was 14, but I always did my own music. ~ Vonda Shepard

I like going to New York. I like the galleries and the theatre and the restaurants and bars and music. I think that city is more alive than Los Angeles. ~ Sara Gilbert

For me, the best things in life - meaningful work, meaningful relationships, interesting experiences, good food, sleep, music, ideas, sex, and other basic needs and pleasures - are not, past a certain point, materially improved upon by having a lot of money. ~ Ray Dalio

There are a lot of spikes that can happen when what you're doing starts to get attention or people start to talk about it. They can just kind of really do a number on your reasons for making music. ~ Babatunde Adebimpe

My influences in this world have always been Crazy Horse and Malcolm X, my overall influences. But I was influenced by rock n' roll, blues, and country music. I was influenced by singers. ~ John Trudell

Make no mistake, this music is for everyone. Jazz is not an exclusive, elite club. Go ahead, listen to your Snoop Doggy Dog, Pearl Jam, Garth Brooks, but add a little Ellington, Basie and Coltrane to your life as well. ~ Christian McBride

I was listening to a lot of hip hop, music like Public Enemy that was about raising consciousness, and I realised I could feed that directly into my work, using images in a way that was a bit like sampling - taking images from diverse places, exploring the contradictions without trying to hide the seams. ~ Chris Ofili

Reviewing music or reviewing anything is a writing job. It's nice if you are experienced in the field you are writing about, but writing is what you are doing. ~ Virgil Thomson

If God ever commands the spirit of wisdom to depart from me, well, I reckon that I'll never be able to compose the written word again. Not in music, and not in literature. If there is a blank page before me, it wouldn't matter if my right hand held a thousand dollar ink pen from the House of Montblanc, or an ink pen branded Paper Mate, not one word would be jotted from the ink of either or, and the page would remain blank. ("Primary Blog: The Final Post at the Boutique Domain," 2015) ~ Cat Ellington

I think there's only one [thing] that anybody teaches, and this is character. And I think that whether you are teaching history, math, or biology, or music, what you are really doing is, you are helping to shape the character of that person who is your student ... Music is such a wonderful teaching tool, because while you are developing musical skills, that student can learn a lot about discipline [and] cooperation. ~ Rich Mullins

I don't mean to sound like a cheap prostitute, but you can call me what you like. ~ Chris Martin

Sometimes we take action, sometimes we take pills. ~ Fall Out Boy

No-one knows what huge suns will illuminate the life of the future. It may be that artists will transform the grey dust of the cities into hundred-coloured rainbows; that the never-ending thunderous music of volcanoes will be turned into the sound of flutes resounding from mountain ranges; that ocean waves will be forced to play on nets of chords ... ~ Vladimir Mayakovsky

I've had an experience through music that has touched almost every part of me. It educated me in ways that I didn't get educated in school. So we try to lay on a bit of that, through being funny, being serious, playing hard. ~ Bruce Springsteen

Thank God for movie music. It preserves the rich vocabulary in classical music through challenging times. ~ Michael Tilson Thomas

Reading is the strangest art. Your eye takes a shape, turns it into music, then story, then spirit, so a curl of ink laid long ago by a sliver of reed can become, a thousand years later, your own breath. ~ Keith Miller

When she started to play, Steinway came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano. ~ Bob Hope

Love.
That was the piece that had been missing, way before Prague. That was that piece that had been missing in her life until Will came and made her feel it, for their work together and for the beauty and also for him, though it was hard sometimes to separate those things. Maybe she didn`t love Will like she thought. Or couldn't in this moment.
But what they'd done together, what had been open by becoming so close, she could still love that. She could love their conversations and their hours at the piano and the results of their work. She could even love the way it hurt right now, because when was the last time she gave her whole heart to something?
That, all of it, belonged to her. She didn't have to let Will take it away, the way she'd let her grandfather, the business, herself, take her love for music. ~ Sara Zarr

It seems like I've been writing since birth! I started writing poems before I got to school. I wrote the class musical in first grade - both words and music. It was about a bunch of vegetables who got together in a salad. I played the chief carrot! ~ Jane Yolen

Talking about abstract things is important. Having big, wild conversations about concepts like art, music, time travel, and dreams makes it much easier when you'll eventually need to talk about things like anger, sadness, pain, and love. ~ Tom Burns

I like challenging myself. I like the challenge of rapping to fast beats, rapping to beats that are super slow, whatever. I like the challenges, so I'm not afraid to take on any piece of music and create a song to it if it feels right to me. ~ Will Ferrell

What can I say? I'm just a relevant dude. It's just natural. My hunger's still there. I still keep my ear to the streets. I record every song like it's my last. I just love music. I'm blessed. ~ Juicy J

Dance music tends to be a solitary affair. ~ Peter Hook

The success of Watermark surprised me. I never thought of music as something commercial; it was something very personal to me. ~ Enya

If God is Mother, then we need only gather together with people and adore her through rituals intended to satisfy the female soul, ritual involving dance, fire, water, air, earth, songs, music, flowers, and beauty. ~ Paulo Coelho

I moved to Des Moines when I was 15. I asked my mother to give up costody and sign parental rights over to my grandmother, who I lived with while I went to school. I was clean and finally starting to figure myself out. I can only say that now without laughing. I was still very out of my own place, and I didn't even know what that place was. All I knew was that I could write music, that I had no idea what that could mean and that I was still surrounded by people I couldn't relate to. I hadn't found my tribe yet. ~ Corey Taylor

I've always related music to those moments when someone turns you loose on something and they haven't told you how to do it. ~ Stone Gossard

Music lifted our spirit and awakens our soul. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Every James Brown cut makes a party get crazy. He's the god of all music. I always play different wild remixes of his songs because people start bugging out when they realise what I'm playing. ~ Afrika Bambaataa