With a pop album you can listen to one or two songs from it, but a music album is really an experience. It's not something a whole lot of rock bands do.
I always wanted to make an album, but I knew that I didn't want it to be a musical theater album. It's not that I don't love them - I own every musical theater album ever made - but it just didn't seem right for me.
On the first album, we were trying to do a pop-punk album with a classical influence. We'd say 'pop-punk,' and people would say, 'No, you're like burlesque-cabaret-punk,' or, 'It's baroque-pop,' and we were like, 'That sounds way cooler.'
I did a pop album, 'Sogno,' in 1999. I think it's important to record another pop album because many people love pop music. By this kind of repertoire, some people can later discover classical music.
Carole King's second album, 'Tapestry,' has fulfilled the promise of her first and confirmed the fact that she is one of the most creative figures in all of pop music. It is an album of surpassing personal-intimacy and musical accomplishment and a work infused with a sense of artistic purpose. It is also easy to listen to and easy to enjoy.
At one time musical theater, particularly in the '40s and '50s, was a big source of pop songs. That's how musical theater started, really - it was just a way of linking several pop songs for the stage.
The great music for so many artists - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones - was always at the moment when they were closest to pop. It would be easy for U2 to go off and have a concept album, but I want us to stay in the pop fray.
Live we're a lot louder and noisier on the album. I think for the album we took a lot of time for the songwriting and we wanted to make good pop music, and I think there's plus and minuses to doing pop music and noise.
I've never got the vibe that they would do a gospel song. 'Cause when they talking about doing another Geto Boys album I said I would do it if I could rap like I'm rapping on my gospel album, I didn't get a whole lot of cosigning on that from all the political parties concerned.
If I sample a song, I usually make samples out of the whole album. Then I move on after that. Doesn't mean I'm going to release that whole album, but I do that.
If I was doing a musical, I would never listen to the cast album, because I wanted to do my version of something.
We thought it would be great to see if you could put pop music back into musical theater.
I would like my album to be on the pop side with a little bit of soul. I would like to make music that is on the top of the charts right now.
I really consider myself fortunate to have been of age during the musical revolution that came in the form of the Beatles. People don't realize that previous to the Beatles, there really was no such thing as an album artist. People made singles. Then they would put a bunch of those singles together and call it an album. And that was it.
There's this Method Man album called 'Tical.' It's his first album. I would just listen to that every day, because the album feels like, if it were a film, it would be black and white. It feels like there's a war percolating throughout the album itself. It's dark, and it has a nice forward pace to it.
A Hard Day's Night' is the most perfect pop album you'll ever get to hear in your life; it's filled with definitive versions of the two-minute pop song.