A Quote by Stephin Merritt

If you start out with a song sounding like Britney Spears, and you end up with a song sounding like Pauline Oliveros, you'd better have pretty good liner notes explaining what on earth you mean.

Stephin Merritt

Quote Topics

Better Britney Britney Spears Earth End Explaining Good Like Mean Notes Out Pretty Pretty Good Song Spears Start Up

Quote Author

Stephin Merritt
American - Singer
Born: 1965

When people start writing songs for award shows, there's a very limited palette you can use. You end up not sounding like you. You end up sounding like somebody else. You end up getting what the record company thinks they can market.

Mike Dirnt

You get the beats. You write to them. You go in the studio and lay it down. Hopefully, a song comes out sounding good. If it comes out sounding good, you put it to the side with the rest of the other good ones, and you try to decide which ones you're gonna use on the album.

Ghostface Killah

Every song that I record, I love, it's like my new favorite. But one that really stands out to me is a song I debuted on tour with Trey Songz called "Angel". It's a really acoustic sounding and it's a really big song.

Lloyd

I've been on a real Credence Clearwater kick. I've been collecting their albums on CD -- right now I really like 'I Put a Spell on You.' I don't know who actually wrote it; it might be a traditional, or like, an old blues song, I haven't looked in the liner notes, but it's the first song on their first album. I love all the hits; I mean @#$%&, I like every one of them. I think my favorite song by John Fogerty is 'Have You Ever Seen the Rain?' They're my favorite American band of all time, totally.

Ben Kweller

If you write a hit song for Britney Spears, it's worth several million dollars. Just one song! And it might have taken you two hours to do it. It's like mining for gold. It takes a lot of skill and a lot of technique.

Jewel

I don't wake up in the morning and say, 'Jeez, I feel great today. I think I'll write a song.' I mean, anything is more interesting to me than writing a song. It's like, 'I think I'd like to write a song... No, I guess I better go feed the cat first.' You know what I mean? It's like pulling teeth. I don't enjoy it a bit.

Jerry Garcia

You have to be careful when it comes to copyrights, whether just sounding like or feeling like something is enough to say you violated their copyrights because there's a lot of music out there, and there's a lot of things that feel like other things that are influenced by other things. And you don't want to get into that thing where all of us are suing each other all the time because this and that song feels like another song.

John Legend

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

Lyle Lovett

But once you've made a song and you put it out there, you don't own it anymore. The public own it. It's their song. It might be their song that they wake up to, or their song they have a shower to, or their song that they drive home to or their song they cry to, scream to, have babies to, have weddings to - like, it isn't your song anymore.

Ed Sheeran

I feel like it'd be so fun to, like, do, like, Britney Spears' makeup. I've always been a big fan of Miss Britney - I'm a Britney stan.

Bretman Rock

The thing I love about Marshmello is that he caters to individual songs as a producer. He has his vibe, but he also really puts something on the song that the song needs instead of having his thing and everything sounding like him.

Anne-Marie

If I can change bodies with anyone, it would be Britney Spears because how can you not like Britney Spears?

Lindsay Lohan

Sounding like I have agency in a song is important to me. I want to feel empowered by the music.

Kelela

You have those songs that are very special to you that you don't want to get ruined by production. Something like 'Start Again' shouldn't be touched. It's a classic-sounding song on a piano and violins and harmonies, and I think those songs are perfect as they are.

Conrad Sewell

A Trumpist is a devoted supporter and understands what he or she is doing. A Trumper is just different sounding, better sounding, I think. I've even had some Trumpists tell me they don't like the term. They think it's derogatory.