A Quote by Sufjan Stevens
I think I get a lot of ideas from when I was a kid, listening to Casey Kasem's 'American Top 40.'
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On 'American Top 40' the Kasem voice soared and swooped, like an expert aural acrobat, through promos, jingles and dedications, usually rising to a dramatic peak for the top-selling song of the week.
Casey Kasem not only played the music of the stars, he also reached the sunniest-sounding celebrity on his very own. Listening to him on the radio, you could hear America smiling.
With Ed Wood, it was this sort of blending of Ronald Reagan, the Tin Man from 'The Wizard of Oz,' and Casey Kasem.
So many times, I watch games and think, 'Man, why is that guy trying to score like that? He can't do it.' But he's been told his whole life, 'You have to go get 40 if you want to be one of the top dogs.' It's my goal to build a lane where you can be a top dog, and you don't gotta go get that 40. You can go get four and still be a top dog.
Right now I'm listening to a lot of Top 40 music, because THAT'S MY JOB.
I love Top 40 pop, don't get me wrong; I just don't think that there's anyone in Top 40 pop that's 'real.'
Growing up in a house where there was a lot of different musical influences - my mom listens to soul stuff and Top 40, my sisters would listen to hip-hop - and the church, I grew up listening to a lot of gospel stuff. So I think that plays a role in how I make music now because my music has a lot of range. I don't just do one thing.
A lot of the things I do deal with my race, but my race is who I am. I'm an American kid who grew up listening to predominantly hip-hop. I will talk about hip-hop as the music I grew up listening to, and I think sometimes people like to put it as, 'Oh, well, he's talking about black things.' And, yeah, they are, but that's my American identity.
My biggest influences when I was a kid - I listened to a lot of top 40 radio, so whatever the big artists were, so, like, the mid-'80s.
Casey Affleck is a really good friend of mine. I know Casey a lot better than I know Ben, even though Ben and I have worked together a lot.
Leaders can get stuck in groupthink because they're really not listening, or they're listening only to what they want to listen to, or they actually think they're so right that they're not interested in listening. And that leads to a lot of suboptimal solutions in the world.
They are going to be playing Shaggy and Scooby-Doo for eons and eons, and they're going to forget Casey Kasem - unless they happen to step on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I'll be one of those guys people say, 'Who's that?' about. And someone else will say, 'He's just some guy who used to be on the radio.'
I think a lot of funds get their ideas from Wall Street. I just like to find my own ideas. I read a lot. A lot of news. I just follow my nose. A lot of times it's a dead end, but sometimes there's value there.
Whenever I do my live shows, I feel artistically inspired and excited because I get to do and say a lot of things that I can't if I just make a record. A lot of times it's the only way people are going to hear my music because you don't get to have your music played on Top 40 if you're above the age of 35.
When I'm doing a drawing, I get lots of ideas I use them in my songs, even. I do a lot of drawings because that's where I get most of my spending cash and I just always have to have new records, to get something to satisfy my listening pleasure.
I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll.
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