A Quote by Sufjan Stevens

Musicians are often asked to answer for an entire culture, or for an entire movement. It's a process of commodification. It becomes packaged and summarized in a word like 'emo' or 'grunge'... or 'folk music.' I think that's just language itself, trying to understand the mysteries of the world.
The language of the culture also reflects the stories of the culture. One word or simple phrasal labels often describe the story adequately enough in what we have termed culturally common stories. To some extent, the stories of a culture are observable by inspecting the vocabulary of that culture. Often entire stories are embodied in one very culture-specific word. The story words unique to a culture reveal cultural differences.
I started the label Tzadik to support an entire community of musicians, not just Jewish musicians. But the radical Jewish culture movement was begun in a lot of ways because I wanted to take the idea that Jewish music equals 'klezmer' and expand it to, 'Well, Jewish music could be a lot more than that.'
Apple Music is trying to create an entire pop culture experience that includes audio and video. If South Park walks into my office, I'm not going to say, 'You're not musicians.' We're going to do whatever hits pop culture smack on the nose.
If someone asked what kind of music I play, I wouldn't say I'm a folk singer; however, if folk music means music for the people, and playing music to entertain them and share different messages, then sure, I'd like to think that I'm part folk singer.
I think rap music is rap music. I mean, are there heavy writing aspects of it? Absolutely. In a sense, is it poetry? Yeah. I've heard that so much, growing up in a house with poetry. But I think people like to use that as a shortcut for who's good and who's not. It's like the word 'lyrical' - 'lyrical' is the worst word in the entire world.
For our family, the entire structure of our life, our home, our business relationships - the entire purpose is for everyone to be able to create in a way that makes them happy. Fame is almost an inconsequential by-product of what we're really trying to accomplish. We are trying to put great things into the world, we're trying to have fun, and we're trying to become the greatest versions of ourselves in the process of doing things we love.
Not only the entire ability to think rests on language... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.
Denotation by means of sounds and markings is a remarkable abstraction. Three letters designate God for me; several lines a million things. How easy becomes the manipulation of the universe here, how evident the concentration of the intellectual world! Language is the dynamics of the spiritual realm. One word of command moves armies; the word liberty entire nations.
Northeastern folk music influenced me from a very young age. Sachin Dev Burman is one of the inspirational musicians in Indian film music. The way he fused folk music with his signature style is amazing. So, I am aware of the beauty of northeast folk music.
I don't follow anything blindly. I have to know the entire thing, if I have to get in to it. It might sound funny to you, but it's like using English language. I use an English word only when I know its meaning and understand its connotation. You won't hear me say, 'What's up, dude' or anything like that just for the heck of it.
The idea of the peace movement and of people who spent their entire lives trying to have a more egalitarian, just society, suddenly became swamped by the record industry, by the new rock and roll culture, and by the idea of not trusting anyone over thirty.
In order to understand the movement of prices, you need not an oscilloscope to measure the entire market and reduce it to noise, but a microscope to investigate the creative process behind every company and its price.
If the entire world sought to make itself worthy of happiness rather than make itself happy, then the entire world would be happy.
The discrepancy or contradiction is the entire story. And being the entire story, it by itself discredits the entire twenty-six volumes of the Warren Commission. Nothing else has to be shown or even argued.
The pop musicians often leave meaning in the dust and substitute it for cartoons. The deeper artists - the grunge artists in the world and the emoticon people - tend to leave all of the happiness out of life like it just doesn't exist.
I think it's about the feeling more than a language. And I think that we and every culture in the world has to keep their own language just to bring something else, something different, and show a different vision of the world, actually. And that's why I'm trying to keep my language.
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