making music for the love of making music

I've started working on some posters and wanted to find some good inspiring quotes about music from some great musicians. First up was Louis Armstrong because, other than being one of my all time favorite musicians, he was always good for a quote.

Next up was Elvis, and he too did not disappoint. I was going to go with Bob Marley next when my wife asked if I was going to do any with people my audience would recognize. Since I'm doing these for my daughter's school, I figured I had better look into newer stars. (I'm pretty sure they will recognize Bob Marley, even if only from headshop displays and hopefully they all know Elvis, but I'm pretty sure my man Louis is going to be a mystery)

So, who should I start off with? Realizing for the first time just how old and out of touch I am, I resorted to some quick research.

Now I know some of the singers I can hear when my daughter has her headphones on, so I have a couple names to start with - Ke$ha and Usher.

A quick look through Texts from Last Night revealed a strong bent toward Lady Gaga and a search of Canadian Singers yielded a couple names from which I pulled Alanis Morissette and Nelly Furtado (not to be confused with Nelly - the things you learn...)

Now, I was listening to Alanis in high school, so my guess is that she's out.

So I have a list of 4:

Usher
Ke$ha
Nelly Furtado
Lady Gaga

Let me stop a moment and say that this list does NOT come from any sort of serious research, but just happened to be some names I basically pulled from a hat. Please do not take this list to mean anything other than it is 4 names of singers that I know are relatively popular.

Now my first two searches were pretty quick and easy. Typing 'Louis Armstrong Music Quotes' and 'Elvis Music Quotes' easily gave me dozens of quotes to choose from which illustrated to me clearly how they felt about music and their opportunity to create that music.

“If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.”
-Louis Armstrong


"Music should be something that makes you gotta move, inside or outside. "
-Elvis Presley

What about the other 4? My modern stars?

I'll list a couple of my favorites, though please remember that this isn't exhaustive:

"I’m interested in making sound moves as a young man. When the opportunity presented itself, I jumped in."
-Usher

I write pop songs. But I think it is sprinkled with a lot of counter-culture references. It ranged from rap to hip hop to trip hop, house, drum and bass, and experimental and improv and jazz.
-Nelly Furtado

"My ideal man would be funny and fat with a beard. I love fat men. I like real men. I don’t like really feminine men who tan. I don’t understand that. I like a funny man, though. Russell Brand’s not quite my type, but if he had a fat, bearded friend, that would be perfect."
-Ke$ha

"I have fans who just love my music and don't know I write it and enjoy it shallowly -- and that's OK too. I think art and music should be just as powerful if you drink it shallow as if you drink it deep."
-Lady Gaga

These aren't the worst quotes, but I picked them because they were a good example of the quotes I saw. I didn't see quotes about music and loving it. I didn't see quotes that would make me want to pursue music as a dream or a love. I didn't see passion or excitement.

I've always thought, and maybe this is a bit naive of me, that some of the older music stars, like Louis Armstrong and Elvis Presley, seemed to create their music because of an internal passion. That creating music was the only safe way to release the feeling inside of them, but when I look at today's stars, I don't see the same passion for their art. I see a bunch of people with talent (or at least good agents) who want to become rich and famous. They thrive off the attention and not off of their music. Oddly, out of the 4 quotes from earlier, the deepest glimpse of that passion is from the one person who strives to get all the attention - Lady Gaga.

I've admitted I'm out of touch with the music that is most popular today, so maybe I'm completely mistaken. Maybe there is passion there and I just don't see it at first glimpse.

I see it in today's culture. People are becoming famous not because they strive for years to build their skills and craft and slowly work their way up from nothingness to stardom, but instead they go on a show for a few weeks and are suddenly stars. I see people who have rich and famous parents leaping into stardom from the first floor instead of the basement. I wonder what effect this has on the stars themselves? Instead of talking about music, they talk about themselves. Instead of the passion of great art that has a life of its own, they talk about becoming famous. The music and art take a back seat to the person who creates it.

I got a glimpse of this the other day. My daughter had no idea who Louis Armstrong was but instantly recognized 'What a Wonderful World.'

Maybe in 30 years someone will be saying the same thing about Usher or Lady Gaga. They'll say, "they had a passion and love of music- that today's stars don't have the same feeling."

Now, a question for those out there who might know today's music better than I do. If you were trying to foster a love for music in today's teens, who would you use? Who creates inspiration in today's youth? Any ideas. If I start looking for Justin Bieber Quotes I might just loose it.