Who really needs a new album from me?
There are so many things to think about when you make an album. Like, who am I trying to impress? Am I going to get respect, critical acclaim? Or am I going to sell lots of records?
To do a world tour with my album, that would be really incredible. I love travelling, and I love travelling through my music.
I have lots of records, quite a collection, actually, that I stole from my mom. I have the original 'Thriller' album and I have a really great 'Elton John's Greatest Hits,' and I also have a N.E.R.D. album. Records sound more original. They have more edge.
When you start out as a band, you stake your claim and you go for it. And there's a part of you that dreams it and imagines it and does everything to get there, but you can't ever expect to sell 8, 10, 12, 20 million albums. It becomes this thing that you really have to figure out as you go.
I'd rather come back with a few transcendent memories than an album of snapshots.
Any time that you can give the consumer more of what they want, it's a good thing. I said from Day 1 that the unbundling of the album is a good thing.
Just six days after its release on iTunes, a record-breaking 33 million people have already listened to the album.
A good producer brings out the best in the artist he's working with. You shouldn't be able to listen to something and say, 'So-and-so produced this album.
So we are not doing the traditional album, tour, album, tour, album, tour anymore. We're going to tour when we want to, regardless of whether we've got a record out.
It is definitely much easier to feel that an album is disposable - to dismiss an album or delete the tracks you don't like or to just throw it into shuffle or whatever.
On the other hand, I'm very tolerant as well. I expect that everybody can play what they want. I'm only not tolerant when it comes to myself and what is presented on my album that I have to listen to for the rest of my life.
If you had ever heard my album you would know that I could never consider the music business!
I just liked stand-up comedy so much. I used to memorize Bill Cosby albums and other people's albums, George Carlin, Flip Wilson.
I don't want my album coming out with a 'G' rating. Nobody would buy it.
Japanese music was so crazy! The J-pop and everything. I never scooped up an album or anything.
I can't wait until the record label feels like it's time for my album to come out, and then just disappear.
I was wanting to do an album but I didn't know if I was really ready. Jerry Wexler was one of my closest friends and allies, like my godfather. He said, "Let's do an album." I couldn't sing worth a damn, but there were some good songs.
I've done gospel singing. I have a gospel album and country album.
I don't relate to what's left of the music business. There doesn't seem to be any point to it anymore. The business that I grew up in and loved, we made records a different way - there were record companies, there were stores where you could buy albums.
I'm very proud of all the bluegrass-oriented albums. It just reminded me and my fans that I should always record acoustic music and country records, along with anything else that I might want to do.
So by the time the 60s rolled in that became a huge art form in its own right with bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Hendrix doing total concept albums, same thing with Pink Floyd.
Usually bands would make a song to record for an album, but what happens with the deejays you say "Well the album is everything we need. Thanks band. You can go away now."
One of the main things that differentiates them [artists of 70s] from artists before is that they made albums based on the fact that they didn't care about the band as a thing in its own right. They cared about manipulating the recording and that became the album.
To be honest, I didn't really get into making music to be an album artist.
