To me, rock music was never meant to be safe. I think there needs to be an element of intrigue, mystery, subversiveness. Your parents should hate it.
Interpretation
Rock music should challenge norms and provoke strong reactions.
Trent Reznor expresses that rock music should be daring and provocative, designed to evoke strong feelings and push boundaries. He suggests that its essence lies in being intriguing and somewhat rebellious, resonating particularly with the younger generation who may find it in contrast to their parents' tastes.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the evolving nature of music genres.
Though I still have no semblance of a life outside of Nine Inch Nails at the moment, I realize my goals have gone from getting a record deal or selling another record to being a better person, more well-rounded, having friends, having a relationship with somebody.
I lived a fairly average, anonymous small-town life till I got the idea to do Nine Inch Nails. Then I locked myself in a studio for a year, and then got off the tour bus two years after that, and I didn't know who I'd turned into.
You're standing onstage in a sold-out arena with people singing your music, and you feel like the loneliest person in the world. Because here's a party that, essentially, it's for you. And you still somehow feel like you don't belong there. Those people all have their lives and go back home.
My music has been a sort of personal therapy. It's got me out of tough times, it has been the friend that I needed, when I didn't have a friend there.
I've attended many concerts where I felt let down and I was wishing it would be something else. Not that it's their duty to please me, but at the same time, I think a lot about what it's like through the eyes of the consumer, the fan. I want not to pander to the audience, but to be aware of them.
I think the whole aspect of social networking is vulgar and repulsive in a lot of ways. But I also see why it's appealing - I've had that little high you get from posting stuff online. But then you think, 'Did I need to say that?' I've explored that enough to know to stay kind of quiet these days.
The music you make is shaped by what you play it on ... if you feel that you're not getting enough out of a song, change the instrument - go from an acoustic to an electric or vice versa, or try an open tuning ... do something to shake it up.
Each time I make a movie, it's a little bit like taking another course in something because there's an argument between these people that I don't necessarily have an answer to.
In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of a fabric is governed by gravity.
This was the first time that he has ever looked into the labyrinth of the human soul. He was very far from understanding what he saw. But what was of more value, he felt and suffered with her. In years that were yet to come, he relived this memory in song, in the most beautiful song this world has known. For the understanding of the soul's defencelessness, of the conflict between the two poles, is not the source of the greatest song. The source of the greatest song is sympathy.
There's no diploma in the world that declares you as an artistβit's not like becoming a doctor. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.
At different moments you see with different eyes. You see differently in the morning than you do in the evening. In addition, how you see is also dependent on your emotional state. Because of this, a motif can be seen in many different ways, and this is what makes art interesting.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.