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It's just a compulsion to create something new and stay busy. I don't know how to do anything else. It was never exactly right. Those records came out in spite of their flaws. And because of their flaws they were good.

Stephen Malkmus

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Stephen Malkmus
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: May 30
Guitarist
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Songwriter
Santa Monica
California
Stephen Joseph Malkmus
Else
Flaws
Anything
Spite
Right
Busy
Something
Exactly
Good
Stay
Never
Records
Create
Came
Compulsion

More quotes by Stephen Malkmus

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If you want to be negative about the whole thing you can say all guitar bands after the Beatles were just a waste of time because the Beatles were the best. I think it's far better to give new records a try.
Stephen Malkmus
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It's easy to be negatively funny about personalities in the media. It's just kind of a cheap laugh.
Stephen Malkmus
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I like that band Get Hustle. They're cool live. I haven't heard their records, though.
Stephen Malkmus
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I just imagine that every song in and of itself is great, but when you add them all up, it's too much of me maybe.
Stephen Malkmus
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What I love about music, when you can look at something and be like, Wow, what's this all about? You can't really picture what these people look like - is it one guy, or a band making music in a garage?
Stephen Malkmus
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Something taken off the page can sound great, I guess. Usually it doesn't. It seems like lately Pitchfork is trying to champion lyric writers more.
Stephen Malkmus
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My wife is a big fan of George Oppen and I got into him. I could have a career like his. It's not an alpha male situation, George Oppen. It's quiet. It's poetry.He just lived a life of an intellectual poet.
Stephen Malkmus
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I really do think everybody can sing.
Stephen Malkmus
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I'm not dying for things to say.
Stephen Malkmus
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Maybe I don't have the patience to make a virtue of necessity - the patience to carry something all the way through, and to actually say something. Lately, the songs are more jagged and they don't really lend themselves to that. I just take it one bit at a time.
Stephen Malkmus
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The earlier stuff is more like this is happening to me, but now there are more songs that are accusatory or something, or more declaratory. I don't know where that voice comes from, like, I've been down the road, we've been there and done that. That's sort of like a tougher style, or a less vulnerable style.
Stephen Malkmus
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I guess the majority of people who want to ban certain musicians are the ones who are so proud of everything America stands for.
Stephen Malkmus
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I'm not dying for everyone to hear everything we do. Forty minutes every two years is sensible.
Stephen Malkmus
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Most people want to be seen or heard. You want to shine. That's my way of shining.
Stephen Malkmus
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What producers did was mostly recording in the studio, so it never changed our sound just that much.
Stephen Malkmus
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I know the world doesn't need maybe another of [a particular type of song] - the same thing again - but you can't help yourself. And some people like it, but you kind of know in your heart that it's a lesser version of what you've done before. But maybe it has a good tempo, or it feels fresh, but it's still not.
Stephen Malkmus
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Basically, no one else gives me any opinions on lyrics. I don't ask for them. If they did, I would listen.
Stephen Malkmus
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Everyone wants to be loved, generally. If you released a record and nobody said anything, if you didn't get any feedback from people you don't know, i.e. the press, you'd be sort of upset. To me, any press is good press.
Stephen Malkmus
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I'm thinking, I'm singing like Ozzy Osbourne, but I don't sound like him enough, ever.
Stephen Malkmus
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George Oppen wasn't a larger than life personality, but I'm not either. And he lived a long time, so he was happy. Going down in flames is fine, too.
Stephen Malkmus