I probably could have toured off ‚Trilogy‘ for the rest of my life. It definitely changed the culture. No one can do a trilogy again without thanking The Weeknd.

The great moments of rock ‚n‘ roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto.

Strangely, some songs you really don’t want to write.

Madonna and I are very different. Just saying. We’re very different. I wouldn’t make that comparison at all, and I don’t mean to disrespect Madonna: she’s a nice lady, and she’s had a fantastic, huge career – biggest pop star of all time.

I have taken taking my music to labels for years, and everyone just thought it was creepy. They thought the images with the music were weird and verging on psychotic.

I think generally playing live is a crap idea. So much of stage work is the presentation of personality, and I’ve never been interested in that.

I think country music is popular – has been popular and will always be popular because I think a lot of real people singing about a lot of real stuff about real people. And it’s simple enough for people to understand it. And we kind of roll with the punches.

That little Miley Cyrus… she’s like a little Elvis. The kids love her because she’s Hannah Montana, but what people don’t realize about her is she is such a fantastic singer and songwriter. She writes songs like she’s 40 years old!

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God… They’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it.

The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world’s popular music is a good thing, for the most part.

If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.

Music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment.

I’m not going to do anything crazy, but I want to do music that I’m passionate about. I’m finally at an age where I can do the music that I grew up loving, which was urban pop, ’90s music. I grew up listening to the divas, so I’m very happy to finally do urban pop. I hope that it’s received well, and it has been so far.

I don’t see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear ‚pop,‘ you’re like, ‚Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,‘ and I feel like, ‚Uh-uh. That’s not me.‘

I need to know how many records I’ve sold, how many album equivalents from streaming, which territories are playing my music more than others, because it helps me in conversations about where we’re gonna be playing shows or where I might open a retail location, like a pop-up store or something.

I came to California and got signed at a young age. And it’s not like you see in the movies, where you start rubbing shoulders with Timbaland and Pharrell, and you become a giant pop star.

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock and roll or Christianity.

As hard as it is, as ghetto as it is, hip-hop is pop music. It’s the sound of music getting out of the ghetto, while rock is looking for a ghetto.

I think we’re about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.

The wage for most musicians is a modest amount, and that includes me some of the time.

Before recording technology existed, you could not separate music from its social context.

Even though I’ve been putting out bodies of work for years, ‚Beauty Behind the Madness‘ felt like the beginning.

She’s a total professional, a diva, a mega-star, not just in music but in the entertainment industry. You always learn from the greats, and J.Lo is one.

‚Kiss Land‘ is the story after ‚Trilogy‘; it’s pretty much the second chapter of my life. The narrative takes place after my first flight; it’s very foreign, very Asian-inspired. When people ask me, ‚Why Japan?‘ I simply tell them it’s the furthest I’ve ever been from home. It really is a different planet.

I’ve had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, ‚Your music sucks, you don’t know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don’t know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.‘

If I could, I would not do anything else. I’d just be in the studio for my whole life. I would never go to parties, events, and red carpets. I would rather just be in the studio for the whole time. I don’t even care. Nobody has to know what I look like. I just want to make music.

To go indie is a thing. But to put an album in the stores, you need a distribution label.

The signing of the Sex Pistols was a turning point for Virgin. It put the company on the map and, over the years, attracted bands such as Genesis, the Rolling Stones, Lenny Kravitz, and Janet Jackson. It also attracted Culture Club, who were ground-breaking.

Streaming is a really big market for me. We’ve been doing great in the streaming market, so it’s not something I want to alienate at all. Streaming counts now. They’re treating artists the way we deserve to be treated.

In hip-hop, there’s not a lot of love. There’s not a lot of love being spread. It’s always like ‚I’m stuntin‘ on you raps, or I’m better than you raps.‘ It’s not a lot of ‚Yo man, I idolize you raps.‘

Probably the reason it’s a little hard to break away from the album format completely is, if you’re getting a band together in the studio, it makes financial sense to do more than one song at a time. And it makes more sense, if you’re going to all the effort of performing and doing whatever else, if there’s a kind of bundle.

Basically, I’m one of the greatest producers ever. And I’m also one of the greatest DJs ever. And I’m also one of the best executives ever.

Surface R&B doesn’t work any more. The whole heartthrob thing, songs about unrealistic love and tearing your shirt off every show – that’s not really where it’s at any more. It’s becoming harder for those guys to sell records, and harder for them to succeed.

There was a time Michael Jackson couldn’t get his video on MTV because he was considered to be ‚urban.‘ The Michael Jackson. So I literally have to be the Michael Jackson of apparel in order to break down the doors for everyone who will come after I’m gone, after I’m dead.

Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left.

‚House of Balloons‘ was actually supposed to have more songs than it does.

I remember being in Japan when Destiny’s Child put out ‚Independent Women,‘ and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

People think because I’ve got some success, I’ve made it, but in my eyes it’s like, ‚How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?‘ Not that I’m trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time.

I knew the second I finished the first record – ‚House Of Balloons‘ – and had all this material leftover that a trilogy would be best.

I want to make pop cool again, and the only way I can do that is by being ambitious and grand.

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

There’s been a lot of talk about Jack White wanting to work with me, and I’ve always admired him, and of course, he lives in Nashville, too.

The Beatles created something that never trailed off. What a gift that was to their fans. If you’re into the Beatles, you loved them from beginning to end.

All I do is make music.

A lot of people ask me, ‚How did you have the courage to walk up to record labels when you were 12 or 13 and jump right into the music industry?‘ It’s because I knew I could never feel the kind of rejection that I felt in middle school. Because in the music industry, if they’re gonna say no to you, at least they’re gonna be polite about it.

There’s something missing in the music industry today… and it’s music. Songs you hear don’t last, it’s just product fed to you by the industry.

I’m well past the age where I’m acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You’re not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you’re not going to get played on radio and you’re not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

I put together amazing records, whether that’s finding the beat or putting the right hook on there, and picking the right artists on the record. That’s me being an A&R. And I’m making sure that they give me their best.

I made that first record in 2008, alongside the EP, but my label at the time waited three years to release it. They thought maybe someone bigger would buy it, but they didn’t, so in the end they just released it themselves.

I was 19 or 20 when The Beatles were at their peak, and I was coming up to the peak of my career, too. I was also the first footballer to have long hair, and that’s how I got my nickname ‚the Fifth Beatle.‘

It must be quite mysterious to some people why I bother to carry on. Because, you know, I don’t sell that many records.

I can’t deny that label-support gave me a leg up – though not every successful artist needs it.

With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That’s why we’re such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, ‚Are people interested?‘ But I think our band has something and they know we don’t just put albums out. We do think about it.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don’t think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

Songwriters, you have to work – you have to wait for residuals. You have to pray that the song’s going to be a hit. And then a year later, you might get a check.

Cardi B put a lot of work in.

When you’re a pop star, it’s a little conservative; you always have to stay in a box. You have fans that are five and fans that are 65; there are so many people wanting so many things.

The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

All of my records, I produced, put together completely. All of them. Maybe Drake might come with an idea, and I might finish it. You gotta remember what a producer is. Quincy Jones is a producer.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.