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I have to say I find it totally astounding that my albums do as well as they do. It's quite extraordinary, and it's actually very touching for me for the albums to be received with such warmth.

Making an album can be like being pregnant: you want to pop that thing out and show everybody!

I wanted to make something that reminded people of the way albums used to feel. I wanted something as good as the stuff put out by the Bomb Squad, or Dr. Dre and his production crew, or 'A Tribe Called Quest.' I miss albums like those.

This is an album of songs that I've always loved, tunes that I heard. For the first time in 53 years of recording, I really had control over an entire album, start to finish.

One Long Year was just a song here and there, and it was meant to reflect the mood that I was in but unfortunately it also reflected too little of any particular thing rather than hanging together as a whole album.

Christina Aguilera's 'Stripped' had a lot of good songs. It's my range, so I use it to warm up a lot.

I continue to believe, contrary to the given wisdom, that it's more interesting to have an album - or, indeed, an individual song - which has variety rather than homogeneity.

I realized if I'm not really making an album, I don't have to be concerned about things like stylistic consistency, pacing, a coherent mood. All that stuff goes out the window.

I kinda like the idea of having an album that's all me.