I was a big music fan, but I never bought a bunch of records or was very educated, I guess, on who was who or what was what.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music.
The music sold itself before anybody knew who I was.
I have a feeling a lot of the records I grew up listening to and the records I still like, as hard as musicians worked making them, I feel like they were really enjoying what they were going through. They weren't just going through the process. You can tell that with certain things that you listen to.
My parents were big music fans, and my dad plays music, so I grew up with Madonna, Frank Zappa, the Beatles, Alice In Chains... it was all over the place. I had a Third Eye Blind record, but I also had Korn, Courtney Love, and Shania Twain.
My grandfather was a massive influence in my music. Growing up, he would play a lot of old-school records to me. A lot of jazz and swing music, actually, growing up.
My career was really odd, because I literally had a greatest hits album out and nobody knew who I was. They knew the songs, but they didn't know me.
The whole process of this record was an education for me as a musician.
Both of my parents were super music lovers when I was growing up - they had a massive record and tape collection. I think my dad even had a couple of laser discs, but that was a short-lived thing.
I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs.
I hadn't been a recording artist all that long when albums came on the scene, and I was one of the first singers to point the way to how varied an album's contents could be.