If I wanted to make a quick buck, there's far easier ways of doing it. What I want is to provoke people. If you want a hit song, all you need to do is rewrite an old song. It might have been proven to work, but you won't be remembered the same way.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the value of originality over commercial success.
Avicii highlights the importance of creativity and the desire to provoke thought rather than simply chasing profit. He suggests that while it might be easier to produce something commercially successful by rehashing existing ideas, true artistry and innovation will leave a more lasting legacy.
In practice
In a speech about music and creativity, I might say, 'As Avicii once put it, 'If I wanted to make a quick buck, there's far easier ways of doing it.'
I love finding out-of-the-box inspirations and blending them with what I've done in the past. And when I started to experiment with genres, it didn't sound forced. Maybe that's because it's all music that I listened to growing up, and it's all music that I love.
Life's a game made for everyone, and love is the prize.
A lot of work and thinking goes into my DJing. I want the entire night to progress seamlessly and when I have to adapt the energy on the fly for the crowd on any given night, I can do so with harmonic mixes that I've practiced over and over again. I am far from the only DJ that does this and it's something I take pride in being able to do.
I don't really look at the charts at all. If anything, I try to out-do what I've done before. I try to make music that I like and I trust my own judgement with what will work with a wider audience. If you compare yourself to the charts, you lose perspective on what you're doing and why you're doing it.
All my work is much more peaceful than I am.
I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they're no good. I don't throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight.
Egos are an occupational hazard in acting, but I don't have much of one, and my husband doesn't have much of one, so it's good.
Some of the young photographers today enter photography where I leave off. My "grandchildren" astound me. What I worked for they seem to be born with. So I wonder where Their affirmations of Spirit will lead. My wish for them is that their unfolding proceeds to fullness of Spirit, however astonishing or anguished their lives.
For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.
The greatest story commandment is: Make me care.
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