"I have always enjoyed different kinds of music"
About this Quote
There is a studied modesty in Billy Sherwood saying, "I have always enjoyed different kinds of music". Coming from a working musician and producer whose career lives in the seams between prog rock legacy and contemporary collaboration, the line reads less like a personal preference than a quiet manifesto about how to survive in a genre world that loves gatekeeping.
The key word is "enjoyed". It dodges the competitive posture of taste-making (knowing, ranking, defending) and replaces it with appetite. Enjoyment is porous; it implies listening without having to join a tribe. For a musician associated with a band as mythologized and argument-prone as Yes, that matters. Prog fandom can turn purity into a test, and Sherwood's sentence gently refuses the test. It's not "I was influenced by everything" (a cliche producers toss off in press interviews), but it gestures at the same permission: the right to borrow textures, arrangement ideas, and emotional temperatures from anywhere.
"Always" does a second job. It frames eclecticism as identity, not a late-career pivot or a marketing-friendly rebrand. That timeline implies curiosity as an instinct, which is exactly what you want listeners to believe about someone who steps into established catalogs, co-writes with different personalities, and toggles between roles (bassist, singer, engineer, arranger) where adaptability is currency.
The subtext is practical: genre boundaries are for listeners; musicians build with materials. Sherwood's line quietly asks for a broader definition of authenticity: not loyalty to one sound, but commitment to listening.
The key word is "enjoyed". It dodges the competitive posture of taste-making (knowing, ranking, defending) and replaces it with appetite. Enjoyment is porous; it implies listening without having to join a tribe. For a musician associated with a band as mythologized and argument-prone as Yes, that matters. Prog fandom can turn purity into a test, and Sherwood's sentence gently refuses the test. It's not "I was influenced by everything" (a cliche producers toss off in press interviews), but it gestures at the same permission: the right to borrow textures, arrangement ideas, and emotional temperatures from anywhere.
"Always" does a second job. It frames eclecticism as identity, not a late-career pivot or a marketing-friendly rebrand. That timeline implies curiosity as an instinct, which is exactly what you want listeners to believe about someone who steps into established catalogs, co-writes with different personalities, and toggles between roles (bassist, singer, engineer, arranger) where adaptability is currency.
The subtext is practical: genre boundaries are for listeners; musicians build with materials. Sherwood's line quietly asks for a broader definition of authenticity: not loyalty to one sound, but commitment to listening.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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