Art & Creativity Quote by James Iha

Taste, in James Iha's hands, is less a manifesto than a shrug with a passport stamp. The quote moves the way a working musician actually talks: halting, conversational, allergic to genre-purity. "Pop music" and "heavy music" sit side by side with no hierarchy, deflating the rock-world reflex to treat accessibility as betrayal and volume as virtue. That casual stacking is the point. Iha isn't selling eclecticism as a brand; he's refusing to let taste be policed.

The repeated "I like" does quiet cultural work. It's a claim of autonomy in an industry that loves to turn preference into identity-tribes. For someone associated with alternative rock's 90s peak, it's also a gentle rebuke to the expectation that credibility requires permanent seriousness. He frames listening as appetite, not allegiance.

Then comes the pivot to label talk: "the band I've signed on to our label". Now the quote is about power, not just playlists. Iha is positioning himself as a curator and gatekeeper, someone who can translate personal taste into institutional backing. Mentioning The Sounds as "kind of like a new-wave pop band" is a strategic descriptor: familiar enough to pitch, specific enough to signal taste. "Kind of like" is doing PR's job while preserving the speaker's anti-hype posture. It's authenticity as soft marketing - a musician insisting that influence can move forward without pretending it isn't pop.