Creativity Quote by Roger Andrew Taylor

The tell is in the stuttered insistence: "really... really... real". Roger Taylor isn't just talking about studio perfectionism; he's drawing a line between an album as a product and an album as proof. That repetition reads like someone pushing back against the easiest narrative in rock history: fame makes the work effortless. Instead, Taylor frames "the bar was very high" as a kind of self-imposed austerity, a refusal to let momentum, label pressure, or fan hunger dictate what gets released.

"Finished album" is the key phrase. In an era where endless deluxe editions, leaks, and algorithm-friendly singles blur what "done" even means, Taylor is defending the old-school idea of an album as a coherent, deliberate object. It's also a quiet admission of vulnerability. If the bar is "very high", then falling short isn't just a missed deadline; it's a blemish on legacy. For artists with long careers, every new release competes with a back catalog that has already been canonized, and that can turn the studio into a courtroom.

The subtext is collective, too. "We" and "we weren't going to give up" casts the process as a band-level pact, not a lone genius myth. It signals discipline and, maybe, conflict managed behind the scenes: compromise, revisions, scrapped takes. The intent isn't to brag about standards; it's to justify the time, the delay, the meticulousness. Taylor positions persistence as respect - for the songs, for the audience, and for the name on the sleeve.