Creativity Quote by Josh Silver

“To compare the albums is like trying to compare apples and oranges” is the musician’s most useful kind of dodge: it sounds like humility while quietly drawing a boundary around criticism. Josh Silver isn’t claiming the records are beyond judgment; he’s insisting the terms of judgment are wrong. It’s a line built for the moment when fans, labels, and interviewers want a ranking, a definitive “best era,” a tidy narrative arc. Artists rarely live inside tidy arcs. They live inside deadlines, changing band chemistry, shifting scenes, and the simple fact that what felt urgent in one year can feel like costume jewelry the next.

The phrase works because it’s instantly legible and slightly weary. Everyone knows the idiom, which lets Silver sound reasonable rather than defensive. But the subtext is sharper: stop turning art into a bracket. “Apples and oranges” doesn’t just mean “different”; it implies the comparison is inherently unfair, maybe even lazy. It pushes the listener to consider intention: one album might be built for atmosphere, another for aggression; one is a document of survival, another of ambition. The metric can’t be a single scoreboard without flattening the whole point.

Culturally, it’s also a small resistance to the algorithms. Streaming culture encourages “top 5” lists and instant hierarchies; this line argues for context, for the idea that an album is a specific answer to a specific time. Silver’s refusal isn’t evasive so much as protective: of process, of evolution, of the right to change and not be punished for it.