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Parenting & Family Quote by Lenny Kravitz

"When I was a kid and I bought a record, I ripped that thing open, I wanted to know who was playing what, what studio it was cut at, who was the string arranger, who was the engineer"

About this Quote

Kravitz is describing a kind of fandom that doesn’t stop at devotion; it turns into apprenticeship. The image is physical and impatient: “ripped that thing open.” Before streaming made music weightless, the record was an artifact with secrets embedded in cardboard and liner notes. His urgency isn’t just nostalgia for vinyl; it’s a confession of how an artist gets built - by treating every album like a case file.

The intent is quietly corrective. In a culture trained to fixate on the frontman, he’s redirecting attention to the invisible workforce: the string arranger, the engineer, the studio. That list matters because it names power. Kravitz is saying the sound you love isn’t magic; it’s labor, taste, and technique, distributed across specialists. The subtext is a rebuke to the idea of “authenticity” as lone-genius mythology. Even the most swaggering rock persona is the product of rooms, gear, and people whose names rarely make the poster.

Contextually, this tracks with Kravitz’s own brand: a musician who curates lineage and craft as aggressively as style. He’s always been a bridge between eras, selling a retro aesthetic while insisting on serious musicianship. The quote also lands as a generational marker. For kids raised on playlists, the credits are buried, optional, easy to ignore. Kravitz frames that lost habit as a kind of education - one that teaches you to listen with curiosity, not just consume with appetite.

Quote Details

TopicMusic
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Kravitz, Lenny. (2026, January 15). When I was a kid and I bought a record, I ripped that thing open, I wanted to know who was playing what, what studio it was cut at, who was the string arranger, who was the engineer. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-i-was-a-kid-and-i-bought-a-record-i-ripped-144356/

Chicago Style
Kravitz, Lenny. "When I was a kid and I bought a record, I ripped that thing open, I wanted to know who was playing what, what studio it was cut at, who was the string arranger, who was the engineer." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-i-was-a-kid-and-i-bought-a-record-i-ripped-144356/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"When I was a kid and I bought a record, I ripped that thing open, I wanted to know who was playing what, what studio it was cut at, who was the string arranger, who was the engineer." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-i-was-a-kid-and-i-bought-a-record-i-ripped-144356/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz (born May 26, 1964) is a Musician from USA.

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