Some musicians are intelligent, erudite, articulate and thoughtful artists who are able to discuss weighty political issues and muse on abstract philosophical concepts. Then there are the musicians our music critic Darryl Sterdan talks to. They say the darnedest things. Here's what they had to say this year:
"Wait ... you did say hits, right?"
-- Even Dolly Parton isn't always sure what she's most famous for
"We're working on my brain. We're working on my head. My brain was shorting out. It was smoking, like I had a short-circuit. So I'm trying to adjust it and calibrate it."
-- Soul legend Al Green has been overdoing it a bit, it seems
"Most of the girls who say that usually end up backstage ... It's like when you drive by a car wreck on the freeway -- there's something about it you like, but you can't figure it out. We let the girls know what it is they're attracted to -- and it's usually our c----."
-- Michael Starr of heavy-metal parodists Steel Panther answers charges of misogyny in his own romantic way
"If I wanted to be loathed by people, I'd get a job as a parking attendant."
-- Folk-punk activist Billy Bragg has no plans to run for office
"Well, I don't give a s--- about what people think of me anymore -- that was a real beautiful thing to come out of brain surgery."
-- Rosanne Cash can see the upside of her recent health scare
"I always find myself trussed up in a corset saying, 'How did I end up in this?' "
-- Kylie Minogue clearly needs to pay more attention to her onstage wardrobe
"Our fans can smell lies like farts in a car."
-- Slipknot singer Corey Taylor knows his audience
"Now I just have to have some goat's milk and a French masseuse."
-- Coldplay's Chris Martin is kidding about his pre-show rituals -- I think
"When life gives you AIDS, make lemon AIDS."
-- Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes always looks on the bright side
"I feel very comfortable about this decision ... It's not one of those things where I'm going to go, 'Oh s---, why did I tell them I was going to retire?' "
-- Anne Murray has no regrets about retirement
"He told me that he's going to be in The Offspring someday. I said, 'Really? What are you going to do?' He said, 'I'm going to take your job' ... I immediately stopped his guitar lessons."
-- Offspring guitarist Noodles isn't letting his seven-year-old son get the best of him
"Well, I'm the pilot. They try not to upset me."
-- Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson -- who flew the band's jet on their last tour -- on how the group treats him when he's in the cockpit
"That would have to be this last album. I'm 64 years old, for God's sake."
-- Soul legend Booker T. Jones on his proudest achievement
"Say I'm laying in bed and I hear the inkling of something in my head. Fourteen years ago, I would have jumped up and tried to capture it. Now I lay there and go, 'Nah, that one's probably not worth it' ... I might miss a few things, but I get a better night's sleep."
-- Matthew Good on songwriting
"I've dressed all in pink-and-purple women's attire -- I've had a mini-skirt and fishnets and a beret. I believe there was also a parasol involved."
-- Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz has a unique fashion sense onstage
"We never wrote a Christmas song. How stupid was that? We should have done Over Under Sideways Toboggan or something. We'd be rolling in it."
-- Yardbirds bassist Chris Dreja revealing his professional regrets
"I would love to make a heavy metal album ... (but) I think that would be the last Il Divo gig our fans ever came to."
-- Urs Buehler of popera sensations Il Divo knows how his bread gets buttered
"After living through the '70s, having some kind of brain matter left is an amazing feat."
-- Aerosmith's Joe Perry says turning 60 is no big deal
"It gave us an opportunity to bring in a new generation of kids and impress them -- or depress them."
-- Ed Roland and Collective Soul are playing the song Tremble for My Beloved again since it ended up on the Twilight soundtrack
"I'm kind of jealous, actually. I wish I was 4-foot-11. That would be amazing. I just like being small ... I don't know what's wrong with me."
-- Pint-sized rapper Lady Sovereign, after learning that at 5-foot-1 she's taller than Kylie Minogue, Paula Abdul, Pat Benatar and Dolly Parton
"I don't want to be the chump in the house."
-- Blues guitarist Derek Trucks has to be on his toes to keep up with his equally talented wife, Susan Tedeschi
"I've got a piece of some dead person in me ... I've been having these weird dreams that I'm a schoolteacher in the Midwest. And female. I might have a woman inside me. More than usual."
-- Green Day drummer Tre Cool considers the notion that his new knee cartilage -- taken from a cadaver -- might be haunted
"I really like the Taylor Swift album. Her new one is great. And I know this is going to sound real weird, but I love Hillary Duff, too. Her last album was killer for me ... I am down with the tweens."
-- Loverboy guitarist Paul Dean has some, er, interesting musical preferences
"It was the best Sheryl Crow song I've ever heard."
-- Von Bondies singer-guitarist Jason Stollsteimer on a forced collaboration with a professional songwriter
