Science & Tech Quote by Midge Ure

There is a quiet revolution hiding in Ure's casual phrasing: the computer doesn’t just add a new sound, it rewires who gets to be “good” at making music. He frames it like play - “great fun,” “mess about” - but that’s the tell. In the early-80s moment he’s speaking from, the studio is turning into an instrument, and the gatekeepers (virtuoso chops, expensive rooms, a band that can nail a take) start to lose their monopoly.

The most revealing line is the confession-and-workaround combo: “not being a good keyboard player” becomes an advantage once the machine lets him think modularly. Writing “in very small sections” is basically an aesthetic manifesto for pop’s shift toward loops, patterns, and arrangement as composition. It’s also a subtle rejection of rock’s heroic mythology, the idea that authenticity lives in continuous performance. Ure’s authenticity is in the tinkering: find a texture, lock a mood, then build a song like architecture.

“Give them a certain feel” signals he’s not chasing cold precision, despite the tech. He’s chasing vibe, and the “bends” are his way of smuggling human instability back into quantized space. Under the surface, it’s a snapshot of a broader cultural pivot: technology as democratizer, but also as co-writer, nudging musicians toward fragmentation, iteration, and a new kind of control. The fun is real; the consequences are huge.