Science & Tech Quote by Tony Visconti

Visconti is doing something rarer than a hot take: he’s refusing the easy nostalgia button while still admitting that tech changes who gets to be heard. The first clause is a corrective to the tired “they don’t make music like they used to” posture. He grants that “great records” still happen, and he doesn’t frame modern tools as inherently corrupting. That matters coming from a producer synonymous with era-defining analog glamour; it signals credibility without becoming a museum guide.

Then he pivots to the thornier truth: technology doesn’t just polish art, it selects for certain kinds of artists. “Reliant” is doing quiet, judgmental work here. It implies dependence, maybe even fragility, but it also acknowledges that new workflows create new forms of talent. The subtext is less “kids these days” than “the ecosystem has changed.” Autotune, grid-based editing, limitless takes, and bedroom-studio production don’t merely fix imperfections; they invite aesthetics built around manipulation, collage, and hyper-control. Some voices and visions only exist because the tools make them possible.

The line “recording was more organic” isn’t a compliment so much as a description of constraints: fewer tracks, higher stakes, performance as proof. Visconti’s point is that constraints used to act like gatekeepers and teachers at once. Today’s freedom is more democratic, but it also produces artists who might not survive in the older, harsher audition room.

He’s arguing for a mature listening ethic: judge the record, understand the method, and stop pretending the past was pure or the present is fake.