Creativity Quote by Ritchie Blackmore

Blackmore’s line lands like a guitar pick flicked at the culture industry: quick, petty on the surface, and dead-serious underneath. The twang bar (vibrato arm) is basically rock’s shorthand for swagger - a cheap thrill that can turn one note into a siren. By saying he won’t use it because it’s “too popular,” he’s not making a technical choice so much as a status move: the sound has been democratised, and that’s precisely what makes it unusable to him.

The subtext is classic Blackmore: craft as combat. In the Deep Purple and Rainbow era, he played like a purist with a knife behind his back, constantly guarding the boundary between “expression” and “gimmick.” Once a device becomes a cliché, it stops reading as personality and starts reading as costume. He’s allergic to costume. Or, more accurately, he’s allergic to feeling predictable.

There’s also a sly admission here about how rock trends work. Effects and techniques start as signatures, then become presets. The moment every bedroom player can approximate your flourish, your identity gets flattened into a template. Blackmore’s refusal isn’t anti-popularity in the abstract; it’s anti-automation, anti-genre drift toward the easy flourish.

The wit is in how nakedly elitist it is, and how honest. He’s basically confessing that originality isn’t just invention - it’s withdrawal, a constant retreat from whatever the crowd has learned to imitate.