Art & Creativity Quote by Thomas Dolby

Dolby’s excitement here isn’t about vanity-credit auteurism; it’s about catching a technological wave at the moment it crests. In the early MTV era, a musician didn’t just release songs, they released an identity package - a look, a mood, a piece of speculative fiction you could broadcast between soda ads. Dolby, already branded as a brainy synth-pop tinkerer, hears a new instrument arrive: the music video as a studio you can walk into.

The key phrase is “starting to happen,” which frames video not as an established art form but as a fresh, slightly chaotic frontier. That timing matters. When a medium is still being invented, the rules are loose and the gatekeepers haven’t hardened. Dolby’s “so I directed some of my own” reads like a pragmatic grab for creative control: if the visuals are going to define how audiences understand the music, why outsource the interpretation?

There’s subtext in “experiment in other areas of expression.” He’s positioning himself less as a pop frontman and more as a multi-platform maker - a person for whom sound is only one channel. Coming from a musician closely associated with futurism and electronics, the line also carries a quiet manifesto: new tools don’t threaten artistry; they expand it. In a culture that often treats pop as disposable, Dolby insists on process, craft, and curiosity. The thrill isn’t fame. It’s the permission to prototype in public.