Science & Tech Quote by Hugh Hopper

Hugh Hopper’s line lands like a weary shrug from someone who’s watched the studio turn from a room full of humans into a screen full of options. Calling modern technology a “tool” is the key move: it strips away the hype and the panic. Tools don’t have morals. People do. That framing quietly rebukes both camps that dominate music talk - the techno-utopians who treat each new gadget as destiny, and the purists who blame machines for every deadened chorus on the radio.

The phrase “wonderful moments” is tellingly modest. He’s not praising entire eras or genres; he’s talking about flashes: an unexpected texture, a risky edit, a sound no one could make before. That’s a musician’s compliment, rooted in craft rather than branding. Then he pairs it with “some horrors,” blunt and unpoetic, like a bandmate naming the problem after hearing a bad mix. The subtext isn’t that technology ruined music; it’s that technology made it easier to get away with less. More tracks, more plugins, more correction - more chances to sand the life off a performance until it’s frictionless.

Hopper came out of a world (jazz, prog, improvisation) where mistakes can be information and limitations can be style. In that context, “horrors” likely means the flattening of risk: quantized time, pitch-perfect vocals, endless polish that turns songs into products engineered to survive skips. He’s not nostalgic for tape hiss. He’s defending the audible evidence of choice, taste, and human nerve.