Creativity Quote by Midge Ure

Ure is describing a kind of pop minimalism that’s less about austerity than control. “Left a lot of holes” isn’t a confession of something missing; it’s a strategy for creating propulsion. In synth-driven music, the temptation is always to wallpaper the track with “big pad chords” - warm, sustaining textures that make everything feel finished. Ure’s refusal of that comfort reads like an aesthetic manifesto from an era when technology suddenly made it easy to fill every frequency. Restraint becomes a way to keep the music human.

The subtext is about trust: trust in groove, trust in the listener, trust that a song can imply more than it states. Holes create space for the vocal to land with authority and for the rhythm section (or sequenced equivalents) to feel physical rather than glossy. They also generate tension; the ear keeps leaning forward, waiting for the next interlocking piece.

“Small melodies and counter melodies” signals craft over spectacle. Instead of one heroic hook sitting on top of a chordal cushion, he’s talking about a web of parts, each rhythmic enough to function like percussion. That’s an arrangement philosophy you can hear across the early-80s shift from rock’s blocky chord progressions to new wave’s architecture: patterns, interplay, negative space. It’s danceability without surrendering musical complexity, a way to make sophistication move.