Art & Creativity Quote by Jan Hammer

For a musician like Jan Hammer, that line lands less as nostalgia and more as an alarm about how the modern music machine has rewritten the conditions under which “feeling” gets made. Hammer came up in an era when virtuosity, risk, and real-time chemistry were baked into the process: bands tracking together, synths that fought back, improvisation that couldn’t be comped into perfection. Saying the passion and spontaneity are “all gone” is intentionally absolute, a provocation meant to spotlight what’s been normalized: music engineered for predictability.

The subtext isn’t that artists stopped caring. It’s that the ecosystem increasingly rewards caution. When songs are built inside grids, polished by endless takes, and calibrated for playlist behavior and skip rates, the messier human elements start to read as “mistakes” instead of texture. Hammer’s complaint also hints at a shift in authorship. In a world of templates, presets, and committee-driven production, the musician’s impulsive decision-making can get replaced by a workflow. Spontaneity becomes a feature you simulate, not a risk you take.

Context matters: Hammer is a synth pioneer and composer associated with the slick precision of 1980s sound, especially through TV scoring. That makes the quote sharper. He’s not sneering at technology; he helped define it. He’s mourning what happens when tools designed to expand expression get turned into instruments of control, where the edge gets sanded down before anyone can feel it.