Photo: WENN
David Bowie producer David Visconti has unleashed a damning indictment of the music industry at this year's SXSW, saying, "It can't get any worse."
In her keynote speech at the Texas music and culture festival, Visconti - who worked with Bowie for over 40 years, including on his final album, Blackstar - described today's mainstream pop as "a computer and a vocal that was doctored to goodness knows how much."
He insisted, "The next David Bowie lives somewhere in the world, the next Beatles, the next Springsteen but they’re not getting a shot, they’re not being financed." He also criticised music streaming services such as Spotify for not paying artists a liveable wage.
Rather than seeing the rise of the internet, and sites such as YouTube, as a way of democratising the industry, Viconti instead accused it of "clogging the arteries" of the music business.
"With the population doubling how come we can’t sell records?" he asked. "The record labels now are not giving you quality, that’s why you’re disenchanted, that’s why you don’t buy records." This was a strange assertion, given that it's generally accepted that the decline in sales is due to torrenting and streaming, not worse quality music.
There is, at least, one young popstar that David Visconti admires. Last month, he described Lorde's Bowie tribute at the BRITs as "respectful, sensitive, egoless tribute to dear David."
