Music producer Tony Visconti criticises industry, says there's a new David Bowie out there not getting a shot

"The record labels are not giving you quality"

David Bowie (Getty)

David Bowie's long-time producing partner Tony Visconti has spoken out against the music industry suggesting that new talent is getting quashed due to record labels' inability to take risks.

"There are great people all around us – the next David Bowie lives somewhere in the world, the next Beatles, the next Springsteen,' Visconti said during his keynote speech at South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Texas. "...but they’re not getting a shot, they’re not being financed."

"Back in the Seventies, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours sold between 14 and 16 million," The Guardian reports the producer as saying. "Since then the world’s population has nearly doubled to close to 8 billion and last year Taylor Swift sold 12 million.

"With the population doubling how come we can’t sell records? The record labels now are not giving you quality - that’s why you’re disenchanted, that’s why you don’t buy records."

The producer and musician also criticised televised talent shows.

"It can’t get any worse. [Talent shows make people think] that becoming a big star is just luck; they think 'get a great hairdo and makeup and everything's going to be hunky dory.'"

Visconti collaborated with Bowie for years, working with him intermittently from the 1969 Space Oddity LP right through to the new Blackstar album which was released the week prior to Bowie's death on 10 January.

In a touching Facebook post following the news of his friend's passing, Visconti described the album as Bowie's "parting gift."