Synthetic Sounds

AI-generated music is having a moment. Let’s hope it is short.

Robots in our Midst

Lurking among the 30 or so singles in my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist recently was an unsettling track. It wasn't the spooky imagery of the track's cover art (see right) or anything about the admittedly vague lyrics - it was my overriding suspicion that this was AI music.

What's the Matter With John Brown is a track put out by “artist” The Roux is clearly channeling a bluesy vibe with some catchy pop sensibilities. Listening passively, you might not suspect anything unusual about this track, and I almost didn't. What bugged me, however, was that the composition was just too polished, as if I could hear the sense of formulaicness behind the music's creation.

I wasn't 100% sure, though. I did a quick Google search and found a Reddit thread that seemed to confirm my suspicion, or at least that there were others who felt equally suspicious. For me, the smoking gun came when I clicked to find more about the artist's bio in the Spotify app (there was no presence online, another flag) and was met with this heinously inauthentic description:

Let's get something out of the way early - it's ok to admit you've been fooled into not realizing a song is AI-generated, or even that a song you know is AI-generated sounds good to your ears -that's exactly what the original creator's intention was. What's at stake here is the role AI has in music and whether songs (and "artists") like this one belong alongside human creators, or should be labeled as something different altogether.

Our New AI Music Overlords

Perhaps it speaks to the growing prevalence of this theme that without even meaning to do more research for this piece, my TikTok algorithm this week fed me a clip from CBS Sunday Morning's recent program on AI music. I took the time to watch the full 10 minute video below:

I wasn't familiar with the lead interview subject, Ray Beato, before this video. Doing a bit of digging, he seems to be well respected and has a high competency with music production and solid experience working with major artists. That context in mind, I found his casual attitude about AI-generated music concerning.

While I think it's worth exploring and understanding the applications of AI to music, I think the wholesale desire and increasing tendency to replace human artists with fully AI-generated music is clearly wrong-minded. I'm not closed off to the application of AI as a tool in the industry - there was a time when autotune received negative reception for its overuse (but Cher's Believe is a banger). AI artists like The Roux, however, are directly profiting off the hard work and real experience of other songwriters and artists to generate their content. It's not just "icky" as one songwriter featured in the CBS special relays, it's exploiting the hard work and creativity of others for a fast dollar.

Falling Flat

My hope, and honest sense, is that as much as technologists are pushing the moral, technical, and economic boundaries of AI's applications in the music industry, audiences everywhere are already onto their game, and equally put off by the implications.

One of the common responses by interviewees in the CBS piece was a sense of sadness that for all of AI's musical merits, there would be no ability for listeners to form a meaningful attachment to the artist. The creation, performance, and listening of music is such a human endeavor, that the intrusion of clankers seems to undermine the very purpose of the art-form altogether.

I think the failure of AI music to catch on will come down a "tradesman vs craftsman" dynamic. AI may already be quite proficient in understanding the composition of music, of imitating what we often expect to hear; where it will always struggle, however, is in replicating those deeper and sometimes even unknowable threads that artists imbue into their music to give it the authenticity, heart, and surprise that audiences constantly crave. Returning to the songwriter interviewed by CBS, she spoke earnestly about how the songs she's written connect to life experiences, and how sometimes memories and other songs influence the creation of a new song in ways that I expect no AI will ever truly be able to replicate (without a deeper level of sentience).

One of my favorite albums this year has been Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra's Migrants. I've loved it so much, that I was motivate to watch a short documentary about its making. Watching the 8 members of the band collaborate, clash, and pour their emotions, ego, and ambitions into an album was a heartening reminder that the music we have always loved is so irreplaceably human.

I would be naive to banish AI from the realm of music altogether; as I said earlier it may very well have a place in music creation far into the future. I've no doubt that better and better imitators will continue to proliferate. There may even be songs that I quite like only to find the creator was AI.

But it's not a coincidence that passively listening to The Roux, something didn't sit right with me. The soul of the music was absent. There wasn't a real story to share or an inspired artist eager to share their craft. There was a pretender, simply giving me what it thought I would like. Good thing humans are unpredictable.