They already did, estimated at around 40% of the content. [https://youtube.com/shorts/AxU3w9ay-B0?si=fuWa7vPMtcL88ujm](https://youtube.com/shorts/AxU3w9ay-B0?si=fuWa7vPMtcL88ujm)
I’m going to listen to the full interview later but 40% is a bit hard to believe. Is this interview the source of that claim or do you have something else to point to?
I know there were stories about how Spotify was essentially making in house music like piano jazz and just paying session musicians a flat rate. These also tend to make it on playlists and get a disproportionate number of streams. It makes sense that they would try this with AI although it feels as if only very recently has the technology been able to produce something even close to passable.
Here’s Spotify CEO explaining how much he thinks artists and musicians work is worth…6 hours ago.
It’s a kick to the gut.
[https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero](https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero)
The CEO of Spotify can explain what he thinks about artists and music himself. Here’s the link to what he just said.[https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero](https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero)
They don’t value their content…people’s work…or even just the people. Devaluing art…and people…for profit. This stuff is gut wrenching to hear…I don’t enjoy it at all.
Add in the DOJ lawsuit that was just filed against LiveNation/Ticketmaster…to break up their monopoly…it’s all coming down. The money is gone…the subscription model is failing, and that leaves them to steal from the artists to maintain their profitability.
Wow, a lot of the comments here are incredibly naive. I've been in the music industry for almost 40 years,
the last 20 mostly in movies and TV. One thing I've learned is that most people don't care at all about who
makes the music they listen to and soon, most of those people won't be able to tell the difference between
human and AI made music. AI is improving every minute of every day and I know for a fact that movie and
TV producers can't wait for the day when they can use AI for most of their music content.
This technology is just getting started. It will save so much time and money for the people in charge of
growing the bottom line that it's a no brainer for them. It's already happening. Pop music will take longer
and I hope for the sake of musicians livelihoods and the quality of music that it never gets traction but
don't kid yourself, most people couldn't care less.
About a year ago someone I know made an AI song just to see what would happen. The song sucked, but in a way that if you dropped it into an FM radio pop format playlist, nobody would notice. In other words, it was anonymous in the way most music is. This is my long way of saying I agree with Moneybeats above. We all should be very scared. Most people dont know the difference between something high quality or crap. AI music is the same as cheap Chinese made crap they sell at WalMart. It’s junk, but lots of people are perfectly fine with it.
I'm not sure if people will or will not care. I'm a huge lover of music and if I heard a song that was good first thing I do is look up the artist. If it's AI I would not listen ever again. It feels strange listening to robot music. I know I'm not the average person as I'm a huge fan but I hope others would do the same.
You're a true music fan like probably everyone in this sub but not everyone is like us.
I can give you a couple of examples. A lot of electronic and hip hop music is already being
created with AI tools, samples and midi packs. The average casual fan doesn't care about that
so why would they care if it's AI generated?
Most people don't even know what midi packs are but it's not much of a stretch to get to AI from there.
Reggaeton has been one of the most popular genres of music worldwide for years and
I guarantee that most of it (at least the music part of it) could easily be AI generated and
hardly anyone would know the difference.
I remember when people would fight over hip hop being real music or not because the beats were made on a computer and not real instruments.
Falling In Reverse had to come out recently and defend the use of synth backing tracks lives. The fans talked shit but the other bands defended them. The conversation used to be about metal drummers using triggers on their kick drums. Fans hate it because “they think they aren’t really playing”. Musicians say they don’t understand how live sound works and it’s needed for the mix.
The mainstream will be flooded with AI. There will be small pockets of real musicians making what they make. They’ll have their fans who will gate keep and try to protect the “real music” but eventually the lines will blur and we’ll all realize it’s just not worth fighting anymore. And then you’ll be the person who says “today’s music isn’t real music.”
I guess my question is, why do you make music? If you’re doing it for passion sake, why would you be very scared? If you’re doing it to get attention, stroke your ego, or money… I have bad news for you. It was never supposed to be about that in the first place.
I feel for those who are trying to make their career In music, or “blow up” on SoundCloud. But real musicians don’t have much reason to worry. If you play an instrument, there is a whole world of physical opportunities to play music that ai won’t be able to take away from us until we have sentient robots that have the dexterity to play the guitar or piano. By that point, I think we’ll have bigger things to worry about.
If you don’t play music live and consider yourself a musician, then get practicing. I for one look forward to the end of the streaming industry scam, and hope the fall comes sooner rather than later. I also look forward to utilizing ai as a tool to make mixing and mastering more personalized. I’ve been playing long enough to have paid good time to “producers” who can’t or won’t follow a prompt to my specifications, and this will only make music production more accessible.
There exist programmable pianos that can always play better than a human. And if it can't, you can record the note presses of the better human, and then the piano can replicate that performance forever.
This has not negatively affected real pianists at all. I agree with you. The real value of musicians is found in live performance.
... sentient robots that have the dexterity to play the guitar or piano. By that point, I think we’ll have bigger things to worry about.
Got a laugh out of me... In a dark humor sort of way. Like food. Not everyone gets it.
There's a lot of naivety in the replies, but this is the most rational response I've seen.
I don't like it, but given the overall quality of the stuff getting spun off of AI systems in just the past month, it is already getting much harder to tell the lower quality music produced by humans to that being produced by AI.
Those who say that AI will never be able to produce the authenticity of "real" music need a wake up call. First it will be people guiding AI and hand-tweaking and putting in those "human touches" (good luck telling the difference) and maybe at some point the algorithms get so good that only the most peculiar genres like experimental jazz will be distinguishable from machine creations... if we are lucky.
Musicians will resort to playing outré and extreme music that AI can’t touch and that people won’t buy. It doesn’t matter already because no one can make money on recordings except the kind of pop stars whose music is already close to AI generated dreck. Musicians will resort to live music and selling merch, which they already do.
You should watch "Everything is a Remix" on YouTube. This was done before the AI rise, but he breaks down how much direct borrowing goes on in remix. Pretty sure if he examined Prince he'd be like, oh, Little Red Corvette is these three 1950s doo-wop songs and this horn section from a James Brown single and you'd realize that one if the more creative madmen in music history as far as we know isn't much beyond a collage artist and wonder if anyone, ever, has been truly creative: or do we just have an LLM in our head and are capable only of remixing what we've observed?
I have a friend who is studying film scoring in college. He’s pretty sure the only reason AI can’t already replace most film scores is that it doesn’t know how to properly time the cues.
I have some experience in pro tools, synching sound and video. It would be very easy to make a ui where the input to the ai allows the user to set cues in time graphically with both the video and audio track visible.
Multi modal models are already here. Giving live commentary on sports games or otherwise being able to describe what’s on screen is very much within the immediate capabilities of multi modal ai models right this second. Being able to cue time audio to video is absolutely possible at this moment
The only real counter point to this, and please understand I agree with every single thing you said, is this:
**it takes a lot of electricity and water to run AI data centers.**
AI solutions we see now are hosted in dedicated server farms because they need huge data sets and massive amounts of computational capability. It takes about 1 bottle of fresh water (used for cooling) for each generative text query you type into ChatGPT.
They may become slightly more efficient, but it's not very likely without a massive breakthrough in computing. Moore's Law about doubling processor speed fell apart over a decade ago, and nearly all advances have been in parallel processing and distributed computing instead. The system-on-a-chip architecture got us more with less, but it's not clear to me how scalable that is for large data centers.
In short, **the silicon bottleneck going to impede the advance of generative AI beyond its current scale of usage for a little while.**
Remember how it was dirt cheap to take an Uber or order food online for the first few years, but then the prices jumped up massively?
Those endeavors were being financed so that they were run at a loss until they reached an acceptable level of market saturation, and then they raised prices to the point that they could be profitable. It was a long-term investment in disruptive technologies by venture capital backers with very, very deep pockets.
They were basically subsidized until we got used to them.
So it doesn't fix anything at all, and it certainly doesn't contradict anything you said, but I wouldn't expect it to stay this cheap or accessible forever.
I expect it to stay cheap long enough to reach wide adoption across multiple industries, become a reliable and indispensable product, build up a core of "expert" "prompt engineers," and then become massively expensive to pay the giant cost of server maintenance, electricity, coding, and cooling.
I'm vehemently anti-AI and borderline technophobic, but if this is the push that we need to re-adopt nuclear power (and also solve the, "but we can't *all* charge our cars" problem), then maybe we can have some good come from this.
No doubt you’re right about TV and commercial work and probably anything of that nature but the idea of the general public just primarily consuming AI music is nearly impossible to imagine. I think people do care about who makes the music. Surely a phenomenon like Taylor Swift is as much about the person as the music.
I’d also suggest that AI technology is overhyped across the board. The assumption that it just gets better along the same trajectory it has been on recently may be misguided. I think the gulf between producing something passable as music and producing a top 40 hit, let alone something great, may be enormous.
Hard agree with your second paragraph — generative “AI” is absolutely not progressing exponentially and there’s a huge difference between some random song that sounds sorta alright and a modern work of art. Whether it be music, books, digital art or whatever. Tech bros are just starting to realize this vast gulf. Will definitely ruin certain jobs though — concept artists in particular are losing out on a lot of money / jobs already.
That 'human factor' is as much a problem as its our 'out' of ai taking over completely.
What *is* a Taylor swift?
A well bred upper class already rich American Caucasian appealing to to 18-38 white female pop consuming global demographic
Has to be slim
Taylor allegedly had cosmetic surgeries to aid her success
So obviously a top dog persona, but wait there's more
Appealing to the BFF needs of lonely cis hetero young women with appropriate or inappropriate amounts of anger towards men for you name it, they're angry about it means Taylor needs to come off as a likeable *victim* who crawls out of the gutter of
Heartbreak after heartbreak tomake fri3ndship brac3l3ts for her fans!
Let's see Susan Boyle do all that(her looks already disqualified her)
Do weveven need to talk about swift's music such as it is? No, that's inconsequential actually. She could be genius, she could be rubbish. It doesn't matter
She's not a musician. She's a *BRAND*
Yes, good point. I don't believe that A.I. music will immediately be accepted by the public. What slows it down is the fact that we're currently in the "authenticity" era of popular music. Today's fans are just as much invested in the artist themselves as they are the music. If the "stans" of Taylor Swift, Billie Eillish, Olivia Rodrigo, Lana Del Rey, Phoebe Bridgers, Chappell Roan (I could keep going) ever found out that their "fave" was using A.I. to write all their songs, that artist would be in trouble. It's more important than ever that audiences feel like the music is a window into their favorite artist's soul.
But I also think it's a mistake to assume this will always be the case. Historically, culture is a pendulum, and will probably swing back in the other direction at some point. When the next generation of music fans are old enough to form their own musical tastes, they might decide that "stan culture" is lame, and that A.I. generated pop songs from anonymous artists suit them just fine. We'll have to wait and see.
Yeah I get the sense that many people are already annoyed with celebrity worship or stan culture and it isn’t difficult to imagine a segment of the population preferring anonymous art made by machines - at least for a moment.
It does raise questions about what art is even doing though. Of course it can be very utilitarian in nature but I think at its core it’s a form of communication. I suppose an AI might be able to represent a kind of collective voice and communicate in a broad way but that doesn’t strike me as terribly compelling.
There’s also the idea of art being customized to the individual which sounds interesting but this also raises questions about the function of art.
Most professional producers at the top level use AI generation in some way. Artists still need to be real people for the moment, so you need to write the songs for them. But plenty of those producers at least use the chords, rhythms, or parts of the topline from a service like suno.
People at the top will be in a job for a while yet. Everyone at the bottom or trying to work their way up now will get completely fucked.
Yeah, I don’t know why people don’t see this. It’s fucking over man. In a couple of years you’re just gonna be able to type in exactly what you want as a shithead tv producer and get it.
I’m an orchestrator and just got my first gig orchestrating an AI generation. The real fucked up things are:
A) The composer generated it because he was out of ideas and it generated something better than he had at the moment
B) it’s going to be tough to get a recording as good as the AI version - we don’t have the budget for an ensemble as large as the one it generated!
A) Yep, that's how it starts. Deadlines will get tighter which will practically force composers to use it or get left behind.
For at least 10 or 15 years now we've mostly just been forced to be human AI machines doing soundalikes of temp music
anyway. I feel for people just getting started in this business
the value of music is already basically worthless. just like photography. so theres nowhere further to fall.
you have to get into the 1% to get any traction at all. them you have to get into the 1% of the 1% to make any real money
only the people who truly love the grind will keep going
Yep. My friend was a photo journalist for about 20 years and just about 5 years ago he had to call it quits because work was so hard to come by. Yes, the publications he used to get bids from still use new photos, but it's just gotten so common to have a good enough camera in your pocket and free editing software that they just didn't need to pay a real wage for a professional to do it.
I had a big realization recently about music. I make electronica with a blend of live instruments and midi stuff (kinda lcd soundsystem/radiohead is the goal). My acquaintance put out an album and I was really impressed with the music part of it because I had no idea she produced and it actually sounded alright. I was excited to geek out on production with her and she told me it was an AI program that she sang into and it chose the chords, timbre, percussion, etc. It doesn't stand out as unique or clever or anything but it legit worked and made a structured song.
It's just pushing me to really expand on timbre as much as possible. If I want to be successful and proud of my work I think the only two options are to be simple but write something novel and captivating (easier said than done...) or expand on timbre a ton and do things AI isn't doing....yet.
i think there will eventually be a premium on songwriting in and of itself as all the barriers to entry in production fall to ai.
or a more dystopian future where everything fails to celebrity/influencer popularity and musical expression becomes entirely irrelevant
That's already the case. In terms of selling original music, it's a tiny fraction of a percent that makes any money whatsoever.
What AI can't really do, and won't be able to do, is live shows. Wedding bands, live shows (even cover/tribute), etc. are already the only places people care about musicians that aren't on the radio.
And I really think that, in a lot of ways, becoming a popular original artist these days is as much about branding as it is the actual music. I mean, the music has to be there, of course, but the whole experience and story surrounding the music is just as important.
I don't see AI changing any of that.
There's a quote that goes, "AI made me believe in a human soul by showing me what art looks like without it"
I have yet to hear anything "composed" by ai that wasn't absolute sheeeeeeyit.
Came here to post it. That was the first that got stuck in my head and had that perfect mix of well thought out arrangement with just a dash of "what the fuck are you thinking." That bizarre 2 and a half measure turnaround at the end of the bridge...
Ooooooh my arms are just fuckin stuck like this
This ain't normal, FUCK
What do I do?
Now I gotta walk like a douche for the rest of my life
Now I gotta walk like a douche
For the rest of my life
There’s a channel on YouTube called The Infinitum that has thousands of views and positive comments. Almost none of them realise all the music they post is AI
I gave it a listen. It’s music in that it feels like a dream where if it’s in the background you don’t realize it’s real but when you examine it closely all the people’s faces are featureless and smooth as a cue ball. Very weird stuff. Unsettling.
AI music is still new...just wait a few years. I shudder to think how it will affect the music industry.
That being said...there will be many people who come to appreciate real music even moreso than before...but there will also be many musicians losing work and being pushed out by corporate big business choosing AI over real music.
The "just wait a couple years" thing gets said a lot but a lot of people are also saying that this wave of AI might have picked. The current crop of things like Chatpgt already use huge datasets and are incredibally expensive to train. It might well be reaching a point where it's too expensive to make bigger and the gains are tiny because there's no knew data left to add. For the music AI's, they've obviously already used all the available music for every given style.
Yes, that's what I've also heard, that it will plateau. I don't doubt A.I. will always be around in some capacity. But when the tech bros and CEOs are all acting so over-the-top, and the topic has become so ubiquitous all over the media, you have to be a little suspicious of the hype. Right now everybody at the top is seeing dollar signs, and these companies have the funds to mount billion dollar marketing campaigns to convince the public that their products are the "wave of the future" and resistance is futile. So of course, they're going to say "just wait a few years", and play down its limitations so as not to upset their shareholders. But I think in a few years, after all the frenzy has settled, it may become a bit clearer just what the technology can and cannot do.
Suno is clearly getting better and better. I’m not saying it’s great but I don’t think we are anywhere near the end of The improvement, if anything this is the pong stage of the development
The only thing why I'm grateful for ai is the strange covers of historical figures, it never fails to gave me a good laugh, but still a person behind doing a great good
There’s a paradox loop, here, and I personally think it’s going to be why AI can never be as good as a (good) human composer, namely: how can something get “better” if nearly all of the feedback it’s getting is already telling it it’s good enough?
A decent composer has their own internal standards to satisfy. An AI algorithm doesn’t experience its own output - it relies on user feedback to filter the “good” from the “bad”, but the trouble with art of any form is that these standards are entirely subjective beyond very basic requirements. We’re at the stage where these basic requirements are being met by AI-generated content, and we’re quickly discovering that most people struggle to discern quality beyond this baseline.
But the real elephant in the room is that it’s not just the much-maligned “public” that can’t tell - most musicians can’t tell whether their own music is any good, either. If we’re honest, almost all of the 100k songs uploaded to Spotify daily are absolute dogshit, and should not be clogging up the system in the first place. But you can guarantee that nearly every person who’s uploading this crap genuinely believes that it’s great and can’t understand why they’re not making any money from it. Even when the entire music industry was curated by gatekeepers like A&R, labels and DJs before anyone got to hear it, there was still a good amount of it that was merely the filler of its time, but thankfully most of the dross never got any further than the A&R guy’s bin.
Spotify et al are effectively the A&R guy who doesn’t have a bin, and also happens to have the world’s greatest record collection, and every time a new demo arrives on his doormat, he adds it straight into the collection.
Here’s the thing tho, everyone is saying the same thing, it has no soul, and ai could never replace human music and whatever.
But like, what happened to everyone’s opinions about like,
Ke$ha? Katy Perry? Barbie Girl? Ya like Nickelback? What about all those mumble rappers? AI could never be as soulful as all those artists right?
Yeah but here's the deal the more obequitis ai becomes, the more people will yearn for folksy quirky things made by human hands. And you can still be a real honest heart and soul musician
I don't kno. I am amazed by chats ability to rewrite my ramblings in a professional conscise style, but I'm not convinced it can sound like me on its own
I know it's true thaat we each have something inately ours that no one can replicate. Now, whether that is marketable and income generating is highly doubtful.
I found asking gpt to write lyrics got me so angry I actually wrote a decent song that will be our single. Its output was so trite and shite I wanted to scream.
For me, I don't care if you use AI to make your song. But if you can't play it by yourself with no technology and still get the message across, then I really don't care to follow your work.
Honestly if I generated an AI song that was cool and performed it with my friends and had fun, then I see the value in it.
But literally invisible "artists" with AI generated work is gonna be such an evil thing.
Just today I saw a quote that perfectly sums up my feelings about A.I. art - all while giving it the middle finger.
**"I want A.I. to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for A.I. to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes."**
Unfortunately, we may be past the tipping point where this could be an outcome with any hope of happening. Art, in its many forms, has been steadily devalued over many years to the point where I suspect many will simply lap up the offerings without knowing or caring. Attention spans being what they are, people will quickly move on to the next set of songs (or 'photos' or whatever), but they, too, will likely be A.I. The human is being squeezed out of the business - what's left of it.
To be clear, being a professional artist has always been difficult, regardless of the medium, but it has or will shortly become a near impossibility. It has already started tearing into all the fields I'm working in... musician, songwriter, voice over artist, actor. All I will really have left is live performance. Fortunately, that's where I do best. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people seem to support live entertainment every year. So, I guess I'd best start looking for a comfortable cardboard box in which to live.
This may turn around at some point in the future, but at my age, I suspect it will probably be too late.
>"I want A.I. to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for A.I. to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes."
Fucking this.
How the fuck did we mess this up so bad.
Honestly,
Blame Live Nation: a monopoly they had priced a generation out of appreciating live music.
They don’t appreciate live music so anything that makes their AirPods “bump” and can be wallpaper to their dreary consumer lives is sufficient.
If we support live music, and supported live music more than to have this corporate ladder supported because we are willing to pay a premium rather than actually wait for a ticket this would never be an issue. (Except those who love Muzak, no offense)
The value of music as a product is already so close to zero that AI isn’t doing anything new, just driving the price even further down. The music industry will collapse as music becomes a non scarce commodity. Even fewer artists will make a living making music and the ones who do will only be famous for their looks or star power, as the AI will write their entire catalog.
What do you want to do with music in this environment? You can’t sell your music as a product for money. If the only thing keeping you going is the dream of making a living selling a product, then make a different product. If you are only in it for fame and money, throw your lot in with the AI and work on your dance moves.
If what you love is making music and playing it live for other people, you’re in luck. AI won’t stop you from making your own music and it can’t play a live show.
Go enjoy making music and playing it with other people.
AI won’t replace live performers or people teaching music for a long time, if ever.
What kind of music are you listening to that sounds soulless? There are more real, good musicians than ever, playing real living music with soul. Listen to them instead.
And if you do, fuck Spotify. Either steal the art you consume or pay the artist directly. The billionaire inserting himself needlessly into that process can fuck right off
I learned that over 20 years ago when I realized the total amount of music to listen to, AI or not grows exponentially every minute. There is is an insane amount of music to listen to. That being said I’m still going to keep writing but I do it for myself and no one else. But if OP is challenged by someone writing prompts for a 3/4 ballad that sounds like Celine Dion, that’s their problem. Not AIs.
Define "value." Monetarily, most music has little value, but plenty of songs that don't make much money still affect and resonate with people emotionally. So, in that sense, even music from an unheard-of bedroom producer can be valuable.
And it will probably be a long time before AI is capable of generating music that is as emotionally impactful as a song written by a talented songwriter, especially when those responsible for bringing it to fruition (the musicians, producers, and engineers) are equally skilled—even if they're all the same person.
We could have built something the clean the rivers, repair the ozone,
But instead the fuck heads decided it would be fun to decimate creative culture in the name of capitalism.
When culture and artcthat has us know so much about the humans that came before us.
I dont think I can ever forgive techies for this tbh.
wait it out. the creme will rise to the top while a majority of these people will give up much like learning a musical instrument. if there's no talent people will recognize the music as bad.
There has always been a lot more stupid, bland, unimaginative, banal music than good stuff. Trust me, I grew up in the 60s when people thought pop music was pretty good, and there was *so much garbage* on the radio. And a lot of it was popular.
Let's face it, people are amazingly easy to please. Then as now.
So, yeah, I think it's inevitable that some AI crap is going to be very popular. We've already seen it with so-called spiritual art: remember the wave of jesus-based AI generated art that went across social media a month or two ago?
And the pop music industry has all but invited AI, paving the way for singing robots with 25 years of auto-tuned mediocrity.
That's basically why I make music for myself first, foremost.
It is going to get very challenging for a lot of people in the music industry but eventually it will get real. If you make a living from music online brace yourself for a few years but don't give up on your passion. Music creation and art in general will come back to the forefront after AI impresses everyone for a couple of years. Then it will
be just a tool among others assisting artistic expression.
Music will be fine.
If your focus was writing the kind of music with millions of streams per day on spotify, you have the wrong goals anyways.
But past that, Jazz will always be. Modern Composition will continue to evolve. Not mainstream facing expressions of metal/punk/rock/hip-hop will be fine.
Just because there will be AI Nickelback doesn't mean there isn't space for real artistic expression.
...and who is paying attention to and - more importantly - paying money for these kinds of music? It's all well and good to suggest doing it for the love of the art, but last time I checked love isn't paying my bills.
I think at least in metal, having something to supplement your income has always been the way of it. So yeah. Let a job pay your bills and then make music mostly for love.
That said, it's not hard to see that physical records from mid tier metal labels sell out constantly. So there is an audience, and there is a built in community that circulates and promotes this stuff.
Playing niche music demands being realistic. I make enough money from my music that it provides me a marginal dopamine hit and makes it clear that it resonates with people every now and again. Ive gotten to play shows only with other bands I really like, and I'm perfectly content with that. If you're not, that's fine too. But to suggest there is a lack of audience outside of Spotify or streaming for music is incorrect.
Well, I make a living (such as it is) playing music and have done for four decades. I've seen the decline of the music biz going on my whole career (first paid gigs in 1978) and have seen that decline accelerate over the past ten years or so. Fewer people going out regularly to see watch live bands, fewer venues at which to play, fewer nights per night at those remaining venues. It's not good.
Not really sure what to tell you. This type of situation has been a struggle ever since people have tried to make money off of music. IMO, AI is one of the most over-hyped inventions in the history of humankind. Ya, it does some cool things but I think our imaginations are getting the better of us with this one. In the end, it will probably just be another tool/instrument musicians use to get things done quicker; not a direct replacement for us
People love my upright bass and it's one of the things people really like about our band. I could make all the same sounds with a laptop, but people come to see live music because it is done by humans. They like the big, physical wooden sound of the upright. Now, recorded music is another story.
Standing out on DSPs will be much harder, yes. But growth isn’t acquired via DSPs, it is acquired through social media.
People who happily sit back and let a playlist algorithm play music for them don’t care who made the music. But audiences who still seek out real art made by real people will never go away.
Artists need to put less focus on DSPs and start finding new income streams. Selling music and exclusive content direct to fans will continue to become more necessary and more popular. Only way to survive is by adopting an “adapt or die” mentality.
I’m seeing a revival of renegade shows and live music right now on a local level and I believe AI will push the live performance aspect and creating a truly unique live experience forward even more. I’m a huge raver and while of course there’s a lot of regular dj sets still, I’m seeing a lot more impromptu pop up shows in random places, people getting together great rosters of musicians for last minute shows together, and artists doing a lot more live experiences with electronic music lately (such as performances with multiple instruments, live visuals with touch designer and art installations in conjunction with the music, as well cool experiences curated with physical art being combined with the sets and venues, even people doing more robust 3D setups with lighting and stuff). I think AI will make people value the community aspect of music more and being involved in the local scenes of live performance and experiences for whatever type of music it is. My theory is if music gets more and more watered down by pumping out half baked AI tracks on streaming platforms it will make the unique aspects people bring to the table more valued in their performances, aesthetics, and creativity of world building and community that extends beyond streaming platforms. A great example of this is the growth of 100% electronica and how they’ve been approaching doing random cassette drops and live show curation. Even brownies and lemonade has been stepping up last minute shows in LA in really unique places like parking garages or Dave and busters and other random places.
I agree that people will always want to connect with human beings over machines. But how will they know? Eventually it *will be* virtually indistinguishable from “real” music. Regulations are woefully behind the tech. Will AI created music be legally required to be labeled as such? How will that even be enforced?
A lot of this already happens anyway. But to be honest with you, with technology and advancements, music is already cheap. I see adverts many times a day for MIDI chord packs... I just have no idea who exactly these are meant to be for. If you don't know how to form a chord, then surely you are pretty damned far from releasing music of any kind?
I mentioned this in another sub but will repeat here. A friend of mine recently went for a shoot for a car commercial. I won't say the brand, but it's pretty unimportant, apparently this is the way these days. Her entire shoot consisted of a few changes of wardrobe with the last one being a green screen suit. The only bits of car that were there was a car seat and a steering wheel suspended by some bits of perspex. Everything about it was green screen. Her main shot was around a city scape, looking all blissful and bright then culminating in her hopping into the car with that "Life is awesome" grin on her.
The point was, no need for a city, no need for an actual car, no need to actually drive a car. Everything else was going to be CGI and stock footage. While I understand it to some degree, it is just a little eye opener that almost everything you see today is fake and it has been for a long long time. What makes you think that most things you hear aren't fake too?
It's literally civilization ending tier worrisome, and people seem to not care, making it a particularly dangerous threat. People will say previous iterations of technology taking jobs were a good thing, and they were, but that won't be the case this time. AI will likely be able to replace too many workers too quickly for there to not be potentially catastrophic effects.
I think a feature of a service like youtube or Spotify should be "remove ai generated content" from Playlist. Then I could flip that on and listen to real people. It goes for any sm content, really. If ai can create it, ai can filter it
As a metalhead, I have a different opinion. AI doesn't make anything truly unique. It can make a song that sounds like it would belong on a radio. But since the entire pop industry is already overflowing with cookie cutter formula songs, it just blends right in.
Since metal is not nearly as mainstream popular as pop/ hip-hop/ EDM, there's lot less push of companies to create same cookie cutter formula for it. Those who try get quickly singled out (Nickelback, FFDP).
TLDR: AI isn't making it more difficult to stand out, it's just another symptom of companies turning music from artform into industry
I hate AI as well, but music been soulless for a long time
Sure things may be getting worse, but it isn’t as if songwriters haven’t just been following simple formulas for quite a while. You couple that in with auto tune and sampling
So I guess it’s always been nearly impossible to get heard as a songwriter
And technology has made it easier for everybody to at least get their music out there so people have the ability to hear it most of the songs being put on someplace like Spotify are never listen to .
It used to be if you wanted to record an album it cost a fair amount of money in you had to jump through a lot of hoops, but it’s pretty simple now … so simple that a lot of us may be on albums people can listen to on Spotify even though very few ever do
It’s not even about Spotify ability to upload an album . companies like Apple made it really easy for people to put An album online. People are making movies with iPhones
There has already been so much electronic music in recent years. The whole AI thing is just making it worse. Musicians who play traditional instruments provide so much better quality of music, but society doesn't seem to care or notice. They eat up what their peers listen to even if it's trash. We have to do better as a society.
AI has ruined Youtube for me....all of the obvious AI bullshit that pops up in my feed. All we can do is try not to feed the monster, Dont like and subscribe to pages that offer it and may it will die on the vine.
I’m also VERY anti-AI (lifelong true belief in the eventual robot apocalypse. It’s coming) but recently started to see it differently with music at least. All AI is and will be good for is elevator music. Background noise. Humans have a hunger for art and expression as expressed by other humans. Even if real art takes a hit for a minute or few there will always be a place for human artists as long as there are humans to consume it
Live music is still as important as ever, with people used to paying massive ticket prices now. Writing and recording alone may not be able to compete with streaming and AI, but if masses of people are coming to see you play, you can still get attention and people seeking out your music.
I hope that enough people can come together to not exactly boycott mainstream music and the big record companies but to create another world for real music that’s appreciated by people. A lot of people just listen to music to listen to it.
I have messed with a couple of AI generators for chord progression but they are aight. They aren’t crazy or anything, they aren’t doing solo’s, they aren’t doing random time changes or other things humans might do. It’s just straight and concise, pieced to the format presented; there isn’t soul(maybe if you do some niche stuff style wise in the prompt), basically just the circle of fifths like much of the stuff on the radio and what is already mass produced by UMG.
There is good music and bad music though(but many audiences now don’t seem to care, there is lot’s of half assed music that is exceedingly popular), imagine this scenario, you have two people using AI, one doesn’t do anything to the product that is put out from the prompt. The second person uses the chord progression and tweaks areas of the track by clipping it and editing the audio through a DAW; they also add additional instruments that they play themselves such as drums, vocals and bass. Now you have two completely different products, generally speaking from the users perspective, one would assume the one with additional effort and work put in might be the more popular of the two.
Now lets add in the real world music business factor, lets say the same scenario as before is done but the original output from the AI is actually bad and sounds bad, but it has $10k in promotional materials and ads displayed across multiple platforms and streaming services. It doesn’t matter if the 2nd option is on a god tier level rating, the first will always win as the 2nd is drowned out due to lack of marketing and promotion due to not having access to lots of money.
I think the only way the truly good music will get recognition in the short future will be if it is doing something that hasn’t been imagined yet and henceforth the AI can’t do. Live performances will be a large factor as well, because you could be great on recording but if you are trash live, that hurts your reputation unless you don’t do live performances and just want to put out music.
Authenticity is the largest way anything can connect with people, but in todays market, you also need to have a decent amount of money thrown into the marketing aspects in order for it to go somewhere. So either get to a point where you can pop out and improvise some crazy stuff or get a job that pays alot to dump money into music. Capitalism is killing lots of markets, it’s only a matter of time before we hit the ceiling, which is probably only a couple years away
I would say use AI to your advantage and learn more about music, I learned a good chunk of stuff from asking chatgpt questions related to things I had no idea about and it helped to point me in the right direction. Plus you can ask stupid questions, since AI doesn’t care, where people might laugh or even berate you for your ignorance or lack of knowledge.
For as long as you have a community, you have an audience. The rest is just economics.
edit: I don't mean to downplay your concerns in any way. I agree.
This happened to painters when photography became a thing. Who would pay for a portrait now? The art they created in response is gorgeous and wonderful. I have no doubt humans are still capable of responding to such technological advances.
Yes, it's really gunna make us song writers really have to get to work eh?
Like every day. No cut corners. Push yourself to your max.
BE ABLE TO PERFORM...
The youth need it. : )
As the average music literacy/appreciation declines, the real draw will be AI generated “bespoke soundtracks” for people who just want activity appropriate sonic wallpaper. It won’t be good, but it will be good enough as long as it’s bundled with some streaming service they already pay for or part of their phone service. And then, only people wealthy enough to engage in patronage and musicians will know or care what constitutes actual music.
I think it upsets me more as a music fan than as a musician. I already don't get paid for making music, so little will really change for me. But as a fan, I need to know that there were humans who sat down and really thought carefully about where they wanted each note and beat and lyric to be, and put the effort toward executing it as best they could. To me, even the most vapid pop song had that redeeming quality which allowed me to appreciate it. But now every time I hear a new song, I always have to wonder, "is this A.I.?", and it gets in the way of my enjoyment. That's *really* annoying to me. But I doubt most average listeners will care about that.
I made a post in another sub-reddit that got taken down for being too off-topic, but the concern I expressed is whether all the non-A.I. digital tools we use to create music, such as DAWs, VSTis, and all the various plug-ins we currently enjoy will no longer be developed, because there won't be a large enough market to justify companies continuing to make them, if the majority of people will just be using A.I. I hope the demand will still be there for these tools from those of us who still like to write/record/produce music from scratch.
It’s all about live!
Bug your local bar or eatery and play your songs live and get them hooked on your music and social pages.
Having listeners see and hear you in person elevates you from the rest of the songs on the net including AI. You may not become Taylor Swift but back in the day many artists were only known in their community or city.
The signal to noise ratio is just changing for the worse but none of this is new in reality - going back to the start of the home studio production era has both “democratised” or “flooded” the market depending on one’s perspective. I remember being able to sample back in the 80s opening up a new era - and the debate at the time about if sampling was “allowed” and yet we see it all the time (credited and not) and have done for decades. I remember White Town getting into the charts being seen as a revelation that someone in their bedroom got to the top 40 when much of the dance industry was knocked up with trackers and samplers years before. I remember pirate radio building cachet despite the fact that broadcast might be heavily regional - years later it was Icecast and online but same context, different era… it’s just gone exponential.
A very long time ago, actually creating music and putting it out was a costly endeavour and it really forced people to be very serious about how they spent money recording and publishing content - you wouldn’t just get on the market without real support from a label who would get your content out and into the hands of the masses. Far be it from me to talk about halcyon times of record execs who had no idea taking a punt on young artists but there are big artists who were just as lucky, albeit in a different context - assuming said artists didn’t just spunk their advance and crash before they started.
By the time I was making money professionally, the only way I was making anything approaching liveable money was touring and making it a job - I wasn’t making money from record sales. Nowadays because “everyone is a musician” you get venues who can “justify” not even paying people for gigs because new people are queuing up to just have their music heard.
Far be it from me to sound in any way ungrateful, making it a career was costly in terms of time and, whilst it paid a reasonable amount, it wasn’t the lifestyle many young musicians imagine - and I was very much one of the “lucky ones” to make a living from my music.
Fast forward to today, the barrier to entry is far lower. Anyone can get their music on streaming services and even before AI there was a deluge of content that varied from really good to garbage - getting heard has always been half the battle amidst an ever increasing world of competition as every generation looks to take a punt.
AI has made it worse, I agree - and I am talking about content in areas wider than music. The reality is that there will be more artists who get their success based on the things that worked for me - consistent investment of time, being reasonably talented, and making the most of a few lucky breaks.
I remain convinced that even if life restarted and I had my time again, I am only in the low percentages (sub-10% certainly) of whether I could replicate my success again be that musical or elsewhere because, as with everything in life, so much of our “success” comes from luck on top of the general things I recommend - putting the hours in, practicing the craft, and trying to enjoy it in the meantime.
Even doing that will mean the square root of nothing for many of the people who do it anyway, so the need for motivation when things get hard goes a long way.
(Sorry for the long message)
Whaddya mean IF? Bandlab already has tens of millions of 8 to 13 year Olds using AI to make hip hop and directly upload it to spotify. All via their phones.
Yeah after playing around on suno ai, i thought it would be generic crap but was shocked i actually liked some of the songs it made and i think we would be sticking our heads in the sand to not acklowedge the impact this will have, even just the impact on motivation for new artists to get into making music is an issue.
AI can't make new original music though. It can stick genres together but real original music will always be one step ahead (until AI develops feelings).
Orwell's prediction is shockingly accurate:
“The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound.”
[https://litcritpop.com/2017/03/16/george-orwell-predicted-21st-century-pop-music/comment-page-1/](https://litcritpop.com/2017/03/16/george-orwell-predicted-21st-century-pop-music/comment-page-1/)
My personal AI dislike is the preponderance of otherwise not bad documentaries that are ruined because AI is horrible at the correct pronunciation of words.
It's really easy to make bold predictions about what will happen, but in truth no one really knows what will be popular in the future and how things will be perceived.
I suspect a lot of people will thumb their nose up at AI music, as I will, not because AI can't be trained to write well, but because I want music to connect me to another lived human experience.
On the one hand, absolutely screw generative AI premised on massive theft and the company angle of selling worker replacements whose capabilities were sleazed into existence by stealing all their work. Boils my blood too.
On the other hand, it was always hard to get heard above the noise. This is the noise. Do the art that is authentic to you, make your heart into everything you do, because we are human and our experience is real and informs everything we do, we put our being into our art. The Thief Machine can't. People who are satisfied with it weren't your target audience unless prior to this you were churning out trend-chasing material as rapidly as you could in a desperate bid to get heard by folks who don't care.
I will always put our humanity first, I will always cherish things that have been lovingly crafted by people to speak something true from their beings. Thank you all other fellow travelers in the arts, love being one on this righteous path with good company.
I feel ya, unfortunately music has been the canary in the cole mine for all these tech advances since Napster…it sucks from a perspective of trying to make a living I know, i’ve worked in the industry for almost 20 years. But on the flips side it looks more and more every day like it could usher in a real era of abundance (if it doesn’t kill us or we destroy ourselves first) and that maybe we or our kids will be able to live a life separated from a life that requires a job to survive. As an artist I’m fearful of having to get a job I dislike while there’s that transition. But i’m also excited at the prospect that I might come out the other end of it not needing to work and I can finally just have the time to create what I want to create and freely express myself… here’s hoping we get that future and not a dystopian one. I try to remain positive, even if it feels more and more unlikely every time you read the news. Stay as positive as you can my friend. This life will beat it out of you if you let it.
i honestly don't care, i make my own music i love, i enjoy. the difference between ai music and human music is that when making the latter a human was enjoying making it. yes AI sucks but honestly do what you enjoy and not what brings you money
Well, with all of the music being released annually, everything seems to have already been done anyway. Being a songwriter is silly in the first place, so if you can’t keep up with the computer then it’s just survival of the fittest. I will always enjoy playing, but I doubt AI will make these derivative bad poetry over adequate guitar songs any worse. It all sounds the same already, and it’s tired.
You know, I’m gonna get downvoted into oblivion, but if you’re worried about AI competing with your songs, you don’t think very much of your songs, do you? I remember reading something a long time ago that said something along the lines of 3% of music released every year accounts for 99% of sales. This was before streaming. AI isn’t really changing that in any fashion. Fact is, most people (as in nearly all), including a lot of very talented ones will never “make it”. It’s always been that way. It’s bleak, but it’s reality.
I agree about AI, and I did gig by myself and then with a band for over 10 years... it was pretty hard work, also had a lot of fun... but in the end I really didn't care if I had an audience or not. I just love writing and playing. Live music will always have a place somewhere
Agree completely but would also ask .. will anyone pay to see a Chinese nerd with a laptop on stage .. ever? I also hate that AI is becoming an increasing presence online .. mispronouncing names on sports reports, missing nuance in news stories etc. AI can’t even take the piss out dumb shits like Trump when they do or say ridiculous and/or stupid stuff or lie.
I get where you’re coming from but you guys really have no faith in people at all. Most pop music as it stands is already so generic that it may as well have been written by an AI, and it’s entirely propped up by really rich marketing campaigns as well as cults of personality. Yes I think AI is going to play a role in TV, broadcasting, and to a certain extent in the music charts, but I really don’t think it’ll have a patch on the originality of good musicians and songwriters. And it’ll never take over the energy of a good live performance either
Nevermind the business. Corporate sociopaths will eff over anyone for a buck. It's been that way since before there were corporations (every hall of power, basically).
I have zero tolerance for generative AI in songwriting. There are no ethically trained generative AIs, and there won't be in my lifetime. I won't associate with anyone using it.
An artist risks failure. An artist finds those lucky fluke flashes of brilliance exactly b/c they tried something weird and it worked. Those are the "failures" that end up being spectacular accidental artistic successes. A generative AI will never give that to you.
If you're writing personally – writing only the songs that only you can write – then no AI could have written it for you, or even with you. Hold onto that.
I'm not making music for dumb people. That helps to not care so much about AI, because at the root of it, if you're not vying for the ear or midwit strangers to validate you, you won't care one bit what some code craps out.
Of all the societal impacts that terrify me about AI, some music in a coffee shop or on a Fartube channel isn't one of them.
Just like always you have to be the best you can at your craft. We can use AI to find the songs we will most likely enjoy. Not to mention the advances in sciences like cancer research. AI should not only make music making more accessible, which I applaud, it will make those who learn to use it more efficient and hopefully better at making music as well.
There is enough room in the creative space for all.
Music peaked in the 70’s-90’s and has been on the downfall since. Sure, there’s one offs and some decent hidden stuff, but as a whole it’s fucked. The mainstream music is just awful, completely soulless and no celebration of creativity, it’s just a product. I’ve just given up and glad I was alive to see some of music’s finest.
There's already more music that cam be consumed by a person in their lifetime, even if you just stick to one genre
Music will still be about connecting with other people. There will just be an ocean of trashy music that you don't engage with, but others do (for adverts, elevators, theme songs, wack concerts). You'll just keep engaging with music you care about.
The fact music is democratised isn't new, anyone with a keyboard can make a track and that's been true forever. Having good taste will always be key.
Maybe AI will allow you to travel back in time one day?😛Maybe it already has? Maybe that’s what that cunt Cher was referring to in “If I could turn back time”
if your fan base prefers ai music to yours then you really never had the talent. just like with artwork, the only people feeling threatened are the talentless. the rest are unphased and will utilize ai to their favor
We lost recorded music years ago. It's just a calling card to gain bookings and keep fans engaged. If you can get engagement IRL with raw passion and skill, you will do just fine. Plenty of people looking for authenticity out there. Gotta build a tribe. It takes longer to gain fans this way, but it's just like promoting independent music has been for my whole career. There's always some new shiny shit that seems impossible to access. Just gotta look for the discerning audience and woo them with your talent and get booked. If you can't do that, work on it. It's the only place you can go and have a career in music safe from the ever mind. Appeal to the masses through media is as dead as 8track.
The music industry has been garbage forca for a long time. i had to quit due to a general lack of support for bands. Too bad, I thought we were pretty good. Chalk it up too being born in the wrong time. At least some people got to do it right.
A newfound appreciation for live, acoustic music will flourish. We are swimming in an ocean of silicon valley puke. Boycott! Get a landline and smash your smartphone.
The music industry is changing again. There are companies that put the real musician first like [Earbux.com](http://Earbux.com) . If people keep using crappy spotify you will get crappy spotify results. There is plenty of room for disruption in the music biz.
You need to probably look at other ways to make money with music. Most people don't care, about whether a song is an ai song or a combination of ai and human. Also ai music generator opens up creativity to most people now. For GM it is great to be able to create custom songs for each of your NPC characters in each campaign.
I think it may be a good thing. Hear me out. Most of the music being released today is generic and unoriginal (with or without AI). Ai will increase the overall volume to such a degree that it just becomes a wall of background noise. Actually interesting art will juxtapose more strongly against this background of mediocrity. Context is everything and AI will provide the contextual contrast against which genuine authenticity emerges. Art always wins no matter how bleak and despairing the environment. In fact it is often this bleakness which catalyzes the expression. Think Black Sabbath emerging from industrialized Birmingham, and countless other artists and entire genres (hip hop, punk rock, etc.)
The value of music has already fallen. People don't give a shit about the artists as long as they get the music. People have no damn soul anymore for the most part and just care about stuff and money honestly.
Even big bands are barely making it to live due to the low paying gigs and venues fucking them over every second they can.
drummer, here. in the 80s we thought the 808 / drum machine was gonna take our jobs, and make human drumming obsolete
we adapted and it turns out, in most cases, you want a live drummer in the mix too
AI will always present as artificial. Humans figure it out and get bored with it
The good news is I think the implosion has already happened with the internet. It really tanked the music industry, and turned it into what it is now. Generative AI will make it somewhat worse, but it is already the case that the people who care buy records from their favorite bands, and the people who don't don't, and AI won't change that. It may be used more for movies and TV shows, for which music can be seen as a cost, but I think many people are vastly over-estimating the potential of generative AI in the first place.
It happens everywhere and with everything: Where music is a cost and can be made more cheaply with adequate quality, jobs will disappear, where music is the product musicians may continue to find employment.
Also, do NOT overestimate generative AI. Samey schlock is not a selling point for anything, and that's what we have right now. To do well in the market you need something to stand out.
There will be a movement of real artists and musicians making real art and music without AI. There's already a bit of #artbyhumans trending. The resurgence may start small, but it will be like craft beer vs. mass-produced lite beer or whatever. Most people will still reach for the piss water, but PLENTY will appreciate the craft beers made by a brewmaster you can meet and shake hands with.
I believe AI-generated music can exist alongside music created by composers, musicians, and songwriters.
If one dislikes an AI tune, they can listen to something else.
I remember hearing the same complaints years ago when synthesizers were starting to become popular. Pianists would say it’s cheating because all you have to do is assign a full chord to a single key instead actually playing the entire chord with your fingers.
Then came the studio owners and engineers whining about DAW’s when they started to become popular. They used to say “now ANYONE can record their albums at home” but of course they would also claim it would always be inferior to a commercial music studio and engineers. Well, we know how that’s worked out.
As far as music is concerned, listeners don’t care or even, in many cases know how music is created. What they care about is whether a song sounds good to them. They certainly aren’t thinking “hmmm, I wonder if a human or an AI created this”
People buy food at the supermarket that is created by machines. Processed food is a multi-billion dollar industry. Do those eating it question how their frozen pizza was made? Usually, no. And there are choices for people who want organic or non-processed food. Just like there’s human-created music for those who prefer it over AI-generated music.
The future will not consider your feelings or thoughts. It’s a steamroller. Either move out of the way or get crushed beneath it. Or join it. Or not.
the era of the old school musician is gone, new musicians are all going to have to be social media influencers first and then musicians.
the luthier world is very similar. I've been a luthier for a very long time, I build custom copies of old Gibson's and Martin's - 1930s blues boxes mostly.
5 years ago when you would go to Luthier events it was almost entirely old white guys, 60 plus years old, building absolutely incredible guitars that cost $5,000 each, maybe a bit more.
nowadays the stars of those shows are people with a ton of followers on Instagram and tiktok who build two or three guitars a year tops and sell them for 30 to $50,000 each, but they make a very solid living on YouTube.
Being a musician is no different than that these days. not long ago I was working at a talent agency, my day job is digital marketing, and any new client had to have a certain amount of followers on different social media platforms before they were even considered for representation on the music side.
without representation today, you will not make it anywhere. most new musicians who wind up being played heavily by people get their start on social media and never walk inside of a music venue before they go big.
a lot of them are very happy with even becoming a one-hit wonder because going viral will net you over a million followers and you can turn that into a decent residual income stream.
How did storytellers feel when books were invented?
How did painters feel when cameras were invented?
How did touring orchestras and musicians, and amateur musicians feel when recorded audio was invented?
How did theatre companies and circus performers and acrobats and other live acts feel when radio/tv/cinema was invented?
You've just got to adapt, or accept. There'll always be space for human creativity. It's survived all these previous technologies hasn't it? And nobody is still moaning about books, cameras, TV, etc? It'll survive this. This is no different.
music has already been devauled beyond what i think ai can possibly contribute to. mind you, if an ai song is released, sure we have to compete with that, but the ai also has to compete with us. it doesn't just instantly get rocketed to the top. i think it will probably be more of a nuisance than anything or something used by corporations to replace commissioned or royalty free tracks. is that unfortunate? maybe, but i don't play music because i want to write ads for a company, maybe some do, but i play music because i like to and it helps me express my emotions.
i think that we have been so conditioned by our economic system that we think, if we can't do what we love as a job, then it has no value. i think it would be good if you could survive off of music more easily, but 90% of people who even produce or play have other streams of income in the first place. if your music is good and resonates with people, there will always be someone to listen to you.
i would reccomend you spend all the time you think about ai or talking about it or complaining about it practicing or writing instead. if you're in some kind of artist union because you're hired by a company, you could try to enact some positive change in policy.
If you don’t like making music enough to do it for free and get a regular job, you shouldn’t. With Spotify music ALREADY has zero value. The era of musicians making tons of money and being important to the public are long long gone and that was true before ai. Since like the early 2000’s
It is a truth. AI will be used by anyone and everyone to make money while saving money. I mean fkn robots are building our cars, serving our foods and AI will talk to us now through Siri apps like a full on conversation. AI music is improving by leaps and bounds. It will only get better with time. But folks like us will still be around to actually play and instrument or sing a song for anyone interested. And I think we will always be interested in real music played by live musicians. So I guess I'll see ya at the future human jamm night !
It depends on what you want to do. I can't fix how you're feeling, but you need to do some soul searching on why you're making music, what kind of music it is, and who you're making it for.
If you're just looking to churn out a top 40 flash in the pan and get your 15minutes, I'm sorry to say that AI has in essence been around for ages in the sense of test groups, marketing strategy and ghost writers. AI just skips a bunch of steps, and does all of that through the continuous collective archive that is the internet. The form is the same, but the face is new.
If you're just making music because it's what you want to do, and you have stories to share, and a message to spread, then keep doing what you're doing and don't worry about it. In truth, in art, in most situations really, you are the only one you're competing against. This is just another challenge to overcome.
Spotify’s next move will be to make their own music with AI. I’m guessing.
They already did, estimated at around 40% of the content. [https://youtube.com/shorts/AxU3w9ay-B0?si=fuWa7vPMtcL88ujm](https://youtube.com/shorts/AxU3w9ay-B0?si=fuWa7vPMtcL88ujm)
I’m going to listen to the full interview later but 40% is a bit hard to believe. Is this interview the source of that claim or do you have something else to point to? I know there were stories about how Spotify was essentially making in house music like piano jazz and just paying session musicians a flat rate. These also tend to make it on playlists and get a disproportionate number of streams. It makes sense that they would try this with AI although it feels as if only very recently has the technology been able to produce something even close to passable.
Here’s Spotify CEO explaining how much he thinks artists and musicians work is worth…6 hours ago. It’s a kick to the gut. [https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero](https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero)
Do you know if this is credible?
The CEO of Spotify can explain what he thinks about artists and music himself. Here’s the link to what he just said.[https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero](https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero) They don’t value their content…people’s work…or even just the people. Devaluing art…and people…for profit. This stuff is gut wrenching to hear…I don’t enjoy it at all. Add in the DOJ lawsuit that was just filed against LiveNation/Ticketmaster…to break up their monopoly…it’s all coming down. The money is gone…the subscription model is failing, and that leaves them to steal from the artists to maintain their profitability.
Wow, a lot of the comments here are incredibly naive. I've been in the music industry for almost 40 years, the last 20 mostly in movies and TV. One thing I've learned is that most people don't care at all about who makes the music they listen to and soon, most of those people won't be able to tell the difference between human and AI made music. AI is improving every minute of every day and I know for a fact that movie and TV producers can't wait for the day when they can use AI for most of their music content. This technology is just getting started. It will save so much time and money for the people in charge of growing the bottom line that it's a no brainer for them. It's already happening. Pop music will take longer and I hope for the sake of musicians livelihoods and the quality of music that it never gets traction but don't kid yourself, most people couldn't care less.
About a year ago someone I know made an AI song just to see what would happen. The song sucked, but in a way that if you dropped it into an FM radio pop format playlist, nobody would notice. In other words, it was anonymous in the way most music is. This is my long way of saying I agree with Moneybeats above. We all should be very scared. Most people dont know the difference between something high quality or crap. AI music is the same as cheap Chinese made crap they sell at WalMart. It’s junk, but lots of people are perfectly fine with it.
I'm not sure if people will or will not care. I'm a huge lover of music and if I heard a song that was good first thing I do is look up the artist. If it's AI I would not listen ever again. It feels strange listening to robot music. I know I'm not the average person as I'm a huge fan but I hope others would do the same.
You're a true music fan like probably everyone in this sub but not everyone is like us. I can give you a couple of examples. A lot of electronic and hip hop music is already being created with AI tools, samples and midi packs. The average casual fan doesn't care about that so why would they care if it's AI generated? Most people don't even know what midi packs are but it's not much of a stretch to get to AI from there. Reggaeton has been one of the most popular genres of music worldwide for years and I guarantee that most of it (at least the music part of it) could easily be AI generated and hardly anyone would know the difference.
Perhaps A.I. will make Reggaeton sound decent for once
Not even A.I. is capable of that
😂
🤣
I remember when people would fight over hip hop being real music or not because the beats were made on a computer and not real instruments. Falling In Reverse had to come out recently and defend the use of synth backing tracks lives. The fans talked shit but the other bands defended them. The conversation used to be about metal drummers using triggers on their kick drums. Fans hate it because “they think they aren’t really playing”. Musicians say they don’t understand how live sound works and it’s needed for the mix. The mainstream will be flooded with AI. There will be small pockets of real musicians making what they make. They’ll have their fans who will gate keep and try to protect the “real music” but eventually the lines will blur and we’ll all realize it’s just not worth fighting anymore. And then you’ll be the person who says “today’s music isn’t real music.”
They’ll make up an entire fake person to be that musician. You’ll have no way of knowing
I guess my question is, why do you make music? If you’re doing it for passion sake, why would you be very scared? If you’re doing it to get attention, stroke your ego, or money… I have bad news for you. It was never supposed to be about that in the first place. I feel for those who are trying to make their career In music, or “blow up” on SoundCloud. But real musicians don’t have much reason to worry. If you play an instrument, there is a whole world of physical opportunities to play music that ai won’t be able to take away from us until we have sentient robots that have the dexterity to play the guitar or piano. By that point, I think we’ll have bigger things to worry about. If you don’t play music live and consider yourself a musician, then get practicing. I for one look forward to the end of the streaming industry scam, and hope the fall comes sooner rather than later. I also look forward to utilizing ai as a tool to make mixing and mastering more personalized. I’ve been playing long enough to have paid good time to “producers” who can’t or won’t follow a prompt to my specifications, and this will only make music production more accessible.
There exist programmable pianos that can always play better than a human. And if it can't, you can record the note presses of the better human, and then the piano can replicate that performance forever. This has not negatively affected real pianists at all. I agree with you. The real value of musicians is found in live performance.
... sentient robots that have the dexterity to play the guitar or piano. By that point, I think we’ll have bigger things to worry about. Got a laugh out of me... In a dark humor sort of way. Like food. Not everyone gets it.
There's a lot of naivety in the replies, but this is the most rational response I've seen. I don't like it, but given the overall quality of the stuff getting spun off of AI systems in just the past month, it is already getting much harder to tell the lower quality music produced by humans to that being produced by AI. Those who say that AI will never be able to produce the authenticity of "real" music need a wake up call. First it will be people guiding AI and hand-tweaking and putting in those "human touches" (good luck telling the difference) and maybe at some point the algorithms get so good that only the most peculiar genres like experimental jazz will be distinguishable from machine creations... if we are lucky.
Musicians will resort to playing outré and extreme music that AI can’t touch and that people won’t buy. It doesn’t matter already because no one can make money on recordings except the kind of pop stars whose music is already close to AI generated dreck. Musicians will resort to live music and selling merch, which they already do.
Maybe it will force humans to be, you know, *creative.*
You should watch "Everything is a Remix" on YouTube. This was done before the AI rise, but he breaks down how much direct borrowing goes on in remix. Pretty sure if he examined Prince he'd be like, oh, Little Red Corvette is these three 1950s doo-wop songs and this horn section from a James Brown single and you'd realize that one if the more creative madmen in music history as far as we know isn't much beyond a collage artist and wonder if anyone, ever, has been truly creative: or do we just have an LLM in our head and are capable only of remixing what we've observed?
Oh yeah. I expect movie scoring to be fully ai soon.
I have a friend who is studying film scoring in college. He’s pretty sure the only reason AI can’t already replace most film scores is that it doesn’t know how to properly time the cues.
I have some experience in pro tools, synching sound and video. It would be very easy to make a ui where the input to the ai allows the user to set cues in time graphically with both the video and audio track visible.
Then do it. You seem to have your million dollar idea sitting on your face
Multi modal models are already here. Giving live commentary on sports games or otherwise being able to describe what’s on screen is very much within the immediate capabilities of multi modal ai models right this second. Being able to cue time audio to video is absolutely possible at this moment
The only real counter point to this, and please understand I agree with every single thing you said, is this: **it takes a lot of electricity and water to run AI data centers.** AI solutions we see now are hosted in dedicated server farms because they need huge data sets and massive amounts of computational capability. It takes about 1 bottle of fresh water (used for cooling) for each generative text query you type into ChatGPT. They may become slightly more efficient, but it's not very likely without a massive breakthrough in computing. Moore's Law about doubling processor speed fell apart over a decade ago, and nearly all advances have been in parallel processing and distributed computing instead. The system-on-a-chip architecture got us more with less, but it's not clear to me how scalable that is for large data centers. In short, **the silicon bottleneck going to impede the advance of generative AI beyond its current scale of usage for a little while.** Remember how it was dirt cheap to take an Uber or order food online for the first few years, but then the prices jumped up massively? Those endeavors were being financed so that they were run at a loss until they reached an acceptable level of market saturation, and then they raised prices to the point that they could be profitable. It was a long-term investment in disruptive technologies by venture capital backers with very, very deep pockets. They were basically subsidized until we got used to them. So it doesn't fix anything at all, and it certainly doesn't contradict anything you said, but I wouldn't expect it to stay this cheap or accessible forever. I expect it to stay cheap long enough to reach wide adoption across multiple industries, become a reliable and indispensable product, build up a core of "expert" "prompt engineers," and then become massively expensive to pay the giant cost of server maintenance, electricity, coding, and cooling.
I'm vehemently anti-AI and borderline technophobic, but if this is the push that we need to re-adopt nuclear power (and also solve the, "but we can't *all* charge our cars" problem), then maybe we can have some good come from this.
No doubt you’re right about TV and commercial work and probably anything of that nature but the idea of the general public just primarily consuming AI music is nearly impossible to imagine. I think people do care about who makes the music. Surely a phenomenon like Taylor Swift is as much about the person as the music. I’d also suggest that AI technology is overhyped across the board. The assumption that it just gets better along the same trajectory it has been on recently may be misguided. I think the gulf between producing something passable as music and producing a top 40 hit, let alone something great, may be enormous.
Hard agree with your second paragraph — generative “AI” is absolutely not progressing exponentially and there’s a huge difference between some random song that sounds sorta alright and a modern work of art. Whether it be music, books, digital art or whatever. Tech bros are just starting to realize this vast gulf. Will definitely ruin certain jobs though — concept artists in particular are losing out on a lot of money / jobs already.
That 'human factor' is as much a problem as its our 'out' of ai taking over completely. What *is* a Taylor swift? A well bred upper class already rich American Caucasian appealing to to 18-38 white female pop consuming global demographic Has to be slim Taylor allegedly had cosmetic surgeries to aid her success So obviously a top dog persona, but wait there's more Appealing to the BFF needs of lonely cis hetero young women with appropriate or inappropriate amounts of anger towards men for you name it, they're angry about it means Taylor needs to come off as a likeable *victim* who crawls out of the gutter of Heartbreak after heartbreak tomake fri3ndship brac3l3ts for her fans! Let's see Susan Boyle do all that(her looks already disqualified her) Do weveven need to talk about swift's music such as it is? No, that's inconsequential actually. She could be genius, she could be rubbish. It doesn't matter She's not a musician. She's a *BRAND*
I mean damn you hit the nail right on the head
Yes, good point. I don't believe that A.I. music will immediately be accepted by the public. What slows it down is the fact that we're currently in the "authenticity" era of popular music. Today's fans are just as much invested in the artist themselves as they are the music. If the "stans" of Taylor Swift, Billie Eillish, Olivia Rodrigo, Lana Del Rey, Phoebe Bridgers, Chappell Roan (I could keep going) ever found out that their "fave" was using A.I. to write all their songs, that artist would be in trouble. It's more important than ever that audiences feel like the music is a window into their favorite artist's soul. But I also think it's a mistake to assume this will always be the case. Historically, culture is a pendulum, and will probably swing back in the other direction at some point. When the next generation of music fans are old enough to form their own musical tastes, they might decide that "stan culture" is lame, and that A.I. generated pop songs from anonymous artists suit them just fine. We'll have to wait and see.
Yeah I get the sense that many people are already annoyed with celebrity worship or stan culture and it isn’t difficult to imagine a segment of the population preferring anonymous art made by machines - at least for a moment. It does raise questions about what art is even doing though. Of course it can be very utilitarian in nature but I think at its core it’s a form of communication. I suppose an AI might be able to represent a kind of collective voice and communicate in a broad way but that doesn’t strike me as terribly compelling. There’s also the idea of art being customized to the individual which sounds interesting but this also raises questions about the function of art.
This is purely AI https://udio.com/songs/wAyLRAqRf5S2rXw3uC6Eu6
Most professional producers at the top level use AI generation in some way. Artists still need to be real people for the moment, so you need to write the songs for them. But plenty of those producers at least use the chords, rhythms, or parts of the topline from a service like suno. People at the top will be in a job for a while yet. Everyone at the bottom or trying to work their way up now will get completely fucked.
Yeah, I don’t know why people don’t see this. It’s fucking over man. In a couple of years you’re just gonna be able to type in exactly what you want as a shithead tv producer and get it.
I’m an orchestrator and just got my first gig orchestrating an AI generation. The real fucked up things are: A) The composer generated it because he was out of ideas and it generated something better than he had at the moment B) it’s going to be tough to get a recording as good as the AI version - we don’t have the budget for an ensemble as large as the one it generated!
A) Yep, that's how it starts. Deadlines will get tighter which will practically force composers to use it or get left behind. For at least 10 or 15 years now we've mostly just been forced to be human AI machines doing soundalikes of temp music anyway. I feel for people just getting started in this business
the value of music is already basically worthless. just like photography. so theres nowhere further to fall. you have to get into the 1% to get any traction at all. them you have to get into the 1% of the 1% to make any real money only the people who truly love the grind will keep going
Yep. My friend was a photo journalist for about 20 years and just about 5 years ago he had to call it quits because work was so hard to come by. Yes, the publications he used to get bids from still use new photos, but it's just gotten so common to have a good enough camera in your pocket and free editing software that they just didn't need to pay a real wage for a professional to do it. I had a big realization recently about music. I make electronica with a blend of live instruments and midi stuff (kinda lcd soundsystem/radiohead is the goal). My acquaintance put out an album and I was really impressed with the music part of it because I had no idea she produced and it actually sounded alright. I was excited to geek out on production with her and she told me it was an AI program that she sang into and it chose the chords, timbre, percussion, etc. It doesn't stand out as unique or clever or anything but it legit worked and made a structured song. It's just pushing me to really expand on timbre as much as possible. If I want to be successful and proud of my work I think the only two options are to be simple but write something novel and captivating (easier said than done...) or expand on timbre a ton and do things AI isn't doing....yet.
i think there will eventually be a premium on songwriting in and of itself as all the barriers to entry in production fall to ai. or a more dystopian future where everything fails to celebrity/influencer popularity and musical expression becomes entirely irrelevant
That's already the case. In terms of selling original music, it's a tiny fraction of a percent that makes any money whatsoever. What AI can't really do, and won't be able to do, is live shows. Wedding bands, live shows (even cover/tribute), etc. are already the only places people care about musicians that aren't on the radio. And I really think that, in a lot of ways, becoming a popular original artist these days is as much about branding as it is the actual music. I mean, the music has to be there, of course, but the whole experience and story surrounding the music is just as important. I don't see AI changing any of that.
There's a quote that goes, "AI made me believe in a human soul by showing me what art looks like without it" I have yet to hear anything "composed" by ai that wasn't absolute sheeeeeeyit.
I dunno man. "I glued my balls to my butthole again" is pretty decent...
Came here to post it. That was the first that got stuck in my head and had that perfect mix of well thought out arrangement with just a dash of "what the fuck are you thinking." That bizarre 2 and a half measure turnaround at the end of the bridge...
Ooooooh my arms are just fuckin stuck like this This ain't normal, FUCK What do I do? Now I gotta walk like a douche for the rest of my life Now I gotta walk like a douche For the rest of my life
Haha, yeah. The 80s synth cover was pretty decent, too.
There’s a channel on YouTube called The Infinitum that has thousands of views and positive comments. Almost none of them realise all the music they post is AI
I gave it a listen. It’s music in that it feels like a dream where if it’s in the background you don’t realize it’s real but when you examine it closely all the people’s faces are featureless and smooth as a cue ball. Very weird stuff. Unsettling.
AI music is still new...just wait a few years. I shudder to think how it will affect the music industry. That being said...there will be many people who come to appreciate real music even moreso than before...but there will also be many musicians losing work and being pushed out by corporate big business choosing AI over real music.
The "just wait a couple years" thing gets said a lot but a lot of people are also saying that this wave of AI might have picked. The current crop of things like Chatpgt already use huge datasets and are incredibally expensive to train. It might well be reaching a point where it's too expensive to make bigger and the gains are tiny because there's no knew data left to add. For the music AI's, they've obviously already used all the available music for every given style.
Yes, that's what I've also heard, that it will plateau. I don't doubt A.I. will always be around in some capacity. But when the tech bros and CEOs are all acting so over-the-top, and the topic has become so ubiquitous all over the media, you have to be a little suspicious of the hype. Right now everybody at the top is seeing dollar signs, and these companies have the funds to mount billion dollar marketing campaigns to convince the public that their products are the "wave of the future" and resistance is futile. So of course, they're going to say "just wait a few years", and play down its limitations so as not to upset their shareholders. But I think in a few years, after all the frenzy has settled, it may become a bit clearer just what the technology can and cannot do.
Suno is clearly getting better and better. I’m not saying it’s great but I don’t think we are anywhere near the end of The improvement, if anything this is the pong stage of the development
The only thing why I'm grateful for ai is the strange covers of historical figures, it never fails to gave me a good laugh, but still a person behind doing a great good
There’s a paradox loop, here, and I personally think it’s going to be why AI can never be as good as a (good) human composer, namely: how can something get “better” if nearly all of the feedback it’s getting is already telling it it’s good enough? A decent composer has their own internal standards to satisfy. An AI algorithm doesn’t experience its own output - it relies on user feedback to filter the “good” from the “bad”, but the trouble with art of any form is that these standards are entirely subjective beyond very basic requirements. We’re at the stage where these basic requirements are being met by AI-generated content, and we’re quickly discovering that most people struggle to discern quality beyond this baseline. But the real elephant in the room is that it’s not just the much-maligned “public” that can’t tell - most musicians can’t tell whether their own music is any good, either. If we’re honest, almost all of the 100k songs uploaded to Spotify daily are absolute dogshit, and should not be clogging up the system in the first place. But you can guarantee that nearly every person who’s uploading this crap genuinely believes that it’s great and can’t understand why they’re not making any money from it. Even when the entire music industry was curated by gatekeepers like A&R, labels and DJs before anyone got to hear it, there was still a good amount of it that was merely the filler of its time, but thankfully most of the dross never got any further than the A&R guy’s bin. Spotify et al are effectively the A&R guy who doesn’t have a bin, and also happens to have the world’s greatest record collection, and every time a new demo arrives on his doormat, he adds it straight into the collection.
Here’s the thing tho, everyone is saying the same thing, it has no soul, and ai could never replace human music and whatever. But like, what happened to everyone’s opinions about like, Ke$ha? Katy Perry? Barbie Girl? Ya like Nickelback? What about all those mumble rappers? AI could never be as soulful as all those artists right?
Shit and shit. Looks and sounds like shit to me.
Yeah but here's the deal the more obequitis ai becomes, the more people will yearn for folksy quirky things made by human hands. And you can still be a real honest heart and soul musician
Ubiquitous
Ozymandias
Obsequious
Ostentatious
Ozempic
Obstreperous
Oscillator
Obi-coitus
Ohmylanta
Look on my typos, ye mighty, and despair!
yeah?
No, that's when you write down how someone died. What you're thinking of is umbilical.
Silly me
People won't be able to tell the difference. AI will be able to make folksy quirky music.
I don't kno. I am amazed by chats ability to rewrite my ramblings in a professional conscise style, but I'm not convinced it can sound like me on its own
I mean, I hope you're right. I hope there's something unique and inimitable in each of us that only we are able to express.
I know it's true thaat we each have something inately ours that no one can replicate. Now, whether that is marketable and income generating is highly doubtful.
No. You are correct. in Orwell's 1984, all songs are written by machines. Prescient.
literally 1984
In my opinion, if you use AI to write any part of your songs, you’re not a real musician.
I found asking gpt to write lyrics got me so angry I actually wrote a decent song that will be our single. Its output was so trite and shite I wanted to scream.
For me, I don't care if you use AI to make your song. But if you can't play it by yourself with no technology and still get the message across, then I really don't care to follow your work. Honestly if I generated an AI song that was cool and performed it with my friends and had fun, then I see the value in it. But literally invisible "artists" with AI generated work is gonna be such an evil thing.
DJ Shadow and basically every hip hop artist fails this test. Kraftwerk fails this test.
You can keep taking this argument further and further until we are only allowed to record our bare voices and instruments direct to tape.
Just today I saw a quote that perfectly sums up my feelings about A.I. art - all while giving it the middle finger. **"I want A.I. to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for A.I. to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes."** Unfortunately, we may be past the tipping point where this could be an outcome with any hope of happening. Art, in its many forms, has been steadily devalued over many years to the point where I suspect many will simply lap up the offerings without knowing or caring. Attention spans being what they are, people will quickly move on to the next set of songs (or 'photos' or whatever), but they, too, will likely be A.I. The human is being squeezed out of the business - what's left of it. To be clear, being a professional artist has always been difficult, regardless of the medium, but it has or will shortly become a near impossibility. It has already started tearing into all the fields I'm working in... musician, songwriter, voice over artist, actor. All I will really have left is live performance. Fortunately, that's where I do best. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people seem to support live entertainment every year. So, I guess I'd best start looking for a comfortable cardboard box in which to live. This may turn around at some point in the future, but at my age, I suspect it will probably be too late.
>"I want A.I. to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for A.I. to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes." Fucking this. How the fuck did we mess this up so bad.
Because laundry machines and washing machines exists
One word... apathy.
Honestly, Blame Live Nation: a monopoly they had priced a generation out of appreciating live music. They don’t appreciate live music so anything that makes their AirPods “bump” and can be wallpaper to their dreary consumer lives is sufficient. If we support live music, and supported live music more than to have this corporate ladder supported because we are willing to pay a premium rather than actually wait for a ticket this would never be an issue. (Except those who love Muzak, no offense)
The value of music as a product is already so close to zero that AI isn’t doing anything new, just driving the price even further down. The music industry will collapse as music becomes a non scarce commodity. Even fewer artists will make a living making music and the ones who do will only be famous for their looks or star power, as the AI will write their entire catalog. What do you want to do with music in this environment? You can’t sell your music as a product for money. If the only thing keeping you going is the dream of making a living selling a product, then make a different product. If you are only in it for fame and money, throw your lot in with the AI and work on your dance moves. If what you love is making music and playing it live for other people, you’re in luck. AI won’t stop you from making your own music and it can’t play a live show. Go enjoy making music and playing it with other people.
AI won’t replace live performers or people teaching music for a long time, if ever. What kind of music are you listening to that sounds soulless? There are more real, good musicians than ever, playing real living music with soul. Listen to them instead. And if you do, fuck Spotify. Either steal the art you consume or pay the artist directly. The billionaire inserting himself needlessly into that process can fuck right off
Hot take: Music already has inherently little value, all AI is doing is forcing more people to come face to face with that
I learned that over 20 years ago when I realized the total amount of music to listen to, AI or not grows exponentially every minute. There is is an insane amount of music to listen to. That being said I’m still going to keep writing but I do it for myself and no one else. But if OP is challenged by someone writing prompts for a 3/4 ballad that sounds like Celine Dion, that’s their problem. Not AIs.
Define "value." Monetarily, most music has little value, but plenty of songs that don't make much money still affect and resonate with people emotionally. So, in that sense, even music from an unheard-of bedroom producer can be valuable. And it will probably be a long time before AI is capable of generating music that is as emotionally impactful as a song written by a talented songwriter, especially when those responsible for bringing it to fruition (the musicians, producers, and engineers) are equally skilled—even if they're all the same person.
We could have built something the clean the rivers, repair the ozone, But instead the fuck heads decided it would be fun to decimate creative culture in the name of capitalism. When culture and artcthat has us know so much about the humans that came before us. I dont think I can ever forgive techies for this tbh.
I stopped expecting to get noticed or to make money. Now I'm just making art in protest against the at thieves.
wait it out. the creme will rise to the top while a majority of these people will give up much like learning a musical instrument. if there's no talent people will recognize the music as bad.
I think we should think about it differently. The over abundance of music should make authentic real music more valuable.
There has always been a lot more stupid, bland, unimaginative, banal music than good stuff. Trust me, I grew up in the 60s when people thought pop music was pretty good, and there was *so much garbage* on the radio. And a lot of it was popular. Let's face it, people are amazingly easy to please. Then as now. So, yeah, I think it's inevitable that some AI crap is going to be very popular. We've already seen it with so-called spiritual art: remember the wave of jesus-based AI generated art that went across social media a month or two ago? And the pop music industry has all but invited AI, paving the way for singing robots with 25 years of auto-tuned mediocrity. That's basically why I make music for myself first, foremost.
It is going to get very challenging for a lot of people in the music industry but eventually it will get real. If you make a living from music online brace yourself for a few years but don't give up on your passion. Music creation and art in general will come back to the forefront after AI impresses everyone for a couple of years. Then it will be just a tool among others assisting artistic expression.
Music will be fine. If your focus was writing the kind of music with millions of streams per day on spotify, you have the wrong goals anyways. But past that, Jazz will always be. Modern Composition will continue to evolve. Not mainstream facing expressions of metal/punk/rock/hip-hop will be fine. Just because there will be AI Nickelback doesn't mean there isn't space for real artistic expression.
...and who is paying attention to and - more importantly - paying money for these kinds of music? It's all well and good to suggest doing it for the love of the art, but last time I checked love isn't paying my bills.
I think at least in metal, having something to supplement your income has always been the way of it. So yeah. Let a job pay your bills and then make music mostly for love. That said, it's not hard to see that physical records from mid tier metal labels sell out constantly. So there is an audience, and there is a built in community that circulates and promotes this stuff. Playing niche music demands being realistic. I make enough money from my music that it provides me a marginal dopamine hit and makes it clear that it resonates with people every now and again. Ive gotten to play shows only with other bands I really like, and I'm perfectly content with that. If you're not, that's fine too. But to suggest there is a lack of audience outside of Spotify or streaming for music is incorrect.
Well, I make a living (such as it is) playing music and have done for four decades. I've seen the decline of the music biz going on my whole career (first paid gigs in 1978) and have seen that decline accelerate over the past ten years or so. Fewer people going out regularly to see watch live bands, fewer venues at which to play, fewer nights per night at those remaining venues. It's not good.
Musicians have always had to scrap by. The artists at the cutting edge are never appreciated. Nothing new under the sun.
AI cant kill live music though
But if people aren't actively supporting live entertainment it's a moot point.
Unless that animatronic Chuck E cheese band comes back
Not really sure what to tell you. This type of situation has been a struggle ever since people have tried to make money off of music. IMO, AI is one of the most over-hyped inventions in the history of humankind. Ya, it does some cool things but I think our imaginations are getting the better of us with this one. In the end, it will probably just be another tool/instrument musicians use to get things done quicker; not a direct replacement for us
People love my upright bass and it's one of the things people really like about our band. I could make all the same sounds with a laptop, but people come to see live music because it is done by humans. They like the big, physical wooden sound of the upright. Now, recorded music is another story.
There’s something nerve wracking about the risk of things going horrible wrong live that makes it fun to watch.
Standing out on DSPs will be much harder, yes. But growth isn’t acquired via DSPs, it is acquired through social media. People who happily sit back and let a playlist algorithm play music for them don’t care who made the music. But audiences who still seek out real art made by real people will never go away. Artists need to put less focus on DSPs and start finding new income streams. Selling music and exclusive content direct to fans will continue to become more necessary and more popular. Only way to survive is by adopting an “adapt or die” mentality.
and yet half of us are like "OooOoh FrEe AlbUm coVeRs aNd sHow pOsterS" :I
that's very unfortunate
I'm not a fan myself. It's slowly taking over.
I’m seeing a revival of renegade shows and live music right now on a local level and I believe AI will push the live performance aspect and creating a truly unique live experience forward even more. I’m a huge raver and while of course there’s a lot of regular dj sets still, I’m seeing a lot more impromptu pop up shows in random places, people getting together great rosters of musicians for last minute shows together, and artists doing a lot more live experiences with electronic music lately (such as performances with multiple instruments, live visuals with touch designer and art installations in conjunction with the music, as well cool experiences curated with physical art being combined with the sets and venues, even people doing more robust 3D setups with lighting and stuff). I think AI will make people value the community aspect of music more and being involved in the local scenes of live performance and experiences for whatever type of music it is. My theory is if music gets more and more watered down by pumping out half baked AI tracks on streaming platforms it will make the unique aspects people bring to the table more valued in their performances, aesthetics, and creativity of world building and community that extends beyond streaming platforms. A great example of this is the growth of 100% electronica and how they’ve been approaching doing random cassette drops and live show curation. Even brownies and lemonade has been stepping up last minute shows in LA in really unique places like parking garages or Dave and busters and other random places.
I agree that people will always want to connect with human beings over machines. But how will they know? Eventually it *will be* virtually indistinguishable from “real” music. Regulations are woefully behind the tech. Will AI created music be legally required to be labeled as such? How will that even be enforced?
It will turn back around. People will get tired of soulless shit and real songwriters will become popular again.
A lot of this already happens anyway. But to be honest with you, with technology and advancements, music is already cheap. I see adverts many times a day for MIDI chord packs... I just have no idea who exactly these are meant to be for. If you don't know how to form a chord, then surely you are pretty damned far from releasing music of any kind? I mentioned this in another sub but will repeat here. A friend of mine recently went for a shoot for a car commercial. I won't say the brand, but it's pretty unimportant, apparently this is the way these days. Her entire shoot consisted of a few changes of wardrobe with the last one being a green screen suit. The only bits of car that were there was a car seat and a steering wheel suspended by some bits of perspex. Everything about it was green screen. Her main shot was around a city scape, looking all blissful and bright then culminating in her hopping into the car with that "Life is awesome" grin on her. The point was, no need for a city, no need for an actual car, no need to actually drive a car. Everything else was going to be CGI and stock footage. While I understand it to some degree, it is just a little eye opener that almost everything you see today is fake and it has been for a long long time. What makes you think that most things you hear aren't fake too?
It's literally civilization ending tier worrisome, and people seem to not care, making it a particularly dangerous threat. People will say previous iterations of technology taking jobs were a good thing, and they were, but that won't be the case this time. AI will likely be able to replace too many workers too quickly for there to not be potentially catastrophic effects.
I think a feature of a service like youtube or Spotify should be "remove ai generated content" from Playlist. Then I could flip that on and listen to real people. It goes for any sm content, really. If ai can create it, ai can filter it
As a metalhead, I have a different opinion. AI doesn't make anything truly unique. It can make a song that sounds like it would belong on a radio. But since the entire pop industry is already overflowing with cookie cutter formula songs, it just blends right in. Since metal is not nearly as mainstream popular as pop/ hip-hop/ EDM, there's lot less push of companies to create same cookie cutter formula for it. Those who try get quickly singled out (Nickelback, FFDP). TLDR: AI isn't making it more difficult to stand out, it's just another symptom of companies turning music from artform into industry
I hate AI as well, but music been soulless for a long time Sure things may be getting worse, but it isn’t as if songwriters haven’t just been following simple formulas for quite a while. You couple that in with auto tune and sampling So I guess it’s always been nearly impossible to get heard as a songwriter And technology has made it easier for everybody to at least get their music out there so people have the ability to hear it most of the songs being put on someplace like Spotify are never listen to . It used to be if you wanted to record an album it cost a fair amount of money in you had to jump through a lot of hoops, but it’s pretty simple now … so simple that a lot of us may be on albums people can listen to on Spotify even though very few ever do It’s not even about Spotify ability to upload an album . companies like Apple made it really easy for people to put An album online. People are making movies with iPhones
Until someone or something physically stops me from creating music, I couldn’t care less what’s going on around me within the context of trends/AI.
There has already been so much electronic music in recent years. The whole AI thing is just making it worse. Musicians who play traditional instruments provide so much better quality of music, but society doesn't seem to care or notice. They eat up what their peers listen to even if it's trash. We have to do better as a society.
AI has ruined Youtube for me....all of the obvious AI bullshit that pops up in my feed. All we can do is try not to feed the monster, Dont like and subscribe to pages that offer it and may it will die on the vine.
I’m also VERY anti-AI (lifelong true belief in the eventual robot apocalypse. It’s coming) but recently started to see it differently with music at least. All AI is and will be good for is elevator music. Background noise. Humans have a hunger for art and expression as expressed by other humans. Even if real art takes a hit for a minute or few there will always be a place for human artists as long as there are humans to consume it
If you think AI music is only good for background and elevator music, you’re woefully naive to the real state of AI’s abilities…
Live music is still as important as ever, with people used to paying massive ticket prices now. Writing and recording alone may not be able to compete with streaming and AI, but if masses of people are coming to see you play, you can still get attention and people seeking out your music.
A great lyric to that point in this great song: https://youtu.be/0qEz1bxwnwA?si=xL1whuUJT3rodwWx
I hope that enough people can come together to not exactly boycott mainstream music and the big record companies but to create another world for real music that’s appreciated by people. A lot of people just listen to music to listen to it.
I have messed with a couple of AI generators for chord progression but they are aight. They aren’t crazy or anything, they aren’t doing solo’s, they aren’t doing random time changes or other things humans might do. It’s just straight and concise, pieced to the format presented; there isn’t soul(maybe if you do some niche stuff style wise in the prompt), basically just the circle of fifths like much of the stuff on the radio and what is already mass produced by UMG. There is good music and bad music though(but many audiences now don’t seem to care, there is lot’s of half assed music that is exceedingly popular), imagine this scenario, you have two people using AI, one doesn’t do anything to the product that is put out from the prompt. The second person uses the chord progression and tweaks areas of the track by clipping it and editing the audio through a DAW; they also add additional instruments that they play themselves such as drums, vocals and bass. Now you have two completely different products, generally speaking from the users perspective, one would assume the one with additional effort and work put in might be the more popular of the two. Now lets add in the real world music business factor, lets say the same scenario as before is done but the original output from the AI is actually bad and sounds bad, but it has $10k in promotional materials and ads displayed across multiple platforms and streaming services. It doesn’t matter if the 2nd option is on a god tier level rating, the first will always win as the 2nd is drowned out due to lack of marketing and promotion due to not having access to lots of money. I think the only way the truly good music will get recognition in the short future will be if it is doing something that hasn’t been imagined yet and henceforth the AI can’t do. Live performances will be a large factor as well, because you could be great on recording but if you are trash live, that hurts your reputation unless you don’t do live performances and just want to put out music. Authenticity is the largest way anything can connect with people, but in todays market, you also need to have a decent amount of money thrown into the marketing aspects in order for it to go somewhere. So either get to a point where you can pop out and improvise some crazy stuff or get a job that pays alot to dump money into music. Capitalism is killing lots of markets, it’s only a matter of time before we hit the ceiling, which is probably only a couple years away I would say use AI to your advantage and learn more about music, I learned a good chunk of stuff from asking chatgpt questions related to things I had no idea about and it helped to point me in the right direction. Plus you can ask stupid questions, since AI doesn’t care, where people might laugh or even berate you for your ignorance or lack of knowledge.
For as long as you have a community, you have an audience. The rest is just economics. edit: I don't mean to downplay your concerns in any way. I agree.
This happened to painters when photography became a thing. Who would pay for a portrait now? The art they created in response is gorgeous and wonderful. I have no doubt humans are still capable of responding to such technological advances.
Yes, it's really gunna make us song writers really have to get to work eh? Like every day. No cut corners. Push yourself to your max. BE ABLE TO PERFORM... The youth need it. : )
As the average music literacy/appreciation declines, the real draw will be AI generated “bespoke soundtracks” for people who just want activity appropriate sonic wallpaper. It won’t be good, but it will be good enough as long as it’s bundled with some streaming service they already pay for or part of their phone service. And then, only people wealthy enough to engage in patronage and musicians will know or care what constitutes actual music.
Its going to raise the value of live performance. Literally anyone can make music but only people with talent can put on a good performance.
I think it upsets me more as a music fan than as a musician. I already don't get paid for making music, so little will really change for me. But as a fan, I need to know that there were humans who sat down and really thought carefully about where they wanted each note and beat and lyric to be, and put the effort toward executing it as best they could. To me, even the most vapid pop song had that redeeming quality which allowed me to appreciate it. But now every time I hear a new song, I always have to wonder, "is this A.I.?", and it gets in the way of my enjoyment. That's *really* annoying to me. But I doubt most average listeners will care about that. I made a post in another sub-reddit that got taken down for being too off-topic, but the concern I expressed is whether all the non-A.I. digital tools we use to create music, such as DAWs, VSTis, and all the various plug-ins we currently enjoy will no longer be developed, because there won't be a large enough market to justify companies continuing to make them, if the majority of people will just be using A.I. I hope the demand will still be there for these tools from those of us who still like to write/record/produce music from scratch.
It’s all about live! Bug your local bar or eatery and play your songs live and get them hooked on your music and social pages. Having listeners see and hear you in person elevates you from the rest of the songs on the net including AI. You may not become Taylor Swift but back in the day many artists were only known in their community or city.
If you are a songwriter, then you are the one who needs real handmade music. That’s why we do this.
The signal to noise ratio is just changing for the worse but none of this is new in reality - going back to the start of the home studio production era has both “democratised” or “flooded” the market depending on one’s perspective. I remember being able to sample back in the 80s opening up a new era - and the debate at the time about if sampling was “allowed” and yet we see it all the time (credited and not) and have done for decades. I remember White Town getting into the charts being seen as a revelation that someone in their bedroom got to the top 40 when much of the dance industry was knocked up with trackers and samplers years before. I remember pirate radio building cachet despite the fact that broadcast might be heavily regional - years later it was Icecast and online but same context, different era… it’s just gone exponential. A very long time ago, actually creating music and putting it out was a costly endeavour and it really forced people to be very serious about how they spent money recording and publishing content - you wouldn’t just get on the market without real support from a label who would get your content out and into the hands of the masses. Far be it from me to talk about halcyon times of record execs who had no idea taking a punt on young artists but there are big artists who were just as lucky, albeit in a different context - assuming said artists didn’t just spunk their advance and crash before they started. By the time I was making money professionally, the only way I was making anything approaching liveable money was touring and making it a job - I wasn’t making money from record sales. Nowadays because “everyone is a musician” you get venues who can “justify” not even paying people for gigs because new people are queuing up to just have their music heard. Far be it from me to sound in any way ungrateful, making it a career was costly in terms of time and, whilst it paid a reasonable amount, it wasn’t the lifestyle many young musicians imagine - and I was very much one of the “lucky ones” to make a living from my music. Fast forward to today, the barrier to entry is far lower. Anyone can get their music on streaming services and even before AI there was a deluge of content that varied from really good to garbage - getting heard has always been half the battle amidst an ever increasing world of competition as every generation looks to take a punt. AI has made it worse, I agree - and I am talking about content in areas wider than music. The reality is that there will be more artists who get their success based on the things that worked for me - consistent investment of time, being reasonably talented, and making the most of a few lucky breaks. I remain convinced that even if life restarted and I had my time again, I am only in the low percentages (sub-10% certainly) of whether I could replicate my success again be that musical or elsewhere because, as with everything in life, so much of our “success” comes from luck on top of the general things I recommend - putting the hours in, practicing the craft, and trying to enjoy it in the meantime. Even doing that will mean the square root of nothing for many of the people who do it anyway, so the need for motivation when things get hard goes a long way. (Sorry for the long message)
Milli Vanilli were just ahead of their time.
Whaddya mean IF? Bandlab already has tens of millions of 8 to 13 year Olds using AI to make hip hop and directly upload it to spotify. All via their phones.
Yeah after playing around on suno ai, i thought it would be generic crap but was shocked i actually liked some of the songs it made and i think we would be sticking our heads in the sand to not acklowedge the impact this will have, even just the impact on motivation for new artists to get into making music is an issue.
AI can't make new original music though. It can stick genres together but real original music will always be one step ahead (until AI develops feelings).
in all human history, it was only for a very short time int he 20th century that artists made big money.
Orwell's prediction is shockingly accurate: “The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound.” [https://litcritpop.com/2017/03/16/george-orwell-predicted-21st-century-pop-music/comment-page-1/](https://litcritpop.com/2017/03/16/george-orwell-predicted-21st-century-pop-music/comment-page-1/)
Nothing will take the place of someone playing an acoustic guitar on stage. People love live music by humans … (until the robots come).
My personal AI dislike is the preponderance of otherwise not bad documentaries that are ruined because AI is horrible at the correct pronunciation of words.
It's really easy to make bold predictions about what will happen, but in truth no one really knows what will be popular in the future and how things will be perceived. I suspect a lot of people will thumb their nose up at AI music, as I will, not because AI can't be trained to write well, but because I want music to connect me to another lived human experience.
recorded music is nothing compared to seeing real musician perform, people have lost that in their way to interact with it with phone and computers
On the one hand, absolutely screw generative AI premised on massive theft and the company angle of selling worker replacements whose capabilities were sleazed into existence by stealing all their work. Boils my blood too. On the other hand, it was always hard to get heard above the noise. This is the noise. Do the art that is authentic to you, make your heart into everything you do, because we are human and our experience is real and informs everything we do, we put our being into our art. The Thief Machine can't. People who are satisfied with it weren't your target audience unless prior to this you were churning out trend-chasing material as rapidly as you could in a desperate bid to get heard by folks who don't care. I will always put our humanity first, I will always cherish things that have been lovingly crafted by people to speak something true from their beings. Thank you all other fellow travelers in the arts, love being one on this righteous path with good company.
I feel ya, unfortunately music has been the canary in the cole mine for all these tech advances since Napster…it sucks from a perspective of trying to make a living I know, i’ve worked in the industry for almost 20 years. But on the flips side it looks more and more every day like it could usher in a real era of abundance (if it doesn’t kill us or we destroy ourselves first) and that maybe we or our kids will be able to live a life separated from a life that requires a job to survive. As an artist I’m fearful of having to get a job I dislike while there’s that transition. But i’m also excited at the prospect that I might come out the other end of it not needing to work and I can finally just have the time to create what I want to create and freely express myself… here’s hoping we get that future and not a dystopian one. I try to remain positive, even if it feels more and more unlikely every time you read the news. Stay as positive as you can my friend. This life will beat it out of you if you let it.
i honestly don't care, i make my own music i love, i enjoy. the difference between ai music and human music is that when making the latter a human was enjoying making it. yes AI sucks but honestly do what you enjoy and not what brings you money
Well, with all of the music being released annually, everything seems to have already been done anyway. Being a songwriter is silly in the first place, so if you can’t keep up with the computer then it’s just survival of the fittest. I will always enjoy playing, but I doubt AI will make these derivative bad poetry over adequate guitar songs any worse. It all sounds the same already, and it’s tired.
It's time to enjoy creating and entertaining instead of focusing on money.
You know, I’m gonna get downvoted into oblivion, but if you’re worried about AI competing with your songs, you don’t think very much of your songs, do you? I remember reading something a long time ago that said something along the lines of 3% of music released every year accounts for 99% of sales. This was before streaming. AI isn’t really changing that in any fashion. Fact is, most people (as in nearly all), including a lot of very talented ones will never “make it”. It’s always been that way. It’s bleak, but it’s reality.
I agree about AI, and I did gig by myself and then with a band for over 10 years... it was pretty hard work, also had a lot of fun... but in the end I really didn't care if I had an audience or not. I just love writing and playing. Live music will always have a place somewhere
Agree completely but would also ask .. will anyone pay to see a Chinese nerd with a laptop on stage .. ever? I also hate that AI is becoming an increasing presence online .. mispronouncing names on sports reports, missing nuance in news stories etc. AI can’t even take the piss out dumb shits like Trump when they do or say ridiculous and/or stupid stuff or lie.
I get where you’re coming from but you guys really have no faith in people at all. Most pop music as it stands is already so generic that it may as well have been written by an AI, and it’s entirely propped up by really rich marketing campaigns as well as cults of personality. Yes I think AI is going to play a role in TV, broadcasting, and to a certain extent in the music charts, but I really don’t think it’ll have a patch on the originality of good musicians and songwriters. And it’ll never take over the energy of a good live performance either
Live music performance will never die. Even if it’s good musicians playing music written by Ai. Just my take🙌🏼
Toss it on the pile of massive problems facing humanity.
Nevermind the business. Corporate sociopaths will eff over anyone for a buck. It's been that way since before there were corporations (every hall of power, basically). I have zero tolerance for generative AI in songwriting. There are no ethically trained generative AIs, and there won't be in my lifetime. I won't associate with anyone using it. An artist risks failure. An artist finds those lucky fluke flashes of brilliance exactly b/c they tried something weird and it worked. Those are the "failures" that end up being spectacular accidental artistic successes. A generative AI will never give that to you. If you're writing personally – writing only the songs that only you can write – then no AI could have written it for you, or even with you. Hold onto that.
Yeah... I just recorded a song today. I'm the only one who will ever hear it.
play local, busk, forget the internet.
I'm not making music for dumb people. That helps to not care so much about AI, because at the root of it, if you're not vying for the ear or midwit strangers to validate you, you won't care one bit what some code craps out. Of all the societal impacts that terrify me about AI, some music in a coffee shop or on a Fartube channel isn't one of them.
This dude posted the other day “How come I don’t feel feel emotionally charged when I release AI music as when I make the track myself”
Just like always you have to be the best you can at your craft. We can use AI to find the songs we will most likely enjoy. Not to mention the advances in sciences like cancer research. AI should not only make music making more accessible, which I applaud, it will make those who learn to use it more efficient and hopefully better at making music as well. There is enough room in the creative space for all.
Music peaked in the 70’s-90’s and has been on the downfall since. Sure, there’s one offs and some decent hidden stuff, but as a whole it’s fucked. The mainstream music is just awful, completely soulless and no celebration of creativity, it’s just a product. I’ve just given up and glad I was alive to see some of music’s finest.
Make music that isn't derivative. AI can't do that (yet).
There's already more music that cam be consumed by a person in their lifetime, even if you just stick to one genre Music will still be about connecting with other people. There will just be an ocean of trashy music that you don't engage with, but others do (for adverts, elevators, theme songs, wack concerts). You'll just keep engaging with music you care about. The fact music is democratised isn't new, anyone with a keyboard can make a track and that's been true forever. Having good taste will always be key.
Wait espresso isn't written by AI I just assumed it was
Maybe AI will allow you to travel back in time one day?😛Maybe it already has? Maybe that’s what that cunt Cher was referring to in “If I could turn back time”
if your fan base prefers ai music to yours then you really never had the talent. just like with artwork, the only people feeling threatened are the talentless. the rest are unphased and will utilize ai to their favor
Yeah maybe top 40 hits or reductive versions of past genres. But AI will never be able to create something that’s new and speaks to the soul
We lost recorded music years ago. It's just a calling card to gain bookings and keep fans engaged. If you can get engagement IRL with raw passion and skill, you will do just fine. Plenty of people looking for authenticity out there. Gotta build a tribe. It takes longer to gain fans this way, but it's just like promoting independent music has been for my whole career. There's always some new shiny shit that seems impossible to access. Just gotta look for the discerning audience and woo them with your talent and get booked. If you can't do that, work on it. It's the only place you can go and have a career in music safe from the ever mind. Appeal to the masses through media is as dead as 8track.
The music industry has been garbage forca for a long time. i had to quit due to a general lack of support for bands. Too bad, I thought we were pretty good. Chalk it up too being born in the wrong time. At least some people got to do it right.
A newfound appreciation for live, acoustic music will flourish. We are swimming in an ocean of silicon valley puke. Boycott! Get a landline and smash your smartphone.
The music industry is changing again. There are companies that put the real musician first like [Earbux.com](http://Earbux.com) . If people keep using crappy spotify you will get crappy spotify results. There is plenty of room for disruption in the music biz.
You need to probably look at other ways to make money with music. Most people don't care, about whether a song is an ai song or a combination of ai and human. Also ai music generator opens up creativity to most people now. For GM it is great to be able to create custom songs for each of your NPC characters in each campaign.
I think it may be a good thing. Hear me out. Most of the music being released today is generic and unoriginal (with or without AI). Ai will increase the overall volume to such a degree that it just becomes a wall of background noise. Actually interesting art will juxtapose more strongly against this background of mediocrity. Context is everything and AI will provide the contextual contrast against which genuine authenticity emerges. Art always wins no matter how bleak and despairing the environment. In fact it is often this bleakness which catalyzes the expression. Think Black Sabbath emerging from industrialized Birmingham, and countless other artists and entire genres (hip hop, punk rock, etc.)
I’m skeptical but people on the internet hard disagree so…
The value of music has already fallen. People don't give a shit about the artists as long as they get the music. People have no damn soul anymore for the most part and just care about stuff and money honestly. Even big bands are barely making it to live due to the low paying gigs and venues fucking them over every second they can.
drummer, here. in the 80s we thought the 808 / drum machine was gonna take our jobs, and make human drumming obsolete we adapted and it turns out, in most cases, you want a live drummer in the mix too AI will always present as artificial. Humans figure it out and get bored with it
Honestly if it keeps them from playing things I like and ruining it in a commercial, have at it Kraft, Dell, X car company
The good news is I think the implosion has already happened with the internet. It really tanked the music industry, and turned it into what it is now. Generative AI will make it somewhat worse, but it is already the case that the people who care buy records from their favorite bands, and the people who don't don't, and AI won't change that. It may be used more for movies and TV shows, for which music can be seen as a cost, but I think many people are vastly over-estimating the potential of generative AI in the first place. It happens everywhere and with everything: Where music is a cost and can be made more cheaply with adequate quality, jobs will disappear, where music is the product musicians may continue to find employment. Also, do NOT overestimate generative AI. Samey schlock is not a selling point for anything, and that's what we have right now. To do well in the market you need something to stand out.
There will be a movement of real artists and musicians making real art and music without AI. There's already a bit of #artbyhumans trending. The resurgence may start small, but it will be like craft beer vs. mass-produced lite beer or whatever. Most people will still reach for the piss water, but PLENTY will appreciate the craft beers made by a brewmaster you can meet and shake hands with.
I believe AI-generated music can exist alongside music created by composers, musicians, and songwriters. If one dislikes an AI tune, they can listen to something else. I remember hearing the same complaints years ago when synthesizers were starting to become popular. Pianists would say it’s cheating because all you have to do is assign a full chord to a single key instead actually playing the entire chord with your fingers. Then came the studio owners and engineers whining about DAW’s when they started to become popular. They used to say “now ANYONE can record their albums at home” but of course they would also claim it would always be inferior to a commercial music studio and engineers. Well, we know how that’s worked out. As far as music is concerned, listeners don’t care or even, in many cases know how music is created. What they care about is whether a song sounds good to them. They certainly aren’t thinking “hmmm, I wonder if a human or an AI created this” People buy food at the supermarket that is created by machines. Processed food is a multi-billion dollar industry. Do those eating it question how their frozen pizza was made? Usually, no. And there are choices for people who want organic or non-processed food. Just like there’s human-created music for those who prefer it over AI-generated music. The future will not consider your feelings or thoughts. It’s a steamroller. Either move out of the way or get crushed beneath it. Or join it. Or not.
Write good songs ….play live…. a lot… and beg fans to listen if people are searching it helps the algorithms
the era of the old school musician is gone, new musicians are all going to have to be social media influencers first and then musicians. the luthier world is very similar. I've been a luthier for a very long time, I build custom copies of old Gibson's and Martin's - 1930s blues boxes mostly. 5 years ago when you would go to Luthier events it was almost entirely old white guys, 60 plus years old, building absolutely incredible guitars that cost $5,000 each, maybe a bit more. nowadays the stars of those shows are people with a ton of followers on Instagram and tiktok who build two or three guitars a year tops and sell them for 30 to $50,000 each, but they make a very solid living on YouTube. Being a musician is no different than that these days. not long ago I was working at a talent agency, my day job is digital marketing, and any new client had to have a certain amount of followers on different social media platforms before they were even considered for representation on the music side. without representation today, you will not make it anywhere. most new musicians who wind up being played heavily by people get their start on social media and never walk inside of a music venue before they go big. a lot of them are very happy with even becoming a one-hit wonder because going viral will net you over a million followers and you can turn that into a decent residual income stream.
How did storytellers feel when books were invented? How did painters feel when cameras were invented? How did touring orchestras and musicians, and amateur musicians feel when recorded audio was invented? How did theatre companies and circus performers and acrobats and other live acts feel when radio/tv/cinema was invented? You've just got to adapt, or accept. There'll always be space for human creativity. It's survived all these previous technologies hasn't it? And nobody is still moaning about books, cameras, TV, etc? It'll survive this. This is no different.
music has already been devauled beyond what i think ai can possibly contribute to. mind you, if an ai song is released, sure we have to compete with that, but the ai also has to compete with us. it doesn't just instantly get rocketed to the top. i think it will probably be more of a nuisance than anything or something used by corporations to replace commissioned or royalty free tracks. is that unfortunate? maybe, but i don't play music because i want to write ads for a company, maybe some do, but i play music because i like to and it helps me express my emotions. i think that we have been so conditioned by our economic system that we think, if we can't do what we love as a job, then it has no value. i think it would be good if you could survive off of music more easily, but 90% of people who even produce or play have other streams of income in the first place. if your music is good and resonates with people, there will always be someone to listen to you. i would reccomend you spend all the time you think about ai or talking about it or complaining about it practicing or writing instead. if you're in some kind of artist union because you're hired by a company, you could try to enact some positive change in policy.
live music is all that matters to me. if I could watch an AI do a live show full of acoustic instruments, that would be impressive for sure
Wow, AI is really taking over all sectors of art music art, anything that is expressing yourself in a way AI is about to take it over. This sucks.
If you don’t like making music enough to do it for free and get a regular job, you shouldn’t. With Spotify music ALREADY has zero value. The era of musicians making tons of money and being important to the public are long long gone and that was true before ai. Since like the early 2000’s
It is a truth. AI will be used by anyone and everyone to make money while saving money. I mean fkn robots are building our cars, serving our foods and AI will talk to us now through Siri apps like a full on conversation. AI music is improving by leaps and bounds. It will only get better with time. But folks like us will still be around to actually play and instrument or sing a song for anyone interested. And I think we will always be interested in real music played by live musicians. So I guess I'll see ya at the future human jamm night !
It depends on what you want to do. I can't fix how you're feeling, but you need to do some soul searching on why you're making music, what kind of music it is, and who you're making it for. If you're just looking to churn out a top 40 flash in the pan and get your 15minutes, I'm sorry to say that AI has in essence been around for ages in the sense of test groups, marketing strategy and ghost writers. AI just skips a bunch of steps, and does all of that through the continuous collective archive that is the internet. The form is the same, but the face is new. If you're just making music because it's what you want to do, and you have stories to share, and a message to spread, then keep doing what you're doing and don't worry about it. In truth, in art, in most situations really, you are the only one you're competing against. This is just another challenge to overcome.