It didn't take any serious algorithmic aerobics for YouTube to figure out I'm a sucker for AI-generated music demos.
It's the intersection of the two things I like learning about most: music and tech. So if you serve me a video of Freddie Mercury singing "Don't Look Back in Anger", I'm going to watch your video of Freddie Mercury singing "Don't Look Back in Anger." Full stop.
And it's easy to see that pretty soon we'll begin asking the same question about musicians that we're already asking about painters and graphic designers: if AI can do the job just as well as a human can, what's the role of an artist anymore?
Except I think that's a flawed premise. I'm skeptical that AI music will ever be able to fully match the emotional punch of human-created music not because of technical limitations but because of narrative limitations.
Let's look at Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is very arguably the biggest pop star in the world right now. I don't think anyone else in music today has the cultural relevancy she has. But, as much as Swifties will torment me for saying this, I don't think Taylor Swift is making the best music. folklore was absolutely brilliant, but Reputation, Lover, evermore, Midnights...they're all only mid-tier pop records.
So what's the disconnect? How does this happen? Well, the delta between the success of Taylor Swift as a musician and the quality of the music she makes can virtually all be attributed to one thing: the narrative she tells around her music. What she stands for as an artist. The type of person we perceive her to be. The character we envision when listening to her songs. The truth of the matter is Taylor Swift has done an unparalleled job at getting her fans bought into her narrative, whether it be her feud with Scooter Braun or her cat-lady home life or her clinically diagnosable obsession with easter eggs. Narrative is what made the careers of icons like Kurt Cobain and Madonna and Michael Jackson and Beyoncé. Musicians get in our wallets because of their songs, but they get in our hearts because of their stories.
AI doesn't have a story. There's nothing to share. And while this seems trivial at first, I don't see people having the same level of attachment to AI music when there isn't this human story riding alongside. Sure, there will be exceptions. I certainly like plenty of songs by artists I know nothing about, and I can fully believe there are some genres (electronic?) where narrative of the artist is far less important. But melody and lyrics are only a fraction of what music actually is today. Music is also companionship. Your favorite artists are your friends. And AWS servers just aren't as friendly as actual humans.
It'll come someday. What is Gorillaz if not a completed fabricated digital narrative anyways? But we're not there yet. At ease, musicians. For now.
Comments