I listen to a lot of 90's music. What can I say, I'm a hopeless nostalgic; I live in the past. But every time I go back to that place I can't help feeling a loss. Whenever I listen to old music it's like I'm tapping into a limited supply. There's only so much times I can do that before realizing it's a short trip on memory lane and it's the same trip every time. Nobody is creating any more of that music so I'm cursed to relisten the same tracks over and over again.
But in the words of the great Dylan, times are a-changin'. We are witnessing an unprecedented phenomena in music history. Music from the previous decades is either being remixed into new songs or used as inspiration for new old songs. This did not happen in the past. Sure, artists would draw inspiration from the previous generations, but I don't believe musicians in the 70's would try to reproduce music from the 50's just for the sake of the 50's sound. Instead, they would only move forward, defining the sound of their era. What we now call 70's music is a direct result of that, and it was so new and original, it inspires artists to this day. Take Hip-hop for example, it's been using funk, soul, blues, jazz and even rock and roll samples from the 60's and 70's to create new music, and continues to do so.
Decades have passed leaving behind countless artists but also defunct musical genres. Having had its run in the 70s and 80s, disco has left the scene graciously by morphing into dance and pop. For those who still enjoy disco though, the supply is limited to what those two decades left behind. Besides the occasional remix, nobody is doing pure disco anymore. Same goes for whoever wants to listen to Nirvana, 2Pac, or Elvis. Kurt Cobain isn't recording any unplugged sessions anytime soon. So what is left for those who can't part with the past?
Well good news boppers! Here comes AI with the promise of artistic immortality.
At this very moment, you can listen on YouTube to new 2Pac music. Just for reference, 2Pac died in 1996 so he did not compose, produce, let alone record any of this. These are completely new songs featuring his exact voice, similar lyrics and sound that can pass on as the real thing without any doubt. There is actually a whole album available, which I must admit, sounds pretty good.
In this particular case, the lyrics are the composition an actual person, who also did the rapping, and then applied an AI converter to make his voice sound like 2Pac's. The instrumentals have also been composed and recorded by this guy. So AI was only used for voice conversion, the rest of the elements that make up a song have been carefully produced by a human. Even so, the result is compelling, and for most people, who choose not to deconstruct the song, this is 2Pac without any doubt.
But the technology is here to create full AI generated songs, not only the voice, but the lyrics, the music, and the vocals. No human required. Imagine being able to simply prompt the AI to generate whatever genre, artist, mood, or collaboration you feel like listening to. Want to listen to a Elvis and Nine Inch Nails collab on a dubstep track? Just prompt that into the AI and it would generate that. Moreso, streaming apps would not only play existing music for you, they will generate it as well, either prompted by you or based on your listening habits. Imagination has no limits and the AI will make it happen, however weird or peculiar the request might be.
I remember reading a novel called Little Heroes by Norman Spinrad when I was a kid. Set in a cyberpunk future, an old rock and roll star, along with a couple of street kids with knowledge of computer synthesizers, set out to create a fleshless Artificial Personality rock star in order to feed the greed of a large music corporation. The AP they create is so good that soon enough it takes over the musical charts as the most successful musical act in the world.
The book came out in 1987 and all this stuff is totally doable today. You could create a band with fictional members, use AI to craft every aspect of their appearance, generate their repertoire based on the general public’s preferences, and then tour the world by making holographic appearances.
How does this play out for the artists in the real world?
When photography was invented in the 1800s, artists where concerned that it would replace painting. And it has to some extent, but we still have painting today as an art form. Rather than pushing the craft into in a niche, photography forced painters to explore new directions to evolve the art and give it value.
I believe something similar will happen in the music industry very soon. Music is so easy to create these days and there is so much of it that it would take multiple lifetimes to listen to it all. Nevertheless, a lot of us still listen to a handful of artists whose careers are long gone or are simply dead. This must say something about the state of the industry today.
More is not better.
Folks would rather listen to AI generated 2Pac than some of the music today, so perhaps an AI revolution is what needs to happen to the music industry to push the artists towards more creative avenues and redefine the concept of originality. If a machine is able to recreate your art to such degree that is indistinguishable from the original, then what does original even mean at this point?
How would 2Pac feel about AI generating his music? Let’s hear it from the proverbial mouth of the sinner, Mr. ChatGPT itself:
“Throughout his career, 2Pac's music was deeply personal, drawing from his own life experiences, struggles, and beliefs. He used his platform to give voice to the marginalized and to speak out against social injustices. For him, music was not just about entertainment; it was a form of expression and activism. Therefore, he might feel that AI-generated music lacks the soul and depth that made his own music resonate with so many people. He might see it as a commercialization or trivialization of his art form, reducing it to mere algorithms and data. Additionally, 2Pac was known for his fiercely independent spirit, and he might reject the idea of his music being created by machines rather than by his own hand.”