What is even happening in this picture?AI has been infiltrating how we listen to music for years. I’m a diehard Spotify user, and I intentionally feed the algorithm¹ weird stuff when it’s getting vanilla, just to see what happens. Machine learning means I don’t have to listen to every single album that comes out to understand whether I like it or not. I used to do it, it’s very time consuming, and I’m pretty sure at this point Pearl Jam isn’t going to surprise me by totally changing up their sound.
With music, AI has the power to understand two very useful things:
- What patterns do certain types of people really like?
- What similar patterns aren’t being used currently?
The second piece is what really terrifies musicians. Last month some of the biggest names in music signed a letter (it lives right here on Medium²) expressing their fears over predatory use of AI in the music industry.
TLDR, as I understand it, since the “music industry” owns the rights to a lot of music, it is using this music to train AI to make music with similar sonic profiles, except this music won’t have any human beings attached so it churns out pure profit. Well, minus, you know computing costs, but from the perspective of corporations the only real humans are other corporations.
Right, so what does any of this have to do with Dua Lipa’s new album, Radical Optimism?
Radical Optimism came out in a wave of new music. Like, a lot of highly anticipated music. Just since April 19th this year: Taylor Swift, Pearl Jam, St. Vincent, Neil Young, Sia, Kings of Leon, Billie Eilish, etc..
Most of these new releases are pretty boring³. Willow’s new album, Empathogen is probably the most creative album out of the entire spread, in part due to her incredible collaborations.
A lot of these legacy AAA artists seem to have missed the memo. The entire world has become fatigued by celebrity, almost overnight. We live in the age of the digitine⁴. The memo has been sent over and over again by companies like OpenAI, Meta, Google and Microsoft.
It's time to evolve.This memo applies to everyone, and it has become the great equalizer. No one is allowed to rest on their old world laurels anymore. We all have to figure out who we are in this brave new iteration, where we swim with sharks we don’t yet understand.
To be clear, Dua Lipa’s album is not the best album I’ve ever heard. But she got the memo. The music is minimalist and genre-less. The lyrics show an evolution of thought and style, making New Rules seem ancient by comparison. Her producers included Kevin Parker and Danny Harle⁵, both prescient curators of the zeitgeist.
And the tone of the album, while ostensibly about a challenging relationship, could very well be a challenge to her peers. “Git gud” is the tone of Houdini and Training Day.
I made it to the next level of the game. Hope you make it <3For all the artists and musicians worried about how AI will destroy the industry…
Oh good.
An industry that exploits talented youth, sexualizes them indiscriminately, turns them into addicts and then discards them — it’s an industry that deserves to be destroyed.
Creative humans will continue rising to the surface, because AI can only model off of data that already exists (for now). AI is not creative. It’s so, so, so bad at it⁶.
So become the new flavor in the sauce. Embrace the challenge of constant re-invention.
Nothing has changed, except your head start. And just like Dua told all the LLMs, “training season’s over.”
¹How AI helps Spotify win in the music streaming world, Ipshita Sen — https://outsideinsight.com/insights/how-ai-helps-spotify-win-in-the-music-streaming-world/
² 200+ Artists Urge Tech Platforms: Stop Devaluing Music, Artist Rights Alliance — https://artistrightsnow.medium.com/200-artists-urge-tech-platforms-stop-devaluing-music-559fb109bbac
³Review: ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ needs to make layoffs, Emma Weidmann — https://baylorlariat.com/2024/04/22/review-the-tortured-poets-department-needs-to-make-layoffs/
⁴Viral Call to Block ‘Out of Touch’ Celebrities with ‘Digitine’ or Digital Guillotine, Michele McPhee — https://lamag.com/trending/viral-call-to-block-out-of-touch-celebrities-with-digitine-or-digital-guillotine
⁵Caroline Polachek on Bunny is a Rider and collaborating with Danny L Harle, Jasmine Kent-Smith — https://crackmagazine.net/article/profiles/caroline-polachek-on-bunny-is-a-rider-and-collaborating-with-danny-l-harle/
⁶AI Is Hastening My Slow Decent Into Artistic Madness, Rodney Lacroix — https://muddyum.net/ai-is-hastening-my-slow-decent-into-artistic-madness-43af9d299018
