AI Invasion:

Is this the End for Musicians?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the new world of AI, apps, and the future of the music industry lately. And I wanted to share some of those thoughts with you.

Ali Abouletta in his First 1000 article “Top 100 apps: State of AI” discusses the rapid growth of AI and discovered that 20% of the Top 100 apps have adopted some version of AI. In his article he said: “Suffice it to say that outside of a couple of notable exceptions, I have found those features to be underwhelming. The speed of adoption, however, is surprising.”

Recently I discovered a site called Udio. There you can type in a simple prompt, and within 1-5 minutes you get a fully produced song. That’s right. A fully produced song, filled with all the instruments, a perfectly balanced mix, and it can even mimic the voices of popular singers like Justin Bieber, complete with harmonies. Soon we’ll be able to have a duet with Michael Jackson and Duo Lipa with just a simple prompt.

But what does this really imply on a grander scale?

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If you want to support my work, throw $6 my way every month. What a bargain, eh?

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Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, tweeted recently how cheap it is to create music:

Interesting how after he told us how cheap it was to “create content” he then goes on to raise the price of subscriptions in the US. To me, this is a frightening prospect, as Daniel Ek arguably controls the majority of the music business.

Ted Gioia, in his piece “CEOs go to war against creatives“ states: “somebody in the music business wants to replace musicians with AI.” He then goes on to say that the first red flag is that Daniel Ek refers to music as “content” and then points out that these same big execs refer to music being “generated” instead of being composed. That is a pretty big red flag for creative people.

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So, the question that comes to my mind is: “What really separates humans from machines?” Well, for me, the answer is the soul. The very thing that can’t be quantified or understood with empirical data. In a world seemingly more and more obsessed with algorithms and hard facts, human creativity possesses a spiritual quality that machines just can’t replicate. Humans can be likened to mines “…rich in gems of inestimable value.” These “gems” are qualities like love, compassion, empathy, friendship, trust, courage, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, and mindfulness, to name a few - these are the cornerstones of civilization. And they can never be measured or quantified, they can only be experienced.

My prediction is that first, the internet and all arts and media will be flooded with AI. We’ll be engulfed in a kind of sound that’s ordinary and generic. There will be a static quality about it. Then the pushback will come. It already has. People will crave “Organic Music” or “Organic Art”, created entirely by humans. Imagine logos popping up everywhere stating this music is “organic” or “non-AGM” (non-artificially generated music).

Maybe something like this:

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Now, I compose a lot of music for TV. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. We’re talking over 3000 TV episodes. But let me tell you, this isn’t Mozart. Heck, it’s not even Muzak. This is bottom-of-the-fish-barrel, lowest common denominator slime I churned out to keep the lights on and feed my family while trying to do the thing I love. And how much has all that amounted to? About $1000 per quarter. Yup. All that music on all those TV shows, and that’s my grand total. Total disaster. Take a listen for yourself.

This little ditty probably took me about a day to compose, mix, and master.

Now, here’s an example of an AI-generated “song” I typed up using a prompt on Udio. Took about a minute to generate:

Pretty neat, huh? Honestly, we don’t need more of the “kind” of music I was writing for TV. Especially since it was mostly for reality TV. And if there’s one thing we certainly don’t need more of, it’s reality TV. So if the CEOs over at Netflix and Amazon want to keep churning out that kind of “content”, I say let AI handle it. Meanwhile, I think it’s time we got back to making real art.

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Will we see a loss of jobs in the music industry to AI? Absolutely. The CEO of Sony Pictures already spoke up on that one: “Sony Pictures is embracing generative artificial intelligence to cut costs.”

But at what cost? Well, our culture, that’s what. Water down the creation of art and you water down culture. I’m guilty of this myself; I’ve been watering down culture since 2004 when I started writing for music licensing companies. All in the name of survival. And after 20 years it hasn’t exactly been a goldmine. More like fool’s gold. So, if you’re not going to make any money making cheap music for cheap TV shows, you might as well start making things you’re really proud of.

When Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877 everyone thought it would kill the live show. Just like now, a lot of musicians are terrified of AI. And with good reason. But let’s take a look at Taylor Swift for a moment. She’s raking in, on average, $1300 per ticket for her live shows. If that’s any indication, I don’t think we’re going to lose ourselves to tech. The phonograph didn’t do away with the live show. Just as the drum machine didn’t do away with real drummers. And AI won’t do away with real musicians. It might for a bit, especially on the macroculture. But eventually, the kind of “organic” soul music I’m talking about will be the thing that no machine can replicate. So dig deeper, think deeper and demand deeper art in your life. No more settling for mediocrity.

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m not entirely against new tech. One application is that these new tools can be very useful for increasing workflow. I’ve been using some version of AI drums since 2013. When I write a song, my program can analyze it and produce a drum beat for it in seconds, giving me an idea of what it would sound like with real drums. This is a great tool for me so that I can then send it to a real drummer to give her an idea of what I’m looking for.

Another example: if I’m working with a director who wants to know how his scene will look with music, I could essentially churn out a quick AI demo to give a basic idea and then hire real musicians to play the scene. I use tech to know how to say a certain word in Portuguese because I can’t remember. I also use AI art for generating demo ideas for my album covers, which I can then send to my artist friend who works over at Disney to create her own version. And if she hates the AI generated idea she just makes her own thing anyway. But it gives me a quick idea of what might work.

Once the dust settles with this new AI tech, I can see it as an opportunity for speeding up workflow, getting to a point faster than before. As one Disney artist explains, it would have taken a considerable amount of time for an animation artist to create shadowing in a scene for a cartoon. Now, we can use AI to get there faster. But if we use these tools to completely replace the human element, then we’ve lost what it is to truly be human.

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Here’s a little song of mine that I am proud of. It’s 100% Organic, “non-AGM”, made by real humans. No machines were harmed in the creation of this song.

And if you’d like a free copy of the song then send me a note and set you up.

Cheers!

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