You are going to love today’s blog post.
Or you’re going to hate it.
There’s no room in between. On the old 1-5 scale, it’s either a “1” or a “5.”
That’s because it messes with the very forces of the universe. It meddles with the primal forces of nature.
In this case, the music and the artists that made Classic Rock great.
The very technology that we talk about so often on this blog – Artificial Intelligence or AI – is making it possible to resurrect musicians that died well before their time. Nearly three years ago, I blogged about holographic technology being used in theaters (pre-COVID, of course) by artists as diverse as Roy Orbison and Ronnie James Dio.
The story and the results of this science project are covered in Rolling Stone earlier this month in a story by Kory Grow – “In Computero: Hear How AI Software Wrote a ‘New” Nirvana Song.”
Grow follows the exploits of a project called “Lost Tapes of the 27 Club” put together by an organization called Over the Bridge out of Toronto. The
“27 Club” refers to the young age when many iconic rockers passed away – among them, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, and of course, Kurt Cobain.
Over the Bridge is an organization that addresses mental health and recovery in the music industry, a worthy endeavor as we know all too well.
(For a more extensive list of the members of “The 27 Club,” go here.)
The team that collaborated on combining analog creativity with digital magic utilized as many as 30 songs by each featured artist. The software focused on analyzing vocals, chord progressions, guitar riffs, drum patterns, and lyrics to allow AI technology to “Frankenstein” songs by several “27 Club” artists.
Depending on your ear – and your point of view – the project is a hit. Or at least it produced new “music” that bears a striking and eerie resemblance to the real thing.
Or does it?
According to Rolling Stone, the AI engine is Google’s program, Magenta. In the case of all their songs, including the Nirvana-esque production, “Drowned in the Sun,” the producers used tribute band singers to mimic the vocals. From there, the software and a team of people were tasked with pulling it together.
Can AI replace actual musicians?
Here’s “Drowned in the Sun.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9yTuO7d1rk&t=3s
A rep for Lemmon Entertainment, Michael Scriven doesn’t think so:
“There’s an inordinate amount of human hands at the beginning, middle and end to create something like this. A lot of people may think [AI] is going to replace musicians at some point, but at this point, the number of humans that are required just to get to a point where a song is listenable is actually quite significant.”
The Doors and Jimi Hendrix “tributes” have both been removed from Grow’s article as well as on YouTube. The Doors-ish song, “The Roads Are Alive” came closest – to my ear – of recapturing the sound of the band and its mercurial lead singer.
Here’s the Amy Winehouse effort, “Man, I Know.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh3dNJIYO2M&t=33s
The Over The Bridge fundraising effort is being supported by Canadian journalist and music savant, Alan Cross. A trio of radio stations is also participating.
Comments on the Rolling Stone story are mostly negative. Here is a representative one:
And you can use the “comments” section below to go off on this project (or me) yourself.
More than a decade ago, we took the family to Paris – my first time in France. On the advice of the late Tim Davis, we took multiple trains and busses to a side of the city where the famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery is located. Some of the most famous people in the world are buried there, including composer Frederic Chopin and writer Oscar Wilde. But it is Jim Morrison’s gravesite that is constantly deluged by flowers and other memorabilia. His is one of the few that is fenced off to keep tourists out. Yet, every day, hundreds jump the fence to leave tributes.
Hopefully, in light of this project, it’s been calm there.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
- Attention Morning Radio DJs: Troy Aikman Is A Prep Monster - October 10, 2024
- U Can Touch This - October 9, 2024
- “Hear The New Music First On The Q(VC)!” - October 8, 2024
I had a hard time getting past “artificial”
Great, more mathematics masquerading as music. Drums, guitars and every midi/electronic instrument quantized into perfect little hit making beat detective sequenced, soulless dreck. All pop music sounds like this, hip/hop and even a lot of country. Even if it is a real instrument, just find the piece you like, quantize it, and loop it until….. whenever.
If you listen to, I don’t know, Led Zep, you hear Bonham make the ‘mistakes’ and change up the beats per minute. Back in the day, that was called “Style.” Remove the human-ness and what do you have, perfect sequenced mathematical ‘perfection.” Clapton wasn’t a great guitarist because of how perfect he was, like any great musician, it was the imperfection that made it shine. The unexpected that lead to something new. With Magenta the expected leads to something well, expected.
I tweeted last night about Greta Van Fleet that the lead singer should wear lederhosen, cause he sounds like a yodeling Getty Lee (well, they are from Frankenmuth…. how about a chicken dinner?). Yea, they are not really my thing from what I heard, but at least they are actually playing instruments and an actual band. Take someone like Dylan. Love him or not. To this day he goes into the studio, with a band, and they play. That’s how he makes records. Straight off.
I pulled out my Beck, Bogart and Appice record. Man, I loved that record when I was younger. But listening to it carefully, I could hear how it was kinda’ soulless. I could hear where the punch ins where and how they pieced it all together. Yea, that’s how they did it i the ’70s and ’80s, but some producers did it better than others.
Today, fire up protools, create you loops in Abelton or steal them, sequence, quantize run the vocals through auto-tune and there’s you hit. Magenta is just the next logical step, completely remove the human from the equation. Yea, it sucks. It’s the singularity of music. Jarron Lanier was partially right when he said “You are not a gadget” the truth is you don’t matter, only the gadget does. Sorry to go on and on about this and having a strong opinion on the matter, it’s just one that really sticks in my craw.
I get it, John. It is both emotional and disturbing ho art is being warped and perverted by technology. I don’t believe these types of issues existed for Mozart, Picasso, or Wilde. Appreciate the comment and the emotion, John.
Powerful commentary, John. I have nothing to add other than to thank you for saying so well what so many of us are thinking. Without the human quality, is it even truly art? I don’t think so. And you know the old line, without “art,” the “earth” is just “eh.”
PS, John. I was just listening to some of your voice demos on your link. Man, I wish I sounded like that during my radio daze! Great voice, talent, production!
Well, I suppose there is a market for everything. What they would use this for, I have no idea but I smell lawsuits unless there is money to be made and someone signs off on it. However, I’m sure the ad agency’s are all over this because I’ve seen actors with the likeness of a FAMOUS Actor being used for ads, why not music. Well, they have been for years, it’s not hard to write in certain directions but now with AI and Machine Learning the computer will do it for you. You don’t even have to be a musician.
This is way off subject but the question is. Is it really a burger? For health reasons I’ve gone to more of a plant based diet. Just a few years back that wouldn’t be a very tasty route to go. In todays world, though, there are plant based meat that is quite doable. There’s still a difference.
I hate admitting but, I’ve been around for a while. When I started in bands, the keyboard player carried a lot of gear, a Hammond B3 with a Leslie Speaker, a Fender Rhoads piano, a Synthesizer for weird sounds and possibly a real grand piano. Perfect examples are Styx or REO Speedwagon and they needed a crew to move venue to venue. Now, they have one keyboard that does it all with 1000’s of sounds and if it’s a big show they plop it into a Grand Piano for looks. You can midi that up to a computer with bass player software and drummer software, now you got a band. My buddy does a solo act that way, many people do.
I’m a fan of technology but everything is about disruption, disrupting the disrupters. I think we’re at a point where hopefully the disruption that you create will last long enough to make enough money before the new disruptor crushes your business model and leaving you in the dust without a job.
It’s hypercompetitive with lightspeed change.
The fact the “Doors” and “Jimi” were taken down reinforces your premise, Billy. It is about disruption and how we react to it & make it work or against us. Thanks, Billy.
I think there are a number of artists who currently creating “classic rock” and I’m willing to bet that if their music was added to the playlist for a classic rock station no one would even notice until the host told them.
Orango, from Norway, and Eden James, from New York City, immediately come to mind.
As do Greta Van Fleet, much to the pleasure and annoyance of fans and non-fans alike. Thanks, Matt.
And on a comical note, The Rutles sounded more like The Beatles than the BEATLES did!
Great post today, Fred!
Cheese and Onions is my all time favorite song evar’
Thanks for the heads up. I just watched Cheese and Onions on Youtube. Not ready to toss my fab-four collection over the song, but wow, what a fun trip! (And very trippy video!)
The Rutles. I killed too many hours listening to their pre-AI parodies. Thanks for the reminder that Monty Python did this better than sampling and file matching.
JC, please see my comment to David Manzi. I almost forgot about this pre-runner of AI inanity.
I’ve had this conversation with my son who is trying really hard to make it as a country singer and songwriter. He posits that in a world where AI is eliminating more jobs by the day, the ability to create art that endures might well be one of the safer and most future proof job skills.
We’ve never been able to figure out what makes a hit – it changes over the years and the high percentage of overall music industry revenue that a very few songs and artists represent every year since forever support that. Songs that are worked heavily and well supported go nowhere and others break through for no apparent good reason.
I doubt that AI will replace songwriters, but it almost surely will contribute to the process. We seem to figure out things that don’t work at first eventually. TV remotes, cordless phones, clocks in cars and video chat are some examples. Remember Newton? Try Googling it on your smartphone. AI can’t contribute meaningfully yet, but someday it probably will. Whoulda thunk 20 years ago that one day being off key wouldn’t matter? Hello, Autotune.
Imagine a 21st Century Brill Building, where AI starts with 2/3 of a song – the basic structure, then people with good ears and musical knowledge, edit lyrics and add minor chord changes (possibly with some input as to what works best from AI) and hit songs are cranked out more quickly and in greater supply than the old fashioned way. Or maybe its initial role is after the fact – taking competed songs and scoring them for hit potential based on algorithms. If Facebook and Tik Tok can understand and rewire brains the way they can, its hard not to imagine a day when AI has input into the process.
I wish it wasn’t going to happen, but I fear it will. And BTW, my son is getting in under the AI wire and releasing a new single next Friday.
Bob, I think you’ve hit on a number of points I hoped would emerge from the blog. I remember reading that before books were printed, people warned they would destroy storytelling and spontaneity. AI is just the next technological tool (or speed bump) that people like Billy Craig (whose comment appears here) and your son will have to face.
Send me a copy of his single and give him my best.