It's going to put a huge dent in the middle class and cause a rush to authenticity.

AI makes it easier. So if you're looking for music to accompany your YouTube video, voila! If you're just another wanker recreating the electronic sounds/effects of the Spotify Top 50, good luck!

AI will be a tool. Just like with Velvet Sundown, auteurs will use AI to enhance their productions, just like the 808 and the Synclavier and other digital keyboards and effects. But this era where everybody makes music and believes they're entitled to a living?

MORE people will be making music.

But fewer people will be professionals.

If you can strum a guitar and sing the hits you might be able to get a job at your local bar. But it's doubtful, it's cheaper for that establishment to just play records, delivered via streaming services, or a DJ who does essentially the same.

Technology changes the landscape.

The new recording technologies of the sixties caused a concomitant surge in the sale of higher end stereos, so people could hear the productions as clearly as possible.

The CD held more than seventy minutes of music, therefore albums got longer and longer, there was this belief that you could stretch out without compromise and that somehow the public would judge you negatively if you didn't use up the space.

MTV put an emphasis on the looks of performers heretofore unseen. We still live in a visual environment, but the music has never been as separate from images since the heyday of MTV.

The music got compressed, you didn't need to hear it on a full spectrum stereo, so people got all-in-one units, or even boomboxes, which were portable!

At the beginning of the digital music era an MP3 took up far less space than a full featured recording and the public accepted this so there was a vast reduction in the need for sound quality.

And then AirPods and headphones became popular, both of which have a hard time reproducing bass, so the quality of the sound was reduced once more, if you can't hear it, why spend all that money to make it?

Do not fear AI.

Unless maybe you're a coder. Anything to do with math, facts, rights and wrongs? AI is great at that. But the next iteration of AI known as relational AI is now on the market and this advance has rendered even MORE hallucinations. So this constant AI fear in the marketplace...do you remember NFTs? I'm not saying AI will have no impact, but it is overblown. Because the experts don't even think they'll be able to improve the accuracy soon, never mind that they've run out of data to train their models on.

So...

You can make a professional sounding song using AI. Right now it's a party trick. I wouldn't quite call it a fad, like the Syndrum, but it won't be long before listeners are no longer impressed by a lame new track by a famous artist. It'll be like sending jokes when the internet broke, no one does that anymore.

But to use AI as PART of your creation? That's where the digital future lies. As for using it to write your papers, your legal documents...just in the newspaper today there was a judge castigating the legal team of the MyPillow guy because their documents were riddled with errors produced by AI.

So...

If you're a musician and you want to survive... EMBRACE AI! It is not going away. Learn how to use it. Whether you ultimately use it in your compositions or recordings or not. This lesson has been taught over and over during the last two plus decades and creators still refuse to learn it. THE PAST IS NOT COMING BACK! We are only going forward. Don't be a Luddite sitting on the sidelines.

There will be some people with little musical training who will create hits via AI.

And there will be pros who create hits.

But all the dreck filling up Spotify, et al, today?

If you're making music that sounds like the Beach Boys, it must be BETTER than the Beach Boys, because I can get pretty good AI Beach Boys sounding music already.

So if you're me-too about what once was... Good luck with that.

As for modern music, the Spotify Top 50, a lot of it is just a takeoff on what has been done by someone else, employing the same teams of writers, producers, remixers... So if you're doing this, it won't stand out. And the competition will be fierce, because you will be able to imitate the Spotify Top 50 cheaply and quickly.

But as far as authenticity?

If you're skilled at playing your instrument, especially if it is acoustic/organic...this is your best hedge against AI. Authenticity, credibility is where AI is lacking. It's literally a regurgitation of the past. As we go forward it might be able to be programmed to do something innovative and new, but that will come down to the experts referenced above who know how to do this.

The public always desires humanity, that's what machines do worse. So for those of you complaining that AI will steal the musician's lunch... Not that of someone who knows how to play and create something new.

Once again, we are going to see a hollowing out of the middle.

We will be exposed to genius productions at both ends of the spectrum. Stuff that we couldn't even conceive of. AI could cause a renaissance in music.

As for AI in general...

This is music's time once again. Music was the canary in the coal mine for digital distribution disruption and AI music is the canary in the coal mine for creative disruption. The applications AI is used for now... Rote tasks. But AI that can be part of the final product? What that looks like? Music will be first. Because music is cheap to make and distribute, unlike film and so many other enterprises.

You've got to jump into the fire.

AI music will only get better.

As for drummers being put out of business by the drum machine... There's a huge market for drum programming, it's a skill unto itself. I'm not saying it's a one to one replacement, but drummers were not wiped out. There are always winners and losers in a new environment.

As for those ten year olds trying to have hits? Addison Rae? That's commerce, not art. And AI can do that work very easily.

AI is going to EMPOWER creators, just like the computer and Pro Tools.

Get ready!


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