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AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

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Re: AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

#91

Post by defrost »

bsder wrote: post #78
defrost wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a reasonable comparison to a minor hit of yore, where do people stand on the Flying Lizard's cover of Money (that's what I want) ? Soulless and devoid of emotion, or an inspired end run about the minor issue of a (self confessed) inability to conventionly sing.

> where do people stand on the Flying Lizard's cover of Money (that's what I want)? It's fine precisely because it provokes emotion that AI stuff doesn't. You may love or hate what the Flying Lizards did, but it's very memorable and you will have an opinion about it (My wife loves it; I think it's stupid--C'est la vie.) The AI generated music just sounds like every other average artist. I'm definitely not even convin…

It genuinely warms my heart that the Flying LIzards did what they did .. but I also think it kind of stupid in a fun way and don't got out of my way to listen to it.

I feel much the same about a lot of the early AI music I've heard, I have a couple of channels on a lesser rank of RSS notifications but more and more there's less and less that's remarkable and it's feeling like the worst kinds of elevator music .. you know, not the Brian Eno stuff . . .

So yeah, we're sitting about like two Yorkshiremen giving a real Thomas Beecham "Shostakovich? I think I stepped in some once" vibe here. Probably deservedly.

Re: AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

#92

Post by shusaku »

jmathai wrote: post #3

We've seen a steady shift in music over the past 2 decades from full length albums, to single hits, to artificially generated. Surely there's some gained and some lost. But coming from the era of buying an entire album, spending time reading the CD booklets and art, and listening to 10 songs which tell a larger story ---- what's being lost really hits home.

This comment is like 20 years out of date haha. People shifted to single hits when the iTunes store was selling songs for 99 cents. Now (and by now I mean for over a decade) we’re in the age of streaming, and you can easily access whole albums with zero friction. It’s the best time ever for the full listen through experience. And artists are responding by releasing long albums.

What I do think is lost these days is listening to the save album over and over again.

Re: AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

#93

Post by DrJokepu »

jmyeet wrote: post #85
smilbandit wrote: post #47

I dabbled with AI music for a bit with Suno. Worked out well for the most part, only way I'm ever going to hear music with themes for some of niche things I like, like Shadowrun. I threw a bunch of music genres at it and some were good enough that I added them to my normal playlist but after about 30 completed songs I had a hard time coming up with new stuff. As someone who has never tried to create music myself it w…

I played around with Suno a little too. It's actually kind of crazy what it can produce. I mean I don't think it's objectively good in any way but for many applications this (and a lot of other generative AIs) are what I'd call "sufficiently good". When you move into an apartment or furnish a rental or whatever you might put stuff up on the wall. For many years that might just be some mass-produced prints from IKEA,…

So this kind of music has a name, it’s called production music and it’s been long expected in the industry that AI-generated music will compete with the lower-end production music, basically elevator music or background music for corporate training videos etc. It is unlikely, however, that it will get much traction in scripted long form productions, partly because studios believe it’s a legal minefield, and partly due to resistance from creatives (whether justified or not).

Re: AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

#94

Post by cindyllm »

themafia wrote: post #89
stronglikedan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listen to a lot of music of all different genres depending on mood, and I can honestly I don't think anyone could peg this as AI just by listening to it. It's soulless and devoid of emotion, but so are a lot of real artists. That wouldn't even be so obvious if they just added some background something, anything, like Wall of Sound style. If I played this for anyone and they said "it sounds like AI", I'd confidently…

> If I played this for anyone and they said "it sounds like AI" It sounds like AI. > I'd confidently tell them they are full of shit. Why are you getting offended on behalf of a computer? Or is there a deeper reasoning for this logic?

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Re: AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

#95

Post by tzs »

I wonder how well it would work to use AI as a front end to Band-in-a-Box?

Band-in-a-Box is a commercial program that has been around since 1990. What it did then was let you specify a chord progression, style, tempo, and instruments and it would make a generate a MIDI track. I think it might have also been able to take a melody and come up with a chord progression for it in a style/genre of your choosing.

The target market was musicians. Instrumentalists used it generate tracks to improvise or solo with for example, and songwriters found it useful to essentially have a full band at their beck and call while composing.

Over the years they added more features, and switched to sounds from recordings of real instruments played by real musicians. They have very good stretching and pitch transposition so you can use these at a range of tempos and keys and they still sound good.

It is still aimed at musicians, and can be overwhelming to others. This I've read is made worse because as it has grown in features and capabilities in the 25+ years it has been available the interface has become kind of disjoint.

It is not something the kind of person who just wants to describe what they want to hear and have a song produced would enjoy. But if an AI could operate it for them, maybe that would work and the result would be something with much better sounding instruments than the AI song makers (and without the risk of including unlicensed copyrighted material).

Re: AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

#96

Post by qotgalaxy »

empath75 wrote: post #49
smilbandit wrote: post #47

I dabbled with AI music for a bit with Suno. Worked out well for the most part, only way I'm ever going to hear music with themes for some of niche things I like, like Shadowrun. I threw a bunch of music genres at it and some were good enough that I added them to my normal playlist but after about 30 completed songs I had a hard time coming up with new stuff. As someone who has never tried to create music myself it w…

There are two arguments about AI art, one of them is trivially reducible to the “is sampling/collage art”. If you are spending time expressing something using AI produced components then you are producing art, and probably the amount of time you spend working on it (either developing your skills or creating the work) roughly will correlate to how much value others see in it. It’s no different than building a hip hop…

[dead]

Re: AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

#97

Post by slyall »

yial wrote: post #62
tripplyons wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a video of guy who became an Amazon bestseller in a book category pretty easily by buying his own book.

Through my professional / personal network, I know someone who advertises himself as being a “Best Selling Amazon Author in XYZ category.” It is semi niche, but I did some ballpark math, and about 72 sales rapidly would put him in the top spot for that niche. That number sounds about right when he’s mentioned the gross $ sales of his book.

Pretty common for authors to get people to pre-order their books so when they go on sale they top the chart for that day (the book's release day) in their category.

Re: AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

#98

Post by kristopolous »

jmathai wrote: post #3

We've seen a steady shift in music over the past 2 decades from full length albums, to single hits, to artificially generated. Surely there's some gained and some lost. But coming from the era of buying an entire album, spending time reading the CD booklets and art, and listening to 10 songs which tell a larger story ---- what's being lost really hits home.

music has been a product of its form factor for a long time. It's no coincidence that the wax cylinder, 78, 45, 33, cassette, CD, and mp3 dictated changes in how music was packaged (single, lp, ep, album, b sides) and the average length of a popular song.

Good thing music as a topic is diverse and people are doing all kinds of things. But yes, commercially distributed mass-consumption music is influenced by its packaging and distribution ... obviously.

Re: AI singer now occupies eleven spots on iTunes singles chart

#100

Post by empath75 »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #65
empath75 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two arguments about AI art, one of them is trivially reducible to the “is sampling/collage art”. If you are spending time expressing something using AI produced components then you are producing art, and probably the amount of time you spend working on it (either developing your skills or creating the work) roughly will correlate to how much value others see in it. It’s no different than building a hip hop…

I think your starting definition of value is basically worthless. Value is not about what things cost to make, but what people are willing to pay for them. You reached this conclusion by the end of your comment, but I think it's important to emphasize. My friend group has created incredible value with suno, mostly making meme songs we forget about after a day, but every once in a while we create lasting memories that…

My comment was mostly that it lacks value to _others_. It was probably worth to your friend group roughly the time and money you spent on it. Nobody else is ever going to care.
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