Dirty Soul
As I was doing the research for this post, I started to realize that it is going to go in a totally different direction than I had originally intended. My plan, was to introduce you to some cool new artists today for my #threetunetuesday post sponsored by @ablaze. Instead, I'll be beating a horse (figuratively) that has been getting accosted quite frequently here on HIVE lately.
I wrote this post about a week ago, where I expressed my indifference to AI. It's not that I hate it like some people do, but I just haven't been impressed by it enough one way or the other to actually make some firm judgements on it. I agree with many that we are in an AI bubble right now.
We are at a time where they are trying to bundle AI into pretty much everything and it just isn't necessary. I think it's all going to come crashing down hard, but I also think there are some fundamentals that are sound and those will continue to be built on to bring us something we aren't even expecting.
Speaking of things we aren't even expecting. I was listening to my Spotify playlist the other day when suddenly a couple artists came on my speakers and I immediately took note of them. There was a sound that I couldn't quite place, but I really dug it, so I saved these edgy soulful artists with the intent of coming back to them at a later time and perhaps writing a post about them.
This post in fact.
What I didn't realize, is that pretty much every single artist I am going to share with you today is either partially aided by AI or it's full on AI.
A couple months ago my direct superior when to a conference and he went to a session where they talked about AI. One of the things he brought back from that session was a song he had created using AI that talked about the staff at our school district. I'll be honest, it was pretty lame, but he was excited about it, so I feigned enthusiasm.
Like I said though, it was horrible. It just didn't appeal to me at all. Fast forward to today, and I have to admit, I am mildly impressed by the songs I am going to share with you today. Maybe a little more than mildly impressed in fact.
However, knowing now, what I didn't know then, I'm not sure I can enjoy these songs the way I may have in the past. I'm a big fan of the arts, so it feels traitorous giving props to AI like this. I'm honestly still trying to wrap my head around it all because this totally hit me out of left field.
See what you think...
Nick Hustles is the first one that started this thread that I am pulling. It turns out, this one was kind of easy to find info on. Nick Hustles is a stage name for a guy named Nick Arter who uses AI to assist in the creation of soul and funk music. I think part of what really drew me to Nick Hustles is the 70's style soul that he employees for most of his songs. I grew up in the late 70's, but mostly 80's listening to oldies music, so this style really resonates with me.
I think it's funny to read that most people like the music until they discover that it has been created using AI. Like myself, that poses a moral conundrum that I don't think people are ready to wrap their heads around quite yet. It's a stark reminder of just how early we are in the evolution of AI.
Nick's music isn't for the faint of heart, it's got some heavy themes and coarse language. If you aren't a fan of that, you should probably give this one a pass.
Next we have a Pearl Jam cover by an artist called "Fake Music". I guess that should have been a hint to me right away that there was probably something off about this artist. In fact, I noted the name and I told myself I needed to look into it a bit more, but I thought maybe it was just a clever artist using that name to make people curious.
It turns out my first intuition was right.
I'm guessing that full AI music probably works better right now with covers like this than it does with original songs. Hence the reason Nick Arter still has to have some kind of hand in the music created by Nick Hustles.
This cover of "Evenflow" doesn't really stray too far away from the original vocally, but musically, it's a very different vibe from the hard grunge we are used to. I still low key dig it though as much as I don't want to now. I've got this battle happening inside of me that I wasn't really prepared for.
Finally, we have another cover by an artist I couldn't find any information on called "Soul'd Out" (not to be confused with the old Asian band which I was able to find lots of information on). It actually took me a hot minute to realize I was listening to a cover of "California Love". Once I did I said to myself man, this is good. It really reminded me of the covers that Scott Bradley's Post Modern Jukebox has been doing for quite some time now.
There actually a lot of covers by Soul'd Out of 90's rap hits like "Still DRE", "Regulate", "Straight Outta Compton", etc.
I actually really that love one if you get a chance to listen to it. I probably should have included that one here, but oh well.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this. I think I already said that, but I'm not kidding, consider my mind blown!
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I find it harder to distinguish these on Youtube. I'll often see a new release from a favored artist and be taken in by it before I see the little AI tag underneath. I don't think it's necessary either. The point, as I understood it, was to automate mundane, useless shit so we can focus on creative outlets and things we actually enjoy. If AI is doing both the repetitive shit and the art, where's that leave us? 🤔
The first one I like. The second feels like Eddie Vedder trying to do Elvis :)) not as real imo. Still eerie
I don't spend a lot of time on YouTube, so this is all pretty new to me. That is a good point though about us handing over everything to AI, where does that leave us. That's a funny comparison, Vedder doing Elvis :)
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Perhaps music composed by artificial intelligence may be useful, but it will never convey human feelings and creativity. First and foremost, it is a helpless machine, even if it has a high degree of intelligence.
It definitely seems to work as a reimagining of existing works. I have a feeling there will be a point when that shifts though.
Not the dark and dirty place I was expecting to read about.
Much in the world of Art is born in a dark place. This AI nonsense, however, may be born directly from the darkness.
Yeah, it's bizarre to me. I wasn't expecting to dig up what I did. It makes me a little sad, but cause I was hoping I hand stumbled upon a new artist I could really get into. I'm still impressed by this, but not sure how to take it all in!
I was finding a lot of great re-mixes of the old songs, I now wonder if they were AI or at least AI assisted...
Gonna have to start now aren't you... !
Evenflow works better than California love. It’s really good actually!
Yeah I was quite surprised. It makes me wonder how many revisions of the prompts they had to make.
The funk music sound is hard not to like, but it's almost sacrilege to change California Love with Cobain being dead all these years. The Even Flow did work better, and I enjoyed the sound even if I really didn't want to as it's AI. I'm kind of resistant to pure AI produced music, it's like that new actress they created that is AI. I knew that stuff was coming, but do we really need it?
What actress is that? My wife couldn't believe it when I played it for her as well.
Tilly Norwood is what they are calling her.
Interesting!
Not sure how it decided to add a down vote when I upvoted the comment...
That is a coding issue that PeakD has been working on. You might need to refresh your browser page. They updated the code yesterday morning to resolve it.
I'll have to check these out tomorrow when I'm getting rolling for work! I'm not sure how I feel about AI music at the moment. Yeah AI images are a bit interesting.. but music is such an important part of humanity. I will hold judgment though until I listen :D
I'm still on the fence, but I think you will be surprised. I have a feeling a lot of production still went into the back end. At the very least a lot of fine tuning of the prompts. I doubt they just said turn this 90's rap hit into a soul tune and got the end result.
That are all weird, but... kind of not bad? I wonder how this will change music? So far at least, all AI can do is remix stuff. AI pictures are all based on the styles it has scanned. AI music is presumably also based on the songs it has scanned. But can it create truly original stuff? Now one could argue that 90% of art today even from humans is just remixes of everything that artist has been exposed to. There is frightfully little completely new. With that in mind, will AI art/music really be any different from what we have now?
It's definitely crazy and raises a lot of questions. I have a feeling these prompts went through many revisions to finally get the finished product.