Browsing Tag

Ai music

How Rock n Roll Legacy Bands Are Bringing in the Future with AI and AR

Posted on 12 November 2023

If the Download 2024 line-up drama which has left rock and metal boomers crying because they won’t see Metallica or Iron Maiden headlining again has taught us anything, it is that rock fans aren’t too partial to change. But that hasn’t gotten in the way of two of the biggest legacy bands bringing in the future by embracing modernity with rapidly evolving AI and AR technology.

If you have been on any social media platform this week, you are probably already aware of the controversy, condemnation and clamouring praise falling around the AI-assisted new release from The Beatles, but The Rolling Stones using Augmented Reality (AR) might have slipped you by. On this page, we’ll cover all that and more to prove that the existential threat of AI may be ever-looming, but for now, it is helping to facilitate creativity and bring bigger and more immersive experiences to fans.

How AI Brought Back the Beatles

With a superlatively unbeatable track record of number 1 hits and a legacy of being one of the most influential bands in history, it would be nothing short of a miracle if any contemporary artist or band beat the Beatles in that regard in today’s music industry. Especially as the mainstream has divided into endless streams of creativity music fans can use to float their sonic boats.

That didn’t stop some from bemoaning The Beatles for using AI to polish a demo which was recorded 45 years ago. One writer for the digital rag, UnHerd, even went as far as to say that the release of ‘Now and Then is a sign of our cultural doom loop’. Josiah Gogarty attempted to be damning in his exposition of the captivatingly haunting single and only succeeded in making it seem infinitely more appealing by describing it as “less a song than a séance, calling forth the warbling and jangling of the dead”.

Was it lost on Gogarty that AI did little more than clean up Lennon’s vocals from a rough demo by separating the background noise? There was nothing artificial about the distinctive rock n roll soul that rang through the release. In fact, it reaffirmed why the world fell head over psychedelic heels for the Beatles when they shot to fame in the early ’60s. Furthermore, McCartney has already confirmed Now and Then will be the final Beatles song; I think we can let the Beatles have one final chart-topper for all they’ve done for the music industry. Even if you aren’t overly fond of their music, which I can’t claim I am, the Beatles still paved the way for and gave inspiration to everyone from Nirvana to My Bloody Valentine to The Smashing Pumpkins to Bowie to Radiohead to Oasis.

The Digitalisation of the Rolling Stones

Seeing the Rolling Stones in a stadium or an arena may take a massive chunk out of your pay packet with most of their standard ticket prices falling above the £100 mark. Thanks to Augmented Reality, their loyal fans can bring them into their living room for a fraction of the cost, all thanks to Snapchat’s AR Studio. Which has been pulling out all the stops for the promotion of the band’s new LP, Hackney Diamonds. How much of a success it will be is yet to be seen. I can’t imagine there is much cross-over on the Rolling Stones fans and Snapchat users’ Venn diagram. Regardless, it is a great opportunity for Stones fans across the globe to be part of this seminal event.

The band’s creative team has worked closely with Snapchat’s AR studio in Paris to unlock an AR experience which will project 3D bitmoji avatars of the band. If you feel inclined, you can get up and dance next to them or ‘snap up’ some digital band tees, because what would a gig be without merch?

This new marketing venture won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, and if it isn’t to your taste, that’s fine – they’re hitting the road in 2024, you can catch them then. But don’t let your technological cynicism get in the way of celebrating this landmark move which can allow Stones fans who won’t be able to attend a show in person.

The Dandy Warhols are Psyched Over the Potential of AI

The Dandy Warhols, a band with a rich history in the psychedelic rock scene, expressed excitement about the potential of AI in the realm of art and music in a recent interview with the Dallas Observer. This enthusiasm stems from their long-standing practice of incorporating various tools into their creative process, viewing each technological advancement as a new instrument to enhance their work.

Courtney Taylor-Taylor, the band’s singer-songwriter, likens AI to any other tool that has been invented, suggesting that it should be used to create great work. The band’s latest single, “Summer of Hate,” showcases this embrace of technology with its AI-generated music video, demonstrating the band’s willingness to experiment with new methods of expression.

Despite some concerns about the effects of AI on the recognition of artists’ contributions, The Dandy Warhols remain hopeful about the opportunities AI presents for independent artists to innovate and push the boundaries of their art.

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To keep up to date with future evolutions of the music landscape, keep following our blog. For advice on how to keep pace with the music industry in 2024, contact our consultancy team, which can show you the cutting-edge ropes you should be using to keep pushing your career forward.

Article by Amelia Vandergast

Warner Made History By Signing the Virtual Pop Star, Noonoouri

Posted on 10 September 2023

With the advent of increasingly futuristic AI tech, people are rightly fearing that the adage out with the old will lead them to obsoletion. Especially within the realm of the music industry; an already an inhospitable ecosystem for many independent and up-and-coming musicians to foster their talent.

Between AI fears, unfair royalty payment systems, and the oligarchy of the big moguls and labels, there is scarcely room for optimism for independent artists. Especially after it was announced that Warner Music pushed a record contract towards the virtual pop star Noonoouri. Oh, and let us not forget the former chief business officer for Google X, Mo Gawat, using every press opportunity he can to proclaim that the need to regulate AI is beyond an emergency. Elon Musk has even started to express his concerns regarding the advancements of AI, which makes a change from his usual self-serving range of mercenary emotions.

What Does the Noonoouri Record Deal Mean for the Music Industry?

Before you throw in the towel and take all your music gear to the pawn shop, it is worth bearing in mind that it is highly likely the Warner Music Group decided to pull a publicity stunt by signing a virtual act. After all, now Warner can claim they made history with this first-of-its-kind deal.

Warner certainly isn’t the first major company to turn their attention to the virtual ‘icon’. Due to her 403,000 Instagram followers, the viral virtual star has fashion campaigns with Balenciaga and Dior to her name.

So, what’s her deal (aside from the one she has signed with Warner)?

In our highly digitalised era, a captivating online presence is more valuable than gold dust. Knowing this, the Munich-based graphic designer Joerg Zuber developed the CGI icon, who made her first appearance in 2018. To make her feel a little more organic, Zuber introduced her as a 19-year-old before she made strides in the fashion and music world.

Her first single, Dominoes, was created with Alle Farben, a German DJ, who worked his beats around her generative AI-rendered voice. After the official music video premiered on August 31, it has racked up 94k streams to date. To give us a little hope for humanity, there were ample criticisms of the single in the derivatively generic hit in the comments section:

“YOU HAVE A HIDDEN TALENT, KEEP IT HIDDEN.”

“This slaps… any joy out of my head I had left in life.”

“THIS GOES HARD, ON MUTE.”

“Finally, artificial intelligence is making strides in bad pop music.”

So, no matter how “ground-breaking” the move was, it certainly isn’t something that talented artists should be shaking in their boots over. Major labels are hardly renowned for keeping their fingers on the right pulses. It was only a matter of time before such a deal was struck, but after noting the public perception of the single and what the musos or making of it, Warner has notably made themselves a laughingstock.

A New Era of Entertainment is Here, But Noonoouri Isn’t a Trailblazer in It

While some attempted to coin Noonoouri as the icon of a new era, that rings true as much as a disconnected doorbell.

Yes, entertainment and art are no longer bound to the physical realm, and metaverses are becoming increasingly popular amongst younger generations that need to be reminded to unplug themselves from the internet and touch grass. But the demand for living and breathing musicians isn’t going anywhere soon.

After hearing how dross the Noonoouri debut single was, does it really matter if she can switch between different personas, styles, and genres with ease? Or if she can perform in different languages and diverse virtual environments? Absolutely fucking not.

In previous blogs, we have illustrated how AI has been integral to the music industry for decades, from algorithms which put your new favourite singles in front of you to tools artists can use to make the task of production, mixing, and mastering a little less laborious. As a tool, is highly valuable with great utility. Unless things get dystopic real quick, this generation of artists shouldn’t lose sleep over the threat of AI obsoletion.

Sure, some programs can now synthesise music based on vibe and genre prompts. But even with the availability of such technology, most figureheads in the music industry are still scouting for real talent. Metaverse-based influencers (I felt a little sick even writing that phrase, let alone taking them seriously) may have some swing amongst the people who are looking for the next vapid entity to follow devoutly and part with their hard-earned cash on everything they promote. But thankfully, for now, most people are still connected to the real world and common sense.

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Stay up to date with all the latest music industry updates by following our weekly blog. Or use our heavily frequented platform to promote your new music. Unlike Warner, we always favour organic talent over virtual artists producing synthesised and soulless singles!

Article by Amelia Vandergast

AI Music is Here, But Are Music Fans Here for It?

Posted on 23 July 2023

When AI is working away in the background helping fans to discover their next favourite song on Spotify by using machine learning to analyse consumer behaviour and pinpoint patterns in listening habits, music fans have few complaints about the involvement of AI in music.

Music AI technology has been around, albeit in a rather primitive form, for the better part of a century. One of the first recorded instances of it was a composition created by World War II code-breaker Alan Turing in 1951. Of course, it took decades for computer-generated music to morph into what it is today, and the computer he used to create his composition was far bigger than a MacBook Pro, as it took up most of the ground floor of his lab. Nevertheless, in the following decades, AI has slowly introduced itself into different facets of the music industry; it was here far before moral panic amassed around it.

However, now that the conversation around AI in the music industry has become a major part of public discourse, levels of anxiety are starting to rise, especially when anticipating how AI can replace musicians. The threat of creative redundancy is bound to take a negative psychological toll on musicians who are already struggling to scratch a living in this precarious economy. Yet, many musicians are overlooking the most fundamental purpose of their craft. To use their talent to connect with music fans and sonically visualise universal fears, hopes, and everything between.

You only need to look at how mainstream musicians are idolised to the point of obsession to note that successful musicians are far more than humans with a knack for creating earworm melodies, exhilarating anthems, and juicy riffs. No matter how advanced AI systems become, they can never replicate that raw human essence in music, which starts with an autonomous visceral emotion as a precipice to jump off and builds from there.

The Ethics of AI Music

As for the artists who make the creative process easier and polish their songs by using lyric generators, AI production tools, and autotune, the ethical dilemma around the involvement of AI becomes a little hazier. While some people believe artists should be able to use the tools at their disposal, others take a far dimmer view of utilising AI to get over the finishing line with a song.

When considering the ethics around AI as a creator instead of a helpful tool that can help artists create chord progressions or synthesise vocals, don’t forget that many artists, including Elvis, Rhianna, and Whitney Houston almost never wrote the songs they performed. So, what is the difference between Elvis singing songs written by the successful R&B songwriters Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller and an independent artist sitting in their bedroom studio using a lyric generator?

The Importance of the Artist in the Art

While younger artists are moving with the time and utilising AI music programs, such as the one recently launched by Meta, which can generate high-fidelity songs from hummed melodies and text prompts such as “upbeat pop anthem” or “soulful RnB ballad”, the majority of musicians are still indifferent to the introduction of tools such as MusicGen.

Take for the perfect example Joe Walsh’s interview with the Associate Press has recently gone viral after the Eagles guitarist stated:

“It’s computers; it has nothing to do with music. It can’t destroy a hotel room; can’t throw a TV off the fifth floor into the pool and get it right in the middle. When AI knows how to destroy a hotel room, I’ll pay attention to it.”

If you don’t take the interview soundbite that is choked with rock ‘n’ roll cliches too literally, you will see that Walsh made a good point in his slightly outlandish statement. AI music will never be able to emanate the rebellious attitude that created a rebellious anti-establishment movement in the 1960s.

Just as AI music will never be able to stand at the forefront of any counterculture music scene, music fans across all genres are unlikely to toss their favourite artists by the wayside just because a computer can make a technically better single or album. While some argue that you can love the art and not the artist, you only need to note the devout nature of music fans who iconise their favourite bands to the degree that they would travel from the other side of the planet to see them live to see the importance of the artist in the art.

Even in the dance music industry, there is ample cynicism around the idea that AI can replace DJs. For years, there have been programmes that can recommend mixes based on tempo. But in the view of one of London’s top DJs, Nooriyah, who has toured the world as a DJ:

“The way that I connect with my audiences is very difficult to replicate. Imagine a raver looking over at me when I’m DJing, seeing me sweat and dance just like them. In that moment they feel that intimate connection that AI couldn’t.”

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To stay up to date on music industry trends, follow our blog. And don’t forget to check out our reviews of music from sentient human independent artists!

Article by Amelia Vandergast

Ai Kittens showed us the future of neural network music ahead of his AI-generated album using Blink-182’s discography database.

Posted on 12 November 2022

Here to prove that Ai in the music industry doesn’t equate to the redundancy of human creativity, Ai Kittens gave us a view into the process of creating neural network music based on the discography databases of iconic artists. He’s rewired the sounds of everyone from RHCP to the Weeknd, and on November 18th, he’s unleashing his next album. Blink-182 fans might want to pay attention.

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Ai Kittens, welcome back to A&R Factory! We loved getting stuck into your album arranged from Rage Against the Machine’s music last year; plenty of other people have, judging by your streaming stats! Clearly, there is an appetite for tech-driven original reformations of iconic music; would you say this is the future of music?

Undoubtedly, such tools will be available to more and more creative people every year, including well-known artists. Probably even now such tools are used in creative camps, but we don’t know about it. Some attempts are made by guys from Bored Apes, but there it seems AI art is just a cover to sell to a label. With my works, I want to show that by using neural networks everyone can be a creator and producer.

I would also like to point out that neural networks are an endless source of inspiration for the artist, the only question is if you can make maximum use of it.

You prepared 260 songs, and only 15 made the cut for the album; do you think the LP format is outdated in the age of AI music?

In fact, in order to get 260 tracks, 3,600 tracks were generated, from which I made this sample.

In my opinion, listening behavior doesn’t change much, and of course, no one will listen to all 200 songs because that is almost 5 hours and 30 minutes of music with no repetition. This music will have some kind of development; for example, it is possible to make an album with lyrics for a real band and perform it all at concerts. Of course, my dream would be if Blink182 would use it. But I spent that summer and part of the fall in LA and couldn’t meet the guys in the band.

It changes the approach to how the album is made, and how the hit song is searched for because you can listen to it before you do something yourself. You just have to listen to it and conclude whether you like the track.

Can you run us through the process of authentically arranging music via AI and what tools you use to create music from artist databases?

I use the Open Ai Jukebox neural network. Unfortunately, the company stopped further development because they found more profitable solutions with images. A server with video cards and the right settings is enough to get results. For the generation, I used two genres and text; the genre gene is punk, the artist gene is Blink 182, and I used four texts to randomize the results. I have 1 million 200 thousand songs of different genres and artists.

As a result, I get, with some probability, tracks that sound like I overheard them at a band rehearsal and recorded them on a tape recorder. And then the musician just plays that recording back at a rate of about 5 songs a day. So it only took us two months to do all 260 tracks.

If I worked with a real band, I think getting that many demos in that amount of time would be fantastic.
All that remains is to write the lyrics and sing them. (Although I have a separate project called Ai Lyrics for that). With him, I’ve already written about 50 pop songs in the style of Bruno Mars and Weeknd. You should also try to generate some lyrics in the style of your favorite artists. It’s a lot of fun.

What made you choose the Blink 182 back catalogue to generate an album from?

Last year I saw a newsletter from Kobalt, a music publisher where artists of all different levels submit requests to find songs for themselves; there I saw a request from Blink182. They were looking for a song with a different intro than their regular songs.

I decided to generate those songs for them. After I got the first generations, I wrote to Kobalt music, but no one answered me further than the secretary. I went to their office in L.A., but they kicked me out of there like I was crazy. Then I tried to meet John Feldman to show them the song demos, but that too ended in failure.

Blink182 is a great love from my childhood. It’s music I listened to as a teenager. Why not make more music like this if the musicians don’t make it themselves? But while I was putting it all together, the band was already going on a stadium tour in 2023. And they even seem to be alive and showing some activity.

What would you say to the AI sceptics who believe that embracing AI will make human creativity redundant?

AI will not replace humans. It will always be only a support for humans in the search for inspiration, to reduce the creative routine. After all, a living person needs money, a machine does not.

What can we expect from Ai Kittens next?

Next Friday, the blink182 album will drop. I’m trying to publish music every Friday; I have so many songs to release. You have no idea how much I want to show you what I have for Bruno Mars and the Weeknd.

But it’s so hard to communicate with them. I can’t catch Anderson Paak in LA in the next 2 months, but I caught him in Bali last week. Hope he will listen to my neuro stuff and maybe it will be the basis for the next 5 platinum albums…

Listen to Ai Kittens on Spotify. Follow his innovative career on Instagram.

Interview by Amelia Vandergast

Ai Kittens bring in the future of mid-tempo metal with their AI-generated single, Alone with Yourself – Gen 103.

Posted on 25 December 2021

As we move through the rapid reforms in our digital spaces, it was only a matter of time before an AI band started to use neural networks to generate songs. At the vanguard of digital pioneering in this corner is Ai Kittens. To date, they have released over 150 authentically arranged tracks based on Rage Against the Machine and the licks of Tom Morello.

In this instance, in all sincerity, we can confirm that Ai Kittens are bringing in the future of mid-tempo metal. For RATM and Morello fans, Ai Kittens single, Alone with Yourself – Gen 103, is the perfect introduction to their atmospheric sound, swaggering rock guitars and ability to use technology in a way that completely reinvents music.

We do not doubt that there will be plenty of rock purists quick to criticise the nature of this project, but we have to hand it to Ai Kittens for their ingenuity. This method of ‘mining’ music which evades the usual copywriting issues with sampling, has all the potential to better the airwaves in the future.

Alone with Yourself is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast