A Songwriter’s Take on AI in the Music Industry

Hey friend, lovely to see you again

If you’ve listened to my record (specifically the song “Artificial”) you know I have some pretty strong feelings about being anti AI.

The truth is, it’s actually been quite the journey for me to get to this point.

I’ve always been early to the game on technology. I had a 12” Mac Powerbook in my early 20’s. I started running backing tracks on Ableton 4 (its on version 12 now). I had the first iPhone when it came out in 2006. A Palm Pilot before that.

My parents had a Commodore 64 when I was a kid. We were early adopters on Gateway computers. I taught myself how to run complicated Avid Pro Tools systems and I have troubleshot all my friends Pro Tools and audio problems for years.

I am the last of the generation that played outside, and also had the home computer room.

I still remember dial up modems. I remember getting kicked off so someone could make a phone call.

There’s an incredible book by Ray Kurzweil called “The Age Of Intelligent Machines” in which he plots out not just when AI would take hold (he completely nailed the timeline so far) but how it all unfolds (when they become sentient and start wanting similar rights etc.). He wrote it in 1990. Thats the terrifying thought.

So the thing is. I’ve dabbled with AI. And I get the attraction.

There’s an AI music program called SUNO that will help take your ordinary vocal and acoustic guitar and turn it into a full band demo. In minutes. Seconds really. So like every other songwriter in Nashville and beyond I started feeding it all my old songs that didn’t have demos just to see what it would spit back out.

And let me tell you. Holy shit.

It gave me the rush and dopamine hit as if I just got a call from my publisher and they had cut 50 of my songs. Full arrangements. Great sounding vocals and drums. Guitars that were kinda wonky at times, but killer at other times.

It became addicting.

It was easy.

Too easy.

Way too easy.

There’s also a function where you can just upload lyrics you’ve written to it and tell it the style of song you want and it’ll spit something out.

Thats a problem.

You can also just tell it you want a song that talks about drinking beer and make it sound like radio ready modern county and it’ll spit something out.

That’s even worse.

Early on I bargained with myself. I felt like SUNO would be the great revealer. Songs that I felt were strong would come out stronger. Songs that I felt were broken in a section would come out broken. I was lying to myself thinking that its still the Indian and not the arrow. That the creator still supersedes the creation.

But that’s not what we do with technology, is it?

That’s rhetorical.

I noticed the impact on music immediately. Nashville records started to sound more like the SUNO demos. Studio players were asked to copy the SUNO demo because the artist liked it. Some producers were getting paid $10k a song to tell a room full of creatives to copy the AI slop.

To make matters worse, we now have a whole generation of unqualified hobbyists that are trying to AI prompt their way into being songwriters and hitmakers. Or passing off their prompt writing as songwriting.

Am I worried? Yes and no.

It’ll get worse before it gets better. A very famous country singer just got blasted because the same AI slop drop D acoustic hook was in 6 of his 13 songs on his record.

I recently built a playback session for an artist in which the stems they sent were AI and I had to inform them I couldn’t use them because they drift in tempo (one of SUNO’s fatal flaws)

Thankfully, we’ve seen this story before.

In the late 1980’s music was in a similar spot. Same guitar tones. Same gated reverb snare. Music was all homogenized and sounds so much the same you couldn’t tell one band from another.

What happened next was a revolution. Grunge championed raw and admittedly sloppier playing because it had heart. Guts. Feeling. We turned the guitars up loud and could hear dude’s vocals chords on the verge of ripping apart. The listeners wanted it. It was perfectly imperfect.

Isn’t that where we’re headed? The chants for “NO AI UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES” have started when it comes to art. The point of music was always to make something people can feel, not something that was perfect. Something that will last, not get replaced by the next shallow endeavor. Thats my hope at least.

Also. Your AI posters are complete garbage. Just stop.

- Gleave