What is an artist?
blog AI, artist, musicindustryYesterday I did a song in AI. I tested it on my friend who has a really good ear and has introduced me to a lot of good music. He was complaining that the Swedish Eurovision was so bad this year that it could hardly be called music. So, I tested him and sent over the song telling him that it was a new song. He really liked the song and wanted to share it. It’s just that the song is made in AI for a new TikTok show I’m releasing. The song is about growing pumpkins. The text is AI but then edited by me then I made the song in an AI program. Good enough for my friend to like it, and even I like it, maybe since I have now heard it more than five times…well the lyrics suck, but in a way, it still works for this project.
So, will this make me an artist? The voice on the song is of course AI, the only written is part of the lyrics done by me. To be honest the internet will be flooded with songs like this. In a way, we can put AI to do a song a day, or even an hour. This song is this hour’s song. And don’t tell me that AI is not good enough, it’s already better than the general Eurovision song. Just imagine how good it will be in just a year.
Is an artist just a person like me prompting out in AI a song? You can always say that you need to be able to perform live to be a “real” artist. Still, many of today’s artists actually can’t play live, they have singback, playback, and just a big circus on stage to entertain us. And this song is pretty easy so I guess any of my artist friends can take it out or I can use the tab AI to get it out to be able to play it live. I’m not good at singing but since the voice that is here is kind of distorted and with a bit of autotune I can perform it. Will that make me an artist?
My guess is we will be in a time where we will debate what an artist is. I’m pretty good to hear if a song will work for a bigger audience. Much better than most artists that are biased with their songs. At the same time, I can’t play any instrument. This tool has given me the chance to make music without knowing how to play the instruments. But maybe since I’m trained to hear hits I’m better than the artist to make a good song? But then what is a good song?
What we are left with is marketing. There are millions of good songs that we never hear since they are not marketed. We also hear a lot of crap music since that is marked to us. In the future will marketing be the big thing? I’m not so sure there either. Right now, most marketing firms try to build streamlined marketing tools where you just put your AI song and will reach as many as possible people. What it will lead to is that we will be so bombarded with different music that we will stop caring. Music will only be a background soundtrack in our life.
A music artist will be someone performing with music, maybe from scratch, maybe using AI as a tool. Still, it will be putting up a show at some place, in person or the metaverse. The only thing that is sure, you need a network to do it. I guess it’s going to be harder to be an introverted musician.
So, do you want to hear my song? Here it is.
