🎶May’s Monthly Notes🎶- AI will Destroy the Music Industry?

This last month I have been pondering the threat (or not) of AI to the music industry in general, and more specifically to my music.

There is plenty of doom and gloom out there as to the risks AI pose to the music industry, and I think many of them are right in some respects, but I am not worried at all for my own music. For once the decision to focus all my creative efforts on the Live aspects of my music and the development of a Live show of original music, is going to pay dividends (as opposed to being a negative – try get gigs as a live techno/house performer!!!).

It’s going to be a while before the technology has progressed far enough to have 100% lifelike robots, performing live on stage…especially not in the way that I do (how are they going to model ALL those mistakes that I’m making ALL the time 😆). So the prime element of my music is safe (for a while).

Then there’s the fact that I have never quite managed to get my music to comply with any genre. It’s a melting pottz (see what I did there?) of techno, house, jazz, funk, blues, South African Afro jazz and all manner of other influences. I’m not sure any AI engine will ever come up with my unique blend of musical history – some might argue that that’s for good reason?

What the Sunos of the AI world do very well is generate very high quality (now they do), GENERIC music. Whilst it’s not (yet) indistinguishable from human produced music, that point will be reached soon (as in this year I think).

So, will this mark the end of the music industry as we know it? Instead of 100,000 new tracks being uploaded to Spotify every day, get ready for 1 million….or more.

All generated by AI. This is already happening, prompting the LANDR CEO to issue this post on what to do about the issue.

But, personally I think we have already lived through the threshold crossing into too much music. I’d argue that we will see very little difference to our music listening and exploring experience when we move from 100,000 tracks a day to 1 million. The good music will still need to be hunted down and ‘found’ through taste makers who key you into the best new thing. And, if that best new thing and up being an AI generated piece of music, then who cares…I don’t.

So, back to the music making I go, assisted by AI for sound exploration, video generation, audio stripping, mix tweaking, beat generation, idea assistance, image creation and a myriad more.

Cheers

Steve (Pottz)