Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

I walked into a paint store recently and there was some interesting music playing on the PA. It was some sort of spanish-language 80s new wave I'd never heard before. It had a nice groove. I asked the guy at the counter about it and was surprised to find out it was AI.

So... was it as good as great music? No. But it beat the hell out of muzak. And it was genuinely novel in a way that pop music isn't. I will sacrifice a lot of pride for novelty.

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recursive 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Seems weird to contrast AI music with auto-tuned music. Most of the AI music I've heard has been tuned perfectly. And I don't generally have a problem with music being in tune.

For my part, I mostly dislike AI music. But if there was to be some AI music that I didn't already dislike for its content, then I would dislike it specifically for being AI. Call me close-minded if you will. Some people don't really like music at all. In general, I love music.

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0x20cowboy 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Angine de Poitrine

	▲	recursive 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		What about it? Microtonal music can be perfectly in tune. Further, when people talk about auto-tune, they're normally talking about vocals, notably absent from Angine de Poitrine.

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footy 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

okay but the only choices are not "an AI simulation of music" and muzak. Actual music exists.

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computably 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

> And it was genuinely novel in a way that pop music isn't. I will sacrifice a lot of pride for novelty.

For one thing, "interesting" and "novel" are not particularly the point of art. An infinite TikTok feed of AI slop is in some sense infinitely interesting and novel.

But also, those concepts are subjective. Pop music has a ton of evolution and innovation if you break it down. Sure, not every hit is doing something clever, but plenty of them are. You might not find those features to be interesting but it takes ingenuity to stand out in an era where the barrier to entry is so low.

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suddenlybananas 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>80s new wave

>it was genuinely novel

Look, I don't know the song so I can't say how novel it is, but to me, it completely misses the point if its made by a music generation model. The point of music is not to make a bunch of novel sounds. Music is a means by which a human can express themselves, the whole _point_ of art is human expression.

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Liuser 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Art is subjective. It sounds like AI music did evoke an emotional response from OP, which IMO is also just as important of what we define as the purpose of art: evoking emotion and awe from consuming art. A connection is being made from the creator to the consumer. I view AI as merely another tool to that means.

Human expression with art can go both ways from producing and experiencing.

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Jtarii 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Just because its not art doesn't mean its not funny or interesting to listen to.

Bird's aren't making art when they sing, I still like listening to birds. Why can't the sounds AI make be in the same category.

	▲	computably 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, anybody can enjoy anything. But I personally would say birdsong is of infinitely higher value than genAI music.

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verdverm 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

try Jazz, infinitely more interesting than anything Ai could make

I saw a live band last week (daft punk meets prince), they wrote a song about Ai and used an auto tuner for it

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viklove 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

AI music is far less interesting than anything any person could create. Even if it's acoustically interesting, it's hollow and pointless because it contains no human expression.

AI music is a complete waste of compute. It exists only to further enrich an already wealthy stakeholder, and we should all be ashamed to have ended up in a place where it even exists.

	▲	dale_glass 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It contains plenty human expression. It's ultimately made by people. And I think it can be uniquely fun, because it allows for the very rare combination of truly off-beat ideas with excellent execution. In real life, it very rarely happens that somebody will spend a lifetime learning, gather a band, and then record something extremely off-beat. Because there are risks to that. Destroying your image, having to find people that are on the same wavelength, having to justify the time and money it costs to record something weird and not marketable. Sure, people make weird stuff once in a while, but very rarely, and generally it takes unique individuals that find some particular weird niche to work in, like Weird Al or Max Raabe. And even then they tend to pick something relatively tame and marketable and stick to that. But AI can bypass all that, and that makes things interesting.

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plastic-enjoyer 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

Controversial take: AI shows that people simply don't give a shit and just confirms that mass culture is a mistake and the death of everything that is good and sacred.

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keybored 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

1. Find some truism, like that corners pop culture are trash

2. Call it slop

3. Claim victory