Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I happen to be a genius songwriter. I’ve written (completed, with lyrics and chords) five songs, none of them as good as Bob Dylan at his best, all of them better than Bob Dylan at his worst. This morning, as a genius songwriter, I’ve been playing with this AI site. You put in your lyrics, choose the style and voice gender, and it sets your lyrics to music. I tried it with a song I’d completed, chords and everything. It’s like listening to an interesting cover version of my song. Quite different melodically, but cool. Then I tried with lyrics for a song but am not muso enough to find the chords for as I heard them in my head. I asked for a slow blues with a female singer. I really like the result! I’m not going to share my results, because I’m far too shy and humble, but I thought some AWs might like to have some fun with it. You get three songs free.
Now what I want is an AI that’ll turn my acoustic strumming into a full band recording. For free, natch.
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3545288&uid=064da66a-94cd-40ca-a698-54f11adc42bc
Never mind any lyric, let’s just air-guitar and air-drum. Breakfast work-out ahoy!
Funny idea of a Viking longship, mind.
Another one, with a little more light and shade.
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3545288&uid=245f1ff4-a96d-4eb7-a142-04b418dd8de4
I’m sorry to bang my own drum, ladies and gentlemen, but this AI site is amazing. Total game changer. Now, I have to admit, I’m very deaf and hear music as very distant and muffled and distorted, even using headphones and volume to the max, so I’m reliant on other opinions, but… I’ve done my three free songs and the results are, to my defective ears, sellable. They sound like proper sellable demos. Perhaps I got lucky in that the styles I chose (and I only chose the female voice) really fitted the three songs, or perhaps my hearing’s too crap to judge properly. Or perhaps I’m a genius songwriter, like Nick Cave.
Can we call you AI?
I’m with Nick. Any AI thing I’ve seen sucks some lifeforce out of me. Things like the crazy humorous pics people keep posting here with, like, amazing stuff you’d never see in real life, yeah? depress the fuck out of me, and make me want to go back to the hunter gatherer state of being. My loss, I’m sure.
I see myself very much like Bob Dylan shouting “play it fucking loud, Alexa!” while all around me shout “Judas!”.
I work in this industry… and I agree. I sold my soul really. AI just recycles human bullshit, and the reason it’s working so well is because there is so much bullshit to use. No good will come of it.
However: the rap song Fish and Chips on the homepage is legitimately hilarious.
Bloody AI
This is amazing ! Is anything real anymore?
My own lyrics :
“I killed my mother then my father
I killed my sister too
All because you dumped me
It’s all because of you.” And a few more lines….
Insert “Slow Country, female “and, hey presto a four verse, very hummable little tune with added lyrics all about loneliness and heartache. See you suckers, I’m off to Nashville
First single off my new album
https://ilovesong.ai/share?id=3550550&uid=261ae1fc-925b-40be-bf65-6ebe52f8f7ed
Fab! I can’t hear it, but I’m sure it’s fab. Your lack of any discernible shame has emboldened me to share too. Here’s my bluesy one:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3544998&uid=7818171c-3d12-4993-a2b7-c06b51f2bdde
And this is my pop smash hit:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3550855&uid=f58224fe-cf22-4db5-9baa-f37d42e343dd
In our new hit combo are you John or Paul?
I’m Bernie Taupin. AI is Elton John. You’re Kiki Dee.
Don’t go breaking my heart..
You two are very witty! In a way that AI will never be.
Lodestone & Gary! Stand up comedy stars of our time!
May need a bit more work.
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3551247&uid=c34e2517-455c-46f0-8a08-95e34f7ca3c1
‘Tis a pity he sings “Bri” as opposed to “brie”, for why would you want someone called Brian on your toast?
I think he may need a bit more coaching.
I’ve pushed those AI gremloids to their limits and hey dig that crazy cheese.
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3555004&uid=a23af546-0f04-4a42-b47f-c6257074f55d
You don’t fool me, that’s off one of Taylor Swift’s albums.
Perfect, absolutely perfect.
All singalong.
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3557848&uid=be6b176c-4626-404c-930f-be0e7838bccc
Excellent!
That’s amazing. Literally took 5 minutes.
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3554820&uid=31299141-93bb-490a-bb20-e1598dc77d12
You won, you won! Number 1 with a bullet!
Eldritch can put this cover on his new album ”
Or this heroic take on Marian, that even manages the German lyrics
Man alive, that’s breathtakingly good!
I really can’t understand why the rest of the AfterWord isn’t joining in with this fun – all too busy making sure their CDs (no, me neither) are in the correct alphabetical order.
Yee haw! It’s a new anthem for the Putin Pawn. A White House in a Red Square, indeed
One for the folkies.
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3561360&uid=228890b8-f76d-4312-8aa0-c20e07a6931c
You stole that from The Saw Doctors , didn’t you? Respect.
I can almost smell the Morris dancers from here.
I used to work with one – in the pub he had his own tankard.
Always an infallible sign of something or other.
Pablum pop.
Folk that doesn’t sound folky. Goth that doesn’t sound gothic.
’80s American stadium rock.
Is that all that AI is capable of?
That’s what industrialisation does, isn’t it? Produces something that’s designed to be inoffensive and slaking to add many people as possible. Food, books. movies etc. Nutrition-free content they never really satisfies.
My question is would you really want AI to be able to genuinely replace human inferno and imagination?
I wonder if it could do a composition by John Cage? Not prepared to pay to find out.
You don’t have to pay you get three free.
I’ve used them. First I saved the sample by mistake, then it gave me two versions of my song for some reason.
Probably.
I did ask for traditional female four part harmony unaccompanied which of course I did not get.
Bloody hell. I actually like my anti Trump power pop polemic:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3585931&uid=f2451426-9477-4453-9449-b9f6b59d8eb8
Cool cool cool
AI makes you feel like a rock star. I now understand the hype!
A well-meaning friend, sent me a countryish song he had made (ordered? had assembled? magicked?) on an AI site, and sent it to me (at half two in the morning, which tells another story). ‘You can use this in your new band!’, he wrote. I replied politely that no, I can’t possibly use it in my new band. The whole point of songwriting, for me, is the work: coming up with a title and theme, marrying the vibe of the words with the tempo and feel, and ultimately orchestrating it so it isn’t too cluttered but novel and engaging. AI would be like buying a ready-made matchstick model of the Eiffel Tower. That’s got an extra support at the bottom that shouldn’t be there and a Russian flag at the top.
I think most of us see this as a bit of fun, that’s all. Saying that, let’s imagine you are seventeen, have a way with words, can barely play the guitar but can hum a good tune. And, of course, you have no mates.
Find yourself a decent AI, get your lyrics arranged into whatever musical style appeals, send it off to John Peel (that bit may need some work) and hey presto, you’re touring America with a real band and Taylor Swift wants you to work with her on her next album……
I’m pretty certain you could send it to an AI John Peel. And probably have an AI generated fanbase. You wouldn’t even need to give up your day job.
Your AI day job, that is.
Frighteningly, there is probably enough John Peel dialogue from the taped radio shows to provide a big enough dataset to generate an AI Peel. Laurie Anderson created an AI Lou Reed
AI’ll be your (black) mirror, indeed.
And thurs a luvly little number from (shuffle of papers) Lodestone of Wrongness which is a self-effacing moniker and no mistake. A one-piece act from the internet, it says here. I dare say we will have a session from them soon enough to be fair…I am not entirely sure I played it at the right speed. Never mind, here’s the Clank Fuckers with “Set fire to my anus”.
I’m with you Tryp. Fine if that’s your thing but it’s like assembling music from loops in Garageband. More akin to word processing then writing.
I repeat, for us non-musos with no musical talent (here’s looking at you, Gary) it’s a bit of harmless fun and, to be honest, a bit of an eye-opener how far AI has progressed. No doubt if you paid enough you could produce something that would fool most of the people most of the time. We don’t care, we just enjoying ourselves.
I can see both sides of this. I enjoyed ‘creating’ my folkjokeopus (and be fair, I did write the lyrics), and still smarting a bit at the accusation that it was folk that didn’t sound like folk. Doesn’t need to be critiqued as if it’s a 16-CD King Crimson box set.
On the other hand, when this is all monetised (or weaponised) then where will we be. Just like fake news, we’ll never know if anything’s real or not. I suppose the crunch will come when hit AI music has to be toured. It’ll be like the Archies all over again.
There’ll be the equivalent of Abbatars to do the touring, and people will be able to send their tablets and smartphones to the concert halls to be put on special tripods arranged across the audience space to record the event.
The tripods will have built-in springs to recreate that authentic jogging effect and a cable to the electronic device that will prompt sudden pans and abrupt blurring or zooms – all to mimic a real concert goer’s videography skillz. For an extra fee, an AI programme will upload your vital footage to YouTube, watch it on loop a few thousand times a day for a month and you need never even know anything about it at all.
Enjoy.
Spot the real Sylvia Plath
“So I retreat into my own little space,
A cocoon of darkness where I can embrace
The sorrow that consumes my soul,
And the pain that will never let me go.”
or
“From my rented attic with no earth
To call my own except the air-motes,
I malign the leaden perspective
Of identical gray brick houses”
In a remarkable turn of events for a Sunday morning, AI has been working on different versions of the AW favourite Crying On Camera (as featured above somewhere). Now there’s a version to please everyone!
Punky:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3698886&uid=2638fdc0-cbfe-4953-8123-d48dc79c67aa
Indie rock:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3699179&uid=d228d9cc-e14a-4433-8847-9257088a2335
Indie rock 2:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3698852&uid=0ecf7220-7ad0-4a74-b390-1a889ca19e62
Indie pop:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3699055&uid=7a96e698-3e5a-4630-876e-f9fedafd46b1
Rap:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3699332&uid=61f01d64-0c72-49c2-8b24-a21b65119afd
Rap 2:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3699332&uid=9ef959a1-3305-482d-a09b-5c6390822152
Reggae:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3699252&uid=a5106708-9874-4d85-b426-7d8d960b5c24
Soft rock:
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3699772&uid=12272198-56c1-4949-a9fc-74b8a72aff9f
Soft rock 2
https://ilovesong.ai/share/?id=3699772&uid=5ea2db6e-ce26-45bd-8416-352c4097d1d8
We kneel in front of you, our One True God. Your magnificence is everywhere, especially the Indie Pop version above. We are truly blessed.
No folk version? Bluegrass? Zydeco? Jazz?
Begone, non-believer! Those four “genres” are the work of Satan, especially Folk whose disgusting practices involve fingers and ears and beards and, worse of all, singing along. Begone!
If, by that you mean AI invented God, you may be right. If with a hand from DONOVAN.