I often enjoy poking fun at Ted Gioia, but I'm also quick to recognize when he makes some good points. In his latest, AI Is Defeated in Hollywood—But What About Music?, he sets the scene with this quote from Bill Cantos:
And he analyzes this as follows:
AI tracks are showing up everywhere, but not because they’re good. There are no devoted fans of this genre. It’s only happening because AI music is cheap, and somebody can make a buck by getting rid of the musicians—provided listeners aren’t paying attention.
If you think this over, you immediately grasp that:
- AI music is more profitable for streaming platforms, because they can buy it as cheap work-for-hire (or even make their own tracks at almost no cost).
- But these AI tracks are markedly inferior. Listeners won’t prefer them or seek them out.
- So they need to make users as passive and indifferent as possible in order to reap the cost savings.
Putting it in historical context, we can see a trend towards the simplification of some genres of music since the 1950s with rock n roll, or since the 1980s with punk and hip-hop. Or if you are more hard-core, from the 1830s with romanticism. Or if you are really hard-core, from 1733, the death of François Couperin and the development of classical style through the use of textures and rhythms from opera buffa. But the development of AI tracks seems to have reached a new level of aesthetic triviality. This might be an example of the genre:
I might be just a weird sort of person, but the feeling of this music reminds me of a time I was in the hospital for a few days when I was a teenager and they gave me tranquilizers. I started to feel anxious and I realized it was because I had been staring at the wall for half an hour with no thoughts. That this was even possible troubled me deeply! But yeah, I realize that this is not the usual effect of tranquilizers. Just as, for me, the usual effect of listening to music is not to be put into a kind of aesthetic refrigerator where nothing is happening and you are going nowhere. This makes me uneasy and unhappy because I need to get out and experience something real. This is not real. Ok, it serves a purpose, but is becoming passive and indifferent a good way to respond to the pressures and stresses of everyday life? I guess we all react differently.
We need an antidote, some non-chill guitar:
9 comments:
Just as, for me, the usual effect of listening to music is not to be put into a kind of aesthetic refrigerator where nothing is happening and you are going nowhere.
First to admit that I don't understand the AI nonsense, nor have I (to my knowledge) ever used or made use of it. As you wrote, "it serves a purpose", although quite why there needed to be more 'chill out lounge music' generated by the machines, I have no idea, apart from the fact that evidently someone is making a buck.
But earlier this week I read about this Repertorium project, which is making use of AI to digitise the chant archives at Solesmes and elsewhere and paying for it from the bottomless coffers of the EU. Which sounds like good machine use not nonsense machine use (I believe). They are also using it in the recording etc process, which I don't at all 'get', perhaps because I haven't brought myself to begin reading all of the explanatory matter.
Hi Marc, good to hear from you!
I have almost total ignorance regarding AI, but it may be time to rectify that a bit. No idea how it could aid the recording process either. But I have a friend who used AI to process a photo of herself to turn it into a very convincing facsimile of an oil painting so there are definite benefits.
"I've heard there was a secret chord
that David played, and it pleased the lord
but you don't really care for music, do you?" --Leonard Cohen.
Not everybody has deep interest in music, and their "tastes" (as they exist) are a mystery to those of us who do. But for those of us who care for music, AI is no threat after all. We will always seek out real musicians who are human artists, and the diversity of aficionados will support (and supply) a diversity of human artists. It's not that different from any other art or even literature. Many people hardly read anything except street signs or packages, but for us readers the literature and the skills of reading and writing continue to flow just fine. Popular culture has had some moments of exceptional quality, such as the Beatles or some movies, but most of it is a waste of time to those who cultivate aesthetics and philosophy. And that's okay, by the age of 3 I had learned to walk around things I don't want to step on. Bryan I know that as an artist and thinker you cultivate aesthetics, so I'm always surprised how much you ponder popular culture. Perhaps you're also a sociologist, though without the quantitative rigor, which makes you more a "social critic". Personally I couldn't do it. My intolerance for the vapid would, if I spent time worrying about it, turn me into a miserable crank!
Thanks for the Cohen quote!
Sound wisdom as always, Will. I'm not sure myself why I visit popular culture from time to time. Perhaps it is because I was raised in an environment far from any intellectual or aesthetic virtues and had to search until I found them, something that took roughly the first twenty years of my life. Also, I spent a lot of years teaching, in which you have to engage with people at all sorts of levels of aesthetic understanding.
What I notice these days is that many aesthetically and intellectually sensitive people are just withdrawing from the mainstream culture entirely as it has become so very inhospitable.
I haven't had a television in at least 20 years. I go to about 1 movie every 3-5 years. I quit all social media 7 years ago, and I feel much better! I have 6,000+/- CD's at home and subscribe to Spotify so I don't have to take chances on radio music in my car. I turned off the autofeed feature on Spotify so when it finishes playing the album I selected, it goes silent. I buy more books than I can read, probably more than 1 per week, though I do read for a few hours each day. Besides working full time and then cutting and splitting firewood for heating my home (100% wood heat), my time is spent reading news and books and practicing my instruments. Even my vacations are for learning, the annual Conclave of the Viola da Gamba Society and, next year when it's further away than I will drive, hopefully the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. Right now is a rain day so instead of building solar on a roof I'm in the shop being tortured by the hiphop music of my coworkers, laden with profanity and the N-word with zero singing and the background rhythmic noise machine-generated. I doubt any of these guys have ever read a book in their life. They're good guys, but its hard to have a serious conversation about anything. After work I'm going on a weekend retreat with my son, at Holy Family retreat center, will I will shut down all electronics and contemplate the things in life that are important to me. I guess I'm one of those people you describe, living the "monastic solution" to the culture around me that I find pretty spiritually empty and uninteresting. I don't even eat the processed foods or any grains or sugars everywhere around me. The result? I'm a very happy and grateful person! Maybe a little lonely, but I have just a few friends, each offering connection on some common interest. How do I keep in touch with everything else going on? I read The Music Salon!!!!
And that's okay, by the age of 3 I had learned to walk around things I don't want to step on. Hear, hear. On or into.
I was a monk for eight years (thirty years ago!) and so am very familiar with simply leaving aside that which is nonsense, the ugly and the evil and all of that, and at a certain level this remains a skill or attitude that I carry with me.
Musicology Today (I don't recall if such an organ of Right Thought actually exists) ought to engage Bryan's services as a monthly essayist, as a token of their liberal-mindedness.
I gave my tv away around 15 years ago. But I do watch a few things on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Very little is watchable, but there are some interesting European and Australian tv shows. No social media. No-one plays music in our office. Will, I envy your attendance at early music events. The more intelligent you are, the more difficult it is to find a good conversation, unless you are on a university campus and then you might run into different problems!
Marc, there is a site, but it is called Musicology Now: https://musicologynow.org It is a project of the American Musicological Society of which I am no longer a member. Besides, The Music Salon might get as much traffic!
If you have the time and patience, I found this discussion to be really profoundly interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCOw0eJ84d8&t=107s
Will let you both in on a secret: I've never listened to an entire JP presentation or address etc; snippets quoted by others, sure. Hearing him re Nietzsche would be as good an introduction as any, I expect. :-)
I find that I can't listen to a whole interview/speech/discussion either. But this is a different kind of thing. It was recorded before he became famous. He is just sitting in front of the camera and in a very quiet, thoughtful way, talks about part of one paragraph in Nietzsche. Just three sentences really. But the amazing things he gets out of those sentences is worth hearing. I have listened to it three times and I'm starting to understand...
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