Generic Music Created Just For You
Just as if we weren’t living in a dystopian world already, now we have AI music created specially for each one of us.
Spotify and other platforms are already experimenting with generative music, which is created specifically for you, based on your data, algorithm, and listening habits. With a simple prompt (instruction), you will ask these platforms to create a playlist of artificially generated music similar to the ones you like.
This is AI-generated music that isn’t meant to move you; it’s just noise to fill the silence.
Music for studying, for running, for relaxing, and for focus. But here’s the problem: this kind of music isn’t created to express something; it doesn’t take days, months, or years to be composed and created; it is just a matter of seconds. It’s created to function, to be background noise.
And imagine the business side of this. Gyms, stores, bars, instead of paying royalties to real artists, generate their own AI music, and they can even use it to promote their products as a marketing strategy. For example, you walk into supermaket and the avocados are on sale, so on the speakers sound a song about the avocados to incentivatate you to buy them.
No emotional depth, no real musicians, no royalties, just the app. This generated music wouldn’t pay royalties because AI-generated music doesn’t have copyright protection, since it isn’t created by a human. You can read my post about copyrights in music here:
With this situation, suddenly, music becomes disposable. Custom-made, replaceable, soulless. It fills the space, but it doesn’t say anything; it doesn’t have an intrinsic value; it doesn’t make us feel anything because it doesn’t have the human aspect behind it, lyrics, a story, instruments, and a voice that moves you, that you can identify yourself with, and that you can later associate with memories. And that’s what worries me. Music used to tell stories, but now it risks becoming fake, something to listen to for a while and quickly forget after you’re done.
The Final Question Is
Do we want music that challenges us, moves us, and that we love… Or music that just blends into the background since it lacks sustenance and meaning?
My video about this: