AI Music Generation Tools Spark Debate and Disruption in the Music Industry

Will AI kill the pop star?

Chess was the battle line between humanity and an earlier generation of computers. Garry Kasparov, the then world champion, beat IBM's Deep Blue in 1996, but succumbed to his digital foe the following year. "I lost my fighting spirit," Kasparov said after resigning the final match. His white flag was treated as an epochal surrender to computing power. We were checkmated. In the age of artificial intelligence, music is the new chess, a focal point for anxieties about being toppled by technology. It is the art form most closely, and also mysteriously, linked with emotions. No one knows exactly how music works, the way it can play us like an instrument, moving us to tears or joy. The prospect of it being mastered by another of our creations, AI, touches a nerve. This time the computers are coming for our feelings. Are these fears justified? I explore that question in a new podcast series for the FT's Tech Tonic show. I started it as a sceptic, unconvinced by AI hype, and have since spoken with musicians, campaigners and legal experts. Some are in favour of AI music, others are not. There are numerous uses for AI and machine-learning algorithms in music. Many are uncontentious, like studio techniques for analysing audio content or enhancing sound quality. But AI-powered models that create their own music are a different matter. These upstart apps are the tech version of the rise of the singer-songwriter in the 1960s. They write their own material and also perform it. Udio and Suno are two popular online examples. They could not be easier to use. Just type a command -- "song in the style of a 1960s singer-songwriter", for instance -- and bingo: a brand new track is created. In this case, via Udio, it is called "Whispers in the Dark". An artificial male voice quavers sensitively about "longing for the warmth of a hand in mine" over a pleasing acoustic guitar melody. It's not Bob Dylan, but it's better than the average busker. In the most dystopian scenario, these tools will flood airwaves and playlists with dead-eyed songs, accepted without demurral by an indiscriminate public. But is this likely? These are early days, but AI music generators have so far failed to set the charts ablaze. A parody schlager song has the distinction of being the first fully AI-generated hit. Made with Udio by an Austrian DJ who goes by the name Butterbro, "Verknallt in einen Talahon" reached the giddy heights of number 48 in Germany in 2024. Disquiet over its use of AI was overshadowed by controversy about lyrics stereotyping immigrants. A supposedly real band, The Velvet Sundown, caused a stir this year when their throwback West Coast rock was revealed to be an AI-generated hoax. It was an impressive prank -- but the unreal rockers' most popular song on Spotify has been streamed just 2.8mn times, small fry next to the hundreds of millions gained by proper hits. Pop music is oriented around the figure of the vocalist. The microphone doesn't just amplify their voice, it also amplifies their personality. Taylor Swift's forthcoming album The Life of a Showgirl has provoked speculation about character-driven songs, but its rollout is also inextricably linked to her personal life, as shown by the pre-release announcement of her engagement. Even with K-pop, whose stars lead more strictly monitored lives than their western counterparts, a sense of character is vital to building bonds with fans. This crucial aspect lies outside AI's capabilities. To that extent, I remain a sceptic. But I am persuaded that it will join previous technologies in altering the way music is made -- like the microphone, which was introduced to recording studios in the 1920s. It doesn't require a great leap of imagination to envisage AI music generators as standard aids for songwriters, prompting ideas and solving problems. They will surely be used to make beats for rappers: hip-hop has always been the most tech-adaptive of genres. And AI represents a real threat to those working in so-called library or production music, making jingles, tunes and scores for adverts, television shows or public spaces. They face competition from a cheaper and immeasurably faster rival. The battle line is drawn, although it's less attention-grabbing than when Kasparov faced Deep Blue on the chessboard. In the US, record labels are suing Suno and Udio for alleged copyright infringement. The dispute centres on the way that AI generators learn how music works, analysing vast amounts of recordings. The labels claim that this training database includes unknown quantities of copyrighted works. Suno and Udio say their tools fall under fair use. I don't think AI generators should be feared as an existential threat to music. But fairness, that most human of values, dictates that AI companies should not make commercial use of musicians' work without permission or recompense. Whether they will be prevented from doing so in future is uncertain. We are not in the endgame yet.

The success of AI music creators sparks debate on future of music industry

LONDON (AP) -- When pop groups and rock bands practice or perform, they rely on their guitars, keyboards and drumsticks to make music. Oliver McCann, a British AI music creator who goes by the stage name imoliver, fires up his chatbot. McCann's songs span a range of genres, from indie-pop to electro-soul to country-rap. There's just one crucial difference between McCann and traditional musicians. "I have no musical talent at all," he said. "I can't sing, I can't play instruments, and I have no musical background at all." McCann, 37, who has a background as a visual designer, started experimenting with AI to see if it could boost his creativity and "bring some of my lyrics to life." Last month, he signed with independent record label Hallwood Media after one of his tracks racked up 3 million streams, in what's billed as the first time a music label has inked a contract with an AI music creator. McCann is an example of how ChatGPT-style AI song generation tools like Suno and Udio have spawned a wave of synthetic music. A movement most notably highlighted by a fictitious group, Velvet Sundown, that went viral even though all its songs, lyrics and album art were created by AI. It fueled debate about AI's role in music while raising fears about "AI slop" -- automatically generated low quality mass produced content. It also cast a spotlight on AI song generators that are democratizing song making but threaten to disrupt the music industry. Experts say generative AI is set to transform the music world. However, there are scant details, so far, on how it's impacting the $29.6 billion global recorded music market, which includes about $20 billion from streaming. The most reliable figures come from music streaming service Deezer, which estimates that 18% of songs uploaded to its platform every day are purely AI generated, though they only account for a tiny amount of total streams, hinting that few people are actually listening. Other, bigger streaming platforms like Spotify haven't released any figures on AI music. Udio declined to comment on how many users it has and how many songs it has generated. Suno did not respond to a request for comment. Both have free basic levels as well as pro and premium tiers that come with access to more advanced AI models. "It's a total boom. It's a tsunami," said Josh Antonuccio, director of Ohio University's School of Media Arts and Studies. The amount of AI generated music "is just going to only exponentially increase" as young people grow up with AI and become more comfortable with it, he said. Yet generative AI, with its ability to spit out seemingly unique content, has divided the music world, with musicians and industry groups complaining that recorded works are being exploited to train AI models that power song generation tools. Record labels are trying to fend off the threat that AI music startups pose to their revenue streams even as they hope to tap into it for new earnings, while recording artists worry that it will devalue their creativity. Three major record companies, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Records, filed lawsuits last year against Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. In June, the two sides also reportedly entered negotiations that could go beyond settling the lawsuits and set rules for how artists are paid when AI is used to remix their songs. GEMA, a German royalty collection society, has sued Suno, accusing it of generating music similar to songs like "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega and "Forever Young" by Alphaville. More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Damon Albarn, released a silent album to protest proposed changes to U.K. laws on AI they fear would erode their creative control. Meanwhile, other artists, such as will.i.am, Timbaland and Imogen Heap, have embraced the technology. Some users say the debate is just a rehash of old arguments about once-new technology that eventually became widely used, such as AutoTune, drum machines and synthesizers. People complain "that you're using a computer to do all the work for you. I don't see it that way. I see it as any other tool that we have," said Scott Smith, whose AI band, Pulse Empire, was inspired by 1980s British synthesizer-driven groups like New Order and Depeche Mode. Smith, 56 and a semi-retired former U.S. Navy public affairs officer in Portland, Oregon, said "music producers have lots of tools in their arsenal" to enhance recordings that listeners aren't aware of. Like McCann, Smith never mastered a musical instrument. Both say they put lots of time and effort into crafting their music. Once Smith gets inspiration, it takes him just 10 minutes to write the lyrics. But then he'll spend as much as eight to nine hours generating different versions until the song "matches my vision." McCann said he'll often create up to 100 different versions of a song by prompting and re-prompting the AI system before he's satisfied. AI song generators can churn out lyrics as well as music, but many experienced users prefer to write their own words. "AI lyrics tend to come out quite cliche and quite boring," McCann said. Lukas Rams, a Philadelphia-area resident who makes songs for his AI band Sleeping With Wolves, said AI lyrics tend to be "extra corny" and not as creative as a human, but can help get the writing process started. "It'll do very basic rhyme schemes, and it'll keep repeating the same structure," said Rams, who writes his own words, sometimes while putting his kids to bed and waiting for them to fall asleep. "And then you'll get words in there that are very telling of AI-generated lyrics, like 'neon,' anything with 'shadows'." Rams used to play drums in high school bands and collaborated with his brother on their own songs, but work and family life started taking up more of his time. Then he discovered AI, which he used to create three albums for Sleeping With Wolves. He's been taking it seriously, making a CD jewel case with album art. He plans to post his songs, which combine metalcore and EDM, more widely online. "I do want to start putting this up on YouTube or socials or distribution or whatever, just to have it out there," Rams said. "I might as well, otherwise I'm literally the only person that hears this stuff." Experts say AI's potential to let anyone come up with a hit song is poised to shake up the music industry's production pipeline. "Just think about what it used to cost to make a hit or make something that breaks," Antonuccio said. "And that just keeps winnowing down from a major studio to a laptop to a bedroom. And now it's like a text prompt -- several text prompts." But he added that AI music is still in a "Wild West" phase because of the lack of legal clarity over copyright. He compared it to the legal battles more than two decades ago over file-sharing sites like Napster that heralded the transition from CDs to digital media and eventually paved the way for today's music streaming services. Creators hope AI, too, will eventually become a part of the mainstream music world. "I think we're entering a world where anyone, anywhere could make the next big hit," said McCann. "As AI becomes more widely accepted among people as a musical art form, I think it opens up the possibility for AI music to be featured in charts."

The success of AI music creators sparks debate on future of music industry

LONDON (AP) -- When pop groups and rock bands practice or perform, they rely on their guitars, keyboards and drumsticks to make music. Oliver McCann, a British AI music creator who goes by the stage name imoliver, fires up his chatbot. McCann's songs span a range of genres, from indie-pop to electro-soul to country-rap. There's just one crucial difference between McCann and traditional musicians. "I have no musical talent at all," he said. "I can't sing, I can't play instruments, and I have no musical background at all." McCann, 37, who has a background as a visual designer, started experimenting with AI to see if it could boost his creativity and "bring some of my lyrics to life." Last month, he signed with independent record label Hallwood Media after one of his tracks racked up 3 million streams, in what's billed as the first time a music label has inked a contract with an AI music creator. McCann is an example of how ChatGPT-style AI song generation tools like Suno and Udio have spawned a wave of synthetic music. A movement most notably highlighted by a fictitious group, Velvet Sundown, that went viral even though all its songs, lyrics and album art were created by AI. It fueled debate about AI's role in music while raising fears about "AI slop" -- automatically generated low quality mass produced content. It also cast a spotlight on AI song generators that are democratizing song making but threaten to disrupt the music industry. Experts say generative AI is set to transform the music world. However, there are scant details, so far, on how it's impacting the $29.6 billion global recorded music market, which includes about $20 billion from streaming. The most reliable figures come from music streaming service Deezer, which estimates that 18% of songs uploaded to its platform every day are purely AI generated, though they only account for a tiny amount of total streams, hinting that few people are actually listening. Other, bigger streaming platforms like Spotify haven't released any figures on AI music. Udio declined to comment on how many users it has and how many songs it has generated. Suno did not respond to a request for comment. Both have free basic levels as well as pro and premium tiers that come with access to more advanced AI models. "It's a total boom. It's a tsunami," said Josh Antonuccio, director of Ohio University's School of Media Arts and Studies. The amount of AI generated music "is just going to only exponentially increase" as young people grow up with AI and become more comfortable with it, he said. Yet generative AI, with its ability to spit out seemingly unique content, has divided the music world, with musicians and industry groups complaining that recorded works are being exploited to train AI models that power song generation tools. Record labels are trying to fend off the threat that AI music startups pose to their revenue streams even as they hope to tap into it for new earnings, while recording artists worry that it will devalue their creativity. Three major record companies, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Records, filed lawsuits last year against Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. In June, the two sides also reportedly entered negotiations that could go beyond settling the lawsuits and set rules for how artists are paid when AI is used to remix their songs. GEMA, a German royalty collection society, has sued Suno, accusing it of generating music similar to songs like "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega and "Forever Young" by Alphaville. More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Damon Albarn, released a silent album to protest proposed changes to U.K. laws on AI they fear would erode their creative control. Meanwhile, other artists, such as will.i.am, Timbaland and Imogen Heap, have embraced the technology. Some users say the debate is just a rehash of old arguments about once-new technology that eventually became widely used, such as AutoTune, drum machines and synthesizers. People complain "that you're using a computer to do all the work for you. I don't see it that way. I see it as any other tool that we have," said Scott Smith, whose AI band, Pulse Empire, was inspired by 1980s British synthesizer-driven groups like New Order and Depeche Mode. Smith, 56 and a semi-retired former U.S. Navy public affairs officer in Portland, Oregon, said "music producers have lots of tools in their arsenal" to enhance recordings that listeners aren't aware of. Like McCann, Smith never mastered a musical instrument. Both say they put lots of time and effort into crafting their music. Once Smith gets inspiration, it takes him just 10 minutes to write the lyrics. But then he'll spend as much as eight to nine hours generating different versions until the song "matches my vision." McCann said he'll often create up to 100 different versions of a song by prompting and re-prompting the AI system before he's satisfied. AI song generators can churn out lyrics as well as music, but many experienced users prefer to write their own words. "AI lyrics tend to come out quite cliche and quite boring," McCann said. Lukas Rams, a Philadelphia-area resident who makes songs for his AI band Sleeping With Wolves, said AI lyrics tend to be "extra corny" and not as creative as a human, but can help get the writing process started. "It'll do very basic rhyme schemes, and it'll keep repeating the same structure," said Rams, who writes his own words, sometimes while putting his kids to bed and waiting for them to fall asleep. "And then you'll get words in there that are very telling of AI-generated lyrics, like 'neon,' anything with 'shadows'." Rams used to play drums in high school bands and collaborated with his brother on their own songs, but work and family life started taking up more of his time. Then he discovered AI, which he used to create three albums for Sleeping With Wolves. He's been taking it seriously, making a CD jewel case with album art. He plans to post his songs, which combine metalcore and EDM, more widely online. "I do want to start putting this up on YouTube or socials or distribution or whatever, just to have it out there," Rams said. "I might as well, otherwise I'm literally the only person that hears this stuff." Experts say AI's potential to let anyone come up with a hit song is poised to shake up the music industry's production pipeline. "Just think about what it used to cost to make a hit or make something that breaks," Antonuccio said. "And that just keeps winnowing down from a major studio to a laptop to a bedroom. And now it's like a text prompt -- several text prompts." But he added that AI music is still in a "Wild West" phase because of the lack of legal clarity over copyright. He compared it to the legal battles more than two decades ago over file-sharing sites like Napster that heralded the transition from CDs to digital media and eventually paved the way for today's music streaming services. Creators hope AI, too, will eventually become a part of the mainstream music world. "I think we're entering a world where anyone, anywhere could make the next big hit," said McCann. "As AI becomes more widely accepted among people as a musical art form, I think it opens up the possibility for AI music to be featured in charts."

The success of AI music creators sparks debate on future of music industry

LONDON -- When pop groups and rock bands practice or perform, they rely on their guitars, keyboards and drumsticks to make music. Oliver McCann, a British AI music creator who goes by the stage name imoliver, fires up his chatbot. McCann's songs span a range of genres, from indie-pop to electro-soul to country-rap. There's just one crucial difference between McCann and traditional musicians. "I have no musical talent at all," he said. "I can't sing, I can't play instruments, and I have no musical background at all." McCann, 37, who has a background as a visual designer, started experimenting with AI to see if it could boost his creativity and "bring some of my lyrics to life." Last month, he signed with independent record label Hallwood Media after one of his tracks racked up 3 million streams, in what's billed as the first time a music label has inked a contract with an AI music creator. McCann is an example of how ChatGPT-style AI song generation tools like Suno and Udio have spawned a wave of synthetic music. A movement most notably highlighted by a fictitious group, Velvet Sundown, that went viral even though all its songs, lyrics and album art were created by AI. It fueled debate about AI's role in music while raising fears about "AI slop" -- automatically generated low quality mass produced content. It also cast a spotlight on AI song generators that are democratizing song making but threaten to disrupt the music industry. Experts say generative AI is set to transform the music world. However, there are scant details, so far, on how it's impacting the $29.6 billion global recorded music market, which includes about $20 billion from streaming. The most reliable figures come from music streaming service Deezer, which estimates that 18% of songs uploaded to its platform every day are purely AI generated, though they only account for a tiny amount of total streams, hinting that few people are actually listening. Other, bigger streaming platforms like Spotify haven't released any figures on AI music. Udio declined to comment on how many users it has and how many songs it has generated. Suno did not respond to a request for comment. Both have free basic levels as well as pro and premium tiers that come with access to more advanced AI models. "It's a total boom. It's a tsunami," said Josh Antonuccio, director of Ohio University's School of Media Arts and Studies. The amount of AI generated music "is just going to only exponentially increase" as young people grow up with AI and become more comfortable with it, he said. Yet generative AI, with its ability to spit out seemingly unique content, has divided the music world, with musicians and industry groups complaining that recorded works are being exploited to train AI models that power song generation tools. Record labels are trying to fend off the threat that AI music startups pose to their revenue streams even as they hope to tap into it for new earnings, while recording artists worry that it will devalue their creativity. Three major record companies, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Records, filed lawsuits last year against Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. In June, the two sides also reportedly entered negotiations that could go beyond settling the lawsuits and set rules for how artists are paid when AI is used to remix their songs. GEMA, a German royalty collection society, has sued Suno, accusing it of generating music similar to songs like "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega and "Forever Young" by Alphaville. More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Damon Albarn, released a silent album to protest proposed changes to U.K. laws on AI they fear would erode their creative control. Meanwhile, other artists, such as will.i.am, Timbaland and Imogen Heap, have embraced the technology. Some users say the debate is just a rehash of old arguments about once-new technology that eventually became widely used, such as AutoTune, drum machines and synthesizers. People complain "that you're using a computer to do all the work for you. I don't see it that way. I see it as any other tool that we have," said Scott Smith, whose AI band, Pulse Empire, was inspired by 1980s British synthesizer-driven groups like New Order and Depeche Mode. Smith, 56 and a semi-retired former U.S. Navy public affairs officer in Portland, Oregon, said "music producers have lots of tools in their arsenal" to enhance recordings that listeners aren't aware of. Like McCann, Smith never mastered a musical instrument. Both say they put lots of time and effort into crafting their music. Once Smith gets inspiration, it takes him just 10 minutes to write the lyrics. But then he'll spend as much as eight to nine hours generating different versions until the song "matches my vision." McCann said he'll often create up to 100 different versions of a song by prompting and re-prompting the AI system before he's satisfied. AI song generators can churn out lyrics as well as music, but many experienced users prefer to write their own words. "AI lyrics tend to come out quite cliche and quite boring," McCann said. Lukas Rams, a Philadelphia-area resident who makes songs for his AI band Sleeping With Wolves, said AI lyrics tend to be "extra corny" and not as creative as a human, but can help get the writing process started. "It'll do very basic rhyme schemes, and it'll keep repeating the same structure," said Rams, who writes his own words, sometimes while putting his kids to bed and waiting for them to fall asleep. "And then you'll get words in there that are very telling of AI-generated lyrics, like 'neon,' anything with 'shadows'." Rams used to play drums in high school bands and collaborated with his brother on their own songs, but work and family life started taking up more of his time. Then he discovered AI, which he used to create three albums for Sleeping With Wolves. He's been taking it seriously, making a CD jewel case with album art. He plans to post his songs, which combine metalcore and EDM, more widely online. "I do want to start putting this up on YouTube or socials or distribution or whatever, just to have it out there," Rams said. "I might as well, otherwise I'm literally the only person that hears this stuff." Experts say AI's potential to let anyone come up with a hit song is poised to shake up the music industry's production pipeline. "Just think about what it used to cost to make a hit or make something that breaks," Antonuccio said. "And that just keeps winnowing down from a major studio to a laptop to a bedroom. And now it's like a text prompt -- several text prompts." But he added that AI music is still in a "Wild West" phase because of the lack of legal clarity over copyright. He compared it to the legal battles more than two decades ago over file-sharing sites like Napster that heralded the transition from CDs to digital media and eventually paved the way for today's music streaming services. Creators hope AI, too, will eventually become a part of the mainstream music world. "I think we're entering a world where anyone, anywhere could make the next big hit," said McCann. "As AI becomes more widely accepted among people as a musical art form, I think it opens up the possibility for AI music to be featured in charts."

The Success of AI Music Creators Sparks Debate on Future of Music Industry

LONDON (AP) -- When pop groups and rock bands practice or perform, they rely on their guitars, keyboards and drumsticks to make music. Oliver McCann, a British AI music creator who goes by the stage name imoliver, fires up his chatbot. McCann's songs span a range of genres, from indie-pop to electro-soul to country-rap. There's just one crucial difference between McCann and traditional musicians. "I have no musical talent at all," he said. "I can't sing, I can't play instruments, and I have no musical background at all." McCann, 37, who has a background as a visual designer, started experimenting with AI to see if it could boost his creativity and "bring some of my lyrics to life." Last month, he signed with independent record label Hallwood Media after one of his tracks racked up 3 million streams, in what's billed as the first time a music label has inked a contract with an AI music creator. McCann is an example of how ChatGPT-style AI song generation tools like Suno and Udio have spawned a wave of synthetic music. A movement most notably highlighted by a fictitious group, Velvet Sundown, that went viral even though all its songs, lyrics and album art were created by AI. It fueled debate about AI's role in music while raising fears about "AI slop" -- automatically generated low quality mass produced content. It also cast a spotlight on AI song generators that are democratizing song making but threaten to disrupt the music industry. Experts say generative AI is set to transform the music world. However, there are scant details, so far, on how it's impacting the $29.6 billion global recorded music market, which includes about $20 billion from streaming. The most reliable figures come from music streaming service Deezer, which estimates that 18% of songs uploaded to its platform every day are purely AI generated, though they only account for a tiny amount of total streams, hinting that few people are actually listening. Other, bigger streaming platforms like Spotify haven't released any figures on AI music. Udio declined to comment on how many users it has and how many songs it has generated. Suno did not respond to a request for comment. Both have free basic levels as well as pro and premium tiers that come with access to more advanced AI models. "It's a total boom. It's a tsunami," said Josh Antonuccio, director of Ohio University's School of Media Arts and Studies. The amount of AI generated music "is just going to only exponentially increase" as young people grow up with AI and become more comfortable with it, he said. Yet generative AI, with its ability to spit out seemingly unique content, has divided the music world, with musicians and industry groups complaining that recorded works are being exploited to train AI models that power song generation tools. Record labels are trying to fend off the threat that AI music startups pose to their revenue streams even as they hope to tap into it for new earnings, while recording artists worry that it will devalue their creativity. Three major record companies, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Records, filed lawsuits last year against Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. In June, the two sides also reportedly entered negotiations that could go beyond settling the lawsuits and set rules for how artists are paid when AI is used to remix their songs. GEMA, a German royalty collection society, has sued Suno, accusing it of generating music similar to songs like "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega and "Forever Young" by Alphaville. More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Damon Albarn, released a silent album to protest proposed changes to U.K. laws on AI they fear would erode their creative control. Meanwhile, other artists, such as will.i.am, Timbaland and Imogen Heap, have embraced the technology. Some users say the debate is just a rehash of old arguments about once-new technology that eventually became widely used, such as AutoTune, drum machines and synthesizers. People complain "that you're using a computer to do all the work for you. I don't see it that way. I see it as any other tool that we have," said Scott Smith, whose AI band, Pulse Empire, was inspired by 1980s British synthesizer-driven groups like New Order and Depeche Mode. Smith, 56 and a semi-retired former U.S. Navy public affairs officer in Portland, Oregon, said "music producers have lots of tools in their arsenal" to enhance recordings that listeners aren't aware of. Like McCann, Smith never mastered a musical instrument. Both say they put lots of time and effort into crafting their music. Once Smith gets inspiration, it takes him just 10 minutes to write the lyrics. But then he'll spend as much as eight to nine hours generating different versions until the song "matches my vision." McCann said he'll often create up to 100 different versions of a song by prompting and re-prompting the AI system before he's satisfied. AI song generators can churn out lyrics as well as music, but many experienced users prefer to write their own words. "AI lyrics tend to come out quite cliche and quite boring," McCann said. Lukas Rams, a Philadelphia-area resident who makes songs for his AI band Sleeping With Wolves, said AI lyrics tend to be "extra corny" and not as creative as a human, but can help get the writing process started. "It'll do very basic rhyme schemes, and it'll keep repeating the same structure," said Rams, who writes his own words, sometimes while putting his kids to bed and waiting for them to fall asleep. "And then you'll get words in there that are very telling of AI-generated lyrics, like 'neon,' anything with 'shadows'." Rams used to play drums in high school bands and collaborated with his brother on their own songs, but work and family life started taking up more of his time. Then he discovered AI, which he used to create three albums for Sleeping With Wolves. He's been taking it seriously, making a CD jewel case with album art. He plans to post his songs, which combine metalcore and EDM, more widely online. "I do want to start putting this up on YouTube or socials or distribution or whatever, just to have it out there," Rams said. "I might as well, otherwise I'm literally the only person that hears this stuff." Experts say AI's potential to let anyone come up with a hit song is poised to shake up the music industry's production pipeline. "Just think about what it used to cost to make a hit or make something that breaks," Antonuccio said. "And that just keeps winnowing down from a major studio to a laptop to a bedroom. And now it's like a text prompt -- several text prompts." But he added that AI music is still in a "Wild West" phase because of the lack of legal clarity over copyright. He compared it to the legal battles more than two decades ago over file-sharing sites like Napster that heralded the transition from CDs to digital media and eventually paved the way for today's music streaming services. Creators hope AI, too, will eventually become a part of the mainstream music world. "I think we're entering a world where anyone, anywhere could make the next big hit," said McCann. "As AI becomes more widely accepted among people as a musical art form, I think it opens up the possibility for AI music to be featured in charts."

The success of AI music creators sparks debate on future of music industry - The Economic Times

ChatGPT-style AI song generation tools like Suno and Udio have spawned a wave of synthetic music. A movement most notably highlighted by a fictitious group, Velvet Sundown, that went viral even though all its songs, lyrics and album art were created by AI.When pop groups and rock bands practice or perform, they rely on their guitars, keyboards and drumsticks to make music. Oliver McCann, a British AI music creator who goes by the stage name imoliver, fires up his chatbot. McCann's songs span a range of genres, from indie-pop to electro-soul to country-rap. There's just one crucial difference between McCann and traditional musicians. "I have no musical talent at all," he said. "I can't sing, I can't play instruments, and I have no musical background at all." McCann, 37, who has a background as a visual designer, started experimenting with AI to see if it could boost his creativity and "bring some of my lyrics to life." Last month, he signed with independent record label Hallwood Media after one of his tracks racked up 3 million streams, in what's billed as the first time a music label has inked a contract with an AI music creator. McCann is an example of how ChatGPT-style AI song generation tools like Suno and Udio have spawned a wave of synthetic music. A movement most notably highlighted by a fictitious group, Velvet Sundown, that went viral even though all its songs, lyrics and album art were created by AI. It fueled debate about AI's role in music while raising fears about "AI slop" - automatically generated low quality mass produced content. It also cast a spotlight on AI song generators that are democratizing song making but threaten to disrupt the music industry. Experts say generative AI is set to transform the music world. However, there are scant details, so far, on how it's impacting the $29.6 billion global recorded music market, which includes about $20 billion from streaming. The most reliable figures come from music streaming service Deezer, which estimates that 18% of songs uploaded to its platform every day are purely AI generated, though they only account for a tiny amount of total streams, hinting that few people are actually listening. Other, bigger streaming platforms like Spotify haven't released any figures on AI music. Udio declined to comment on how many users it has and how many songs it has generated. Suno did not respond to a request for comment. Both have free basic levels as well as pro and premium tiers that come with access to more advanced AI models. "It's a total boom. It's a tsunami," said Josh Antonuccio, director of Ohio University's School of Media Arts and Studies. The amount of AI generated music "is just going to only exponentially increase" as young people grow up with AI and become more comfortable with it, he said. Yet generative AI, with its ability to spit out seemingly unique content, has divided the music world, with musicians and industry groups complaining that recorded works are being exploited to train AI models that power song generation tools. Record labels are trying to fend off the threat that AI music startups pose to their revenue streams even as they hope to tap into it for new earnings, while recording artists worry that it will devalue their creativity. Three major record companies, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Records, filed lawsuits last year against Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. In June, the two sides also reportedly entered negotiations that could go beyond settling the lawsuits and set rules for how artists are paid when AI is used to remix their songs. GEMA, a German royalty collection society, has sued Suno, accusing it of generating music similar to songs like "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega and "Forever Young" by Alphaville. More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Damon Albarn, released a silent album to protest proposed changes to U.K. laws on AI they fear would erode their creative control. Meanwhile, other artists, such as will.i.am, Timbaland and Imogen Heap, have embraced the technology. Some users say the debate is just a rehash of old arguments about once-new technology that eventually became widely used, such as AutoTune, drum machines and synthesizers. People complain "that you're using a computer to do all the work for you. I don't see it that way. I see it as any other tool that we have," said Scott Smith, whose AI band, Pulse Empire, was inspired by 1980s British synthesizer-driven groups like New Order and Depeche Mode. Smith, 56 and a semi-retired former U.S. Navy public affairs officer in Portland, Oregon, said "music producers have lots of tools in their arsenal" to enhance recordings that listeners aren't aware of. Like McCann, Smith never mastered a musical instrument. Both say they put lots of time and effort into crafting their music. Once Smith gets inspiration, it takes him just 10 minutes to write the lyrics. But then he'll spend as much as eight to nine hours generating different versions until the song "matches my vision." McCann said he'll often create up to 100 different versions of a song by prompting and re-prompting the AI system before he's satisfied. AI song generators can churn out lyrics as well as music, but many experienced users prefer to write their own words. "AI lyrics tend to come out quite cliche and quite boring," McCann said. Lukas Rams, a Philadelphia-area resident who makes songs for his AI band Sleeping With Wolves, said AI lyrics tend to be "extra corny" and not as creative as a human, but can help get the writing process started. "It'll do very basic rhyme schemes, and it'll keep repeating the same structure," said Rams, who writes his own words, sometimes while putting his kids to bed and waiting for them to fall asleep. "And then you'll get words in there that are very telling of AI-generated lyrics, like 'neon,' anything with 'shadows'." Rams used to play drums in high school bands and collaborated with his brother on their own songs, but work and family life started taking up more of his time. Then he discovered AI, which he used to create three albums for Sleeping With Wolves. He's been taking it seriously, making a CD jewel case with album art. He plans to post his songs, which combine metalcore and EDM, more widely online. "I do want to start putting this up on YouTube or socials or distribution or whatever, just to have it out there," Rams said. "I might as well, otherwise I'm literally the only person that hears this stuff." Experts say AI's potential to let anyone come up with a hit song is poised to shake up the music industry's production pipeline. "Just think about what it used to cost to make a hit or make something that breaks," Antonuccio said. "And that just keeps winnowing down from a major studio to a laptop to a bedroom. And now it's like a text prompt - several text prompts." But he added that AI music is still in a "Wild West" phase because of the lack of legal clarity over copyright. He compared it to the legal battles more than two decades ago over file-sharing sites like Napster that heralded the transition from CDs to digital media and eventually paved the way for today's music streaming services. Creators hope AI, too, will eventually become a part of the mainstream music world. "I think we're entering a world where anyone, anywhere could make the next big hit," said McCann. "As AI becomes more widely accepted among people as a musical art form, I think it opens up the possibility for AI music to be featured in charts."

The success of AI music creators sparks debate on future of music industry

LONDON -- When pop groups and rock bands practice or perform, they rely on their guitars, keyboards and drumsticks to make music. Oliver McCann, a British AI music creator who goes by the stage name imoliver, fires up his chatbot. McCann's songs span a range of genres, from indie-pop to electro-soul to country-rap. There's just one crucial difference between McCann and traditional musicians. "I have no musical talent at all," he said. "I can't sing, I can't play instruments, and I have no musical background at all." McCann, 37, who has a background as a visual designer, started experimenting with AI to see if it could boost his creativity and "bring some of my lyrics to life." Last month, he signed with independent record label Hallwood Media after one of his tracks racked up three million streams, in what's billed as the first time a music label has inked a contract with an AI music creator. McCann is an example of how ChatGPT-style AI song generation tools like Suno and Udio have spawned a wave of synthetic music. A movement most notably highlighted by a fictitious group, Velvet Sundown, that went viral even though all its songs, lyrics and album art were created by AI. It fueled debate about AI's role in music while raising fears about "AI slop" -- automatically generated low quality mass produced content. It also cast a spotlight on AI song generators that are democratizing song making but threaten to disrupt the music industry. Experts say generative AI is set to transform the music world. However, there are scant details, so far, on how it's impacting the US$29.6 billion global recorded music market, which includes about $20 billion from streaming. The most reliable figures come from music streaming service Deezer, which estimates that 18 per cent of songs uploaded to its platform every day are purely AI generated, though they only account for a tiny amount of total streams, hinting that few people are actually listening. Other, bigger streaming platforms like Spotify haven't released any figures on AI music. Udio declined to comment on how many users it has and how many songs it has generated. Suno did not respond to a request for comment. Both have free basic levels as well as pro and premium tiers that come with access to more advanced AI models. "It's a total boom. It's a tsunami," said Josh Antonuccio, director of Ohio University's School of Media Arts and Studies. The amount of AI generated music "is just going to only exponentially increase" as young people grow up with AI and become more comfortable with it, he said. Yet generative AI, with its ability to spit out seemingly unique content, has divided the music world, with musicians and industry groups complaining that recorded works are being exploited to train AI models that power song generation tools. Record labels are trying to fend off the threat that AI music startups pose to their revenue streams even as they hope to tap into it for new earnings, while recording artists worry that it will devalue their creativity. Three major record companies, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Records, filed lawsuits last year against Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. In June, the two sides also reportedly entered negotiations that could go beyond settling the lawsuits and set rules for how artists are paid when AI is used to remix their songs. GEMA, a German royalty collection society, has sued Suno, accusing it of generating music similar to songs like "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega and "Forever Young" by Alphaville. More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Damon Albarn, released a silent album to protest proposed changes to U.K. laws on AI they fear would erode their creative control. Meanwhile, other artists, such as will.i.am, Timbaland and Imogen Heap, have embraced the technology. Some users say the debate is just a rehash of old arguments about once-new technology that eventually became widely used, such as AutoTune, drum machines and synthesizers. People complain "that you're using a computer to do all the work for you. I don't see it that way. I see it as any other tool that we have," said Scott Smith, whose AI band, Pulse Empire, was inspired by 1980s British synthesizer-driven groups like New Order and Depeche Mode. Smith, 56 and a semi-retired former U.S. Navy public affairs officer in Portland, Oregon, said "music producers have lots of tools in their arsenal" to enhance recordings that listeners aren't aware of. Like McCann, Smith never mastered a musical instrument. Both say they put lots of time and effort into crafting their music. Once Smith gets inspiration, it takes him just 10 minutes to write the lyrics. But then he'll spend as much as eight to nine hours generating different versions until the song "matches my vision." McCann said he'll often create up to 100 different versions of a song by prompting and re-prompting the AI system before he's satisfied. AI song generators can churn out lyrics as well as music, but many experienced users prefer to write their own words. "AI lyrics tend to come out quite cliche and quite boring," McCann said. Lukas Rams, a Philadelphia-area resident who makes songs for his AI band Sleeping With Wolves, said AI lyrics tend to be "extra corny" and not as creative as a human, but can help get the writing process started. "It'll do very basic rhyme schemes, and it'll keep repeating the same structure," said Rams, who writes his own words, sometimes while putting his kids to bed and waiting for them to fall asleep. "And then you'll get words in there that are very telling of AI-generated lyrics, like 'neon,' anything with 'shadows'." Rams used to play drums in high school bands and collaborated with his brother on their own songs, but work and family life started taking up more of his time. Then he discovered AI, which he used to create three albums for Sleeping With Wolves. He's been taking it seriously, making a CD jewel case with album art. He plans to post his songs, which combine metalcore and EDM, more widely online. "I do want to start putting this up on YouTube or socials or distribution or whatever, just to have it out there," Rams said. "I might as well, otherwise I'm literally the only person that hears this stuff." Experts say AI's potential to let anyone come up with a hit song is poised to shake up the music industry's production pipeline. "Just think about what it used to cost to make a hit or make something that breaks," Antonuccio said. "And that just keeps winnowing down from a major studio to a laptop to a bedroom. And now it's like a text prompt -- several text prompts." But he added that AI music is still in a "Wild West" phase because of the lack of legal clarity over copyright. He compared it to the legal battles more than two decades ago over file-sharing sites like Napster that heralded the transition from CDs to digital media and eventually paved the way for today's music streaming services. Creators hope AI, too, will eventually become a part of the mainstream music world. "I think we're entering a world where anyone, anywhere could make the next big hit," said McCann. "As AI becomes more widely accepted among people as a musical art form, I think it opens up the possibility for AI music to be featured in charts."