ElevenLabs releases AI music album with Liza Minnelli and Art Garfunkel amid industry shift

ElevenLabs Debuts The Eleven Album with Grammy-Winning Artists

ElevenLabs released The Eleven Album on Wednesday, marking what the AI audio company describes as the first large-scale AI music album collaboration between established artists and artificial intelligence technology 1

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. The album features 13 artists, including EGOT winner Liza Minnelli and Simon & Garfunkel's Art Garfunkel, alongside producers and musicians from pop, rap, EDM, and R&B genres 1

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. Each contributor produced a fully original track that blends their signature sound with Eleven Music, the company's AI music generator launched in December 2

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The album serves as a promotional vehicle for ElevenLabs' music generation platforms, including Eleven Music and the Iconic Voices Marketplace, both cleared for commercial use 2

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. Artists retain full ownership of their work and receive 100 percent of streaming revenue, according to the company 2

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. The album is now streaming on Spotify, with additional tracks available on the ElevenLabs website 4

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Artist-Led AI Collaboration Built on Consent-Based AI Framework

For 79-year-old Liza Minnelli, the album marks her first new music release in 13 years 3

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. Her track, "Kids, Wait Til You Hear This"—also the title of her upcoming memoir—represents an unexpected foray into deep house music, featuring spoken declarations over AI-generated arrangements 3

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. Minnelli emphasized on her Facebook page that while the company used AI arrangements, the vocals remain entirely hers, and she explicitly refused to allow voice cloning technology 3

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"What interested me here was the idea of using my voice and new tools in service of expression, not instead of it," Minnelli stated 1

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. She highlighted that the project respects authorship rights, artist choices, and ownership—a contrast to her parents' experience of creating work owned by others 5

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Art Garfunkel contributed "Authorship," featuring a spoken excerpt from his memoir "What Is It All But Luminous" over AI-generated piano backing 3

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. "My voice plus the technology simply opens another door," Garfunkel said, comparing the evolution to past technological advances like microphones and multitrack recording 3

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An ElevenLabs spokesperson told CNET that everything is opt-in, transparent, and permission-based 1

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. "Artists decide how their work is used, and nothing is trained or released without explicit consent," they said, emphasizing that building trust and long-term relationships is central to their collaboration approach 1

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Music Industry Shifts from Opposition to AI Licensing Agreements

The Eleven Album arrives as major music labels pivot from threatening legal action against AI platforms to forging licensing deals. Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group signed agreements with AI music studios Suno and Udio, settling copyright infringement lawsuits in the process 5

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. Sony Music Entertainment joined Warner and Universal Music Group in separate AI licensing agreements with Klay, a Los Angeles-based music technology company 5

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This week, Udio announced a partnership with Merlin, an umbrella organization representing indie labels including Beggars Group, Epitaph, Domino, Sub Pop, and Warp 3

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. This means artists from Arctic Monkeys to Aphex Twin could make their music available to Udio's AI tools for artists, though participation remains optional 3

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Sophia Noel from ElevenLabs' partnerships team emphasized that the company's music model is "fully trained on licensed music, so that means we didn't steal or take any music in order to create this system" 5

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. Users who create music on the platform own it entirely, she added 5

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Persistent Concerns Over Job Displacement and Intellectual Property

Despite these ethical AI frameworks, many artists maintain strong opposition to AI music. Ed Sheeran has voiced concerns about job displacement, stating: "If you're taking a job away from a human being, I think that's probably a bad thing" 3

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. He questioned the societal impact if robots perform all jobs, leaving humans unemployed 3

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Filmmaker Justine Bateman, an outspoken critic of generative AI in the arts, suggested to Mashable that companies pay celebrities substantial sums to partner on AI projects as marketing to legitimize themselves to target audiences 4

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. She questioned the authenticity of such partnerships when financial incentives are involved 4

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Concerns about AI voice cloning persist. A Consumer Reports investigation found that several leading voice-cloning companies, including ElevenLabs, had safeguards that could be bypassed by simply checking a box claiming authorization 5

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. In response, ElevenLabs' partnerships lead Dustin Blank explained that the platform's advanced professional voice-cloning feature now requires users to verify their identities by reading a text prompt within a specific timeframe 5

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AI-generated songs have become increasingly prevalent and difficult to identify on Spotify. Last summer, indie band The Velvet Sundown accumulated more than 1 million plays before admitting all tracks were AI-generated 5

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. Around 6,300 users voted in a live poll requesting Spotify introduce clear labels for AI-generated songs and provide filtering options 5

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. Spotify announced plans last fall to implement clearer AI disclosures in song credits and stricter impersonation rules 5

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Suno founder Mikey Shulman told The Guardian that AI use in music is already widespread, comparing it to Ozempic: "everybody is on it and nobody wants to talk about it" 3

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. This suggests that while public debate continues, industry adoption of AI music generators may be accelerating behind the scenes, raising questions about transparency and the future relationship between human creativity and machine-generated content.