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points by dale_glass 4 days ago | 0 comments
It contains plenty human expression. It's ultimately made by people.

And I think it can be uniquely fun, because it allows for the very rare combination of truly off-beat ideas with excellent execution.

In real life, it very rarely happens that somebody will spend a lifetime learning, gather a band, and then record something extremely off-beat. Because there are risks to that. Destroying your image, having to find people that are on the same wavelength, having to justify the time and money it costs to record something weird and not marketable.

Sure, people make weird stuff once in a while, but very rarely, and generally it takes unique individuals that find some particular weird niche to work in, like Weird Al or Max Raabe. And even then they tend to pick something relatively tame and marketable and stick to that.

But AI can bypass all that, and that makes things interesting.

[–] JDups 4 days ago
The vast majority of music is made with no regards to marketability, it's just people doing whatever they personally like. An incredibly small amount of artists have any sort of "image", that necessitates being popular already.

And often the weirdest artists are also the most prolific because they tend to like experimenting for experimenting's sake.

[–] vconnor 4 days ago
You need to listen more than the Top 10 charts my dude. The fact that you use Weird Al as an example of experimental musician says it all about your depth of knowledge.
[–] stickfigure 4 days ago
In the 1980s, Weird Al was definitely experimental. Your comment just shows how young you are.
[–] viklove 4 days ago
You're still showing how ignorant you are. Even in 1980, Weird Al was pretty vanilla. The spectrum of music is wide, and it would do you good to go and explore it (and while you're at it, try making some!).
[–] stickfigure 4 days ago
Making blind (and wrong) assumptions about people here is also a sign of immaturity.
[–] viklove 3 days ago
Check yourself before you wreck yourself:

> Your comment just shows how young you are.

[–] viklove 4 days ago
> In real life, it very rarely happens that somebody will spend a lifetime learning, gather a band, and then record something extremely off-beat.

My jaw literally dropped. Do you really believe this?

I think you just don't spend much time around people who love music.

It makes sense that someone like you would like AI music, I guess. You are clueless.

[–] dale_glass 4 days ago
> My jaw literally dropped. Do you really believe this?

Sure. It happens in every field. When you invest a lot into something, it becomes risky or unprofitable to do some things.

Tech often drives things in the opposite direction. As it gets easier/cheaper/faster to create something, doing something odd and risky becomes easier to justify because there's less invested into it and there's fewer people whose cooperation is needed.

I'm not saying nobody does anything risky traditionally of course. But there's barriers to it, which become lesser once tech trivializes a good part of the process.

> It makes sense that someone like you would like AI music, I guess. You are clueless.

I like music in general, and am fairly indifferent as to how the goose is cooked. I listen to almost everything. There's no reason to exclude AI music. If it sounds good, it's good.

[–] foltik 4 days ago
Awfully bold (and tech brained) claims about musicians for someone who couldn't care less how music is made.
[–] zahlman 4 days ago
What claims about musicians? The only claim I saw is that it's relatively rare to observe musicians doing the musician thing, and I think that's quite accurate because IMX musicians (in the sense that we mean for the current purposes) are rare individuals.
[–] foltik 4 days ago
> In real life, it very rarely happens that somebody will spend a lifetime learning, gather a band, and then record something extremely off-beat. Because there are risks to that. Destroying your image, having to find people that are on the same wavelength, having to justify the time and money it costs to record something weird and not marketable.

> Sure, people make weird stuff once in a while, but very rarely, [...] and even then they tend to pick something relatively tame and marketable and stick to that.

> But AI can bypass all that, and that makes things interesting.

> Very few people genuinely "love music" in the way that you have in mind.

Those claims. They clearly come from a tech person’s surface level understanding of the music industry, which is a tiny fraction of all music and not representative of why people make it or what they enjoy. "Very few people genuinely love music" says it all. Have some self awareness. You're describing nothing but your own narrow perspective.

[–] stickfigure 3 days ago
Let me try to steelman the parent's argument.

There are a finite number of musicians in the world. Most of them are working on music that either 1) appeals to them, specifically, or 2) appeals to enough of an audience that they can eek out a living. And chances are, if you're hearing it in public, you're getting #2.

I want music that appeals to me. My tastes are broad but not infinite, and I've already thoroughly plumbed the depths of my favorite genres - many of which are largely ignored by modern musicians (see #2 above). AI offers a way of getting new music for neglected or underdeveloped genres. Spanish language 80s new wave combined with reggae? Why not?

I listen to a lot of music across many disparate genres. I even play music (for fun). I have also enjoyed some AI generated music. It's not either/or, I can listen to both.

[–] foltik 3 days ago
Absolutely, it’s fine to enjoy it. And random hyper specific mashups are fun.

But as we’ve seen with AI writing and AI art, the novelty wears off quickly. It’s dazzling at first, but once you start to hear more and more of it and pay closer attention to the finer details, it becomes more evident how samey and blurry and soulless it all is.

Real niche music is out there, and it’ll be more interesting and rewarding to find (or even create!) than any AI music could be.

[–] zahlman 3 days ago
No, it has nothing to do with the music industry. If it were false that very few people genuinely love music in the way that leads to "spending a lifetime learning, gathering a band and then recording something extremely off-beat" then by now I would have met some people who did that. And it would be easier to find people who primarily listen to stuff that isn't mass-produced.
[–] foltik 3 days ago
Have you considered that you might just not be around those people? In my experience (in a large metropolitan area) they're abundant, which would seem to carry more weight than you not having met any yet.
[–] zahlman 4 days ago
> I think you just don't spend much time around people who love music.

This doesn't contradict GP at all. Very few people genuinely "love music" in the way that you have in mind.