Blake Dowling
Music — and the artists that make the songs we love — can blow your mind, transport you to another time and place and even unite the world.
Hits like “We Are the World” brought fighting hunger to our ears, and “Winds of Change” by the Scorpions brought the message of global peace.
“Macarena” brought something else entirely, but they were all global in scope.
Pivotal songs and corresponding high-impact music moments stick with you for life. For me, seeing Dave Matthews Band in 1993 at a frat house in Athens, Georgia was one of those.
Viewing Mötley Crüe on MTV for the first time in 1984 was another. Seeing Guns N’ Roses on their reunion tour in 2018 was another. Same for catching Duran Duran at the intimate 1,000-seater Earthlink Live in 2004.
I could keep going … but you get the point. We carry these musical moments forever.
What happens when the music is fake?
We have seen music revolutions many times over when artists like Chuck Berry, Elvis, the Beatles, Public Enemy and Nirvana hit the scene. When CDs replaced cassettes — or when streaming took over.
Or when a new technique became popular, synthesizers became a thing or sampling.
But this month we saw and heard something new. Artificial intelligence is creating music.
An online account called Ghostwriter977 put a song on YouTube that sounded like Drake featuring The Weeknd and it got millions of streams. That song has now been removed as publishing companies, lawyers and artists scramble to respond — similar to when Napster turned the music world upside down. Fake Drake is not alone, there is an AI-enhanced Oasis called AIsis that is also making some waves with their creepy tunes.
As the industry and society respond to AI, music groups like the Human Artistry Campaign are emerging to push forward responsible use of artificial intelligence within the art community.
Other artists are embracing AI and not fighting it.
The musician Grimes invites AI to use her voice and she will split the royalties with the creator.
I spoke with Becca Gilbert, former music industry executive and current accounting pro in Florida, about her thoughts on these topics.
“I watched the magic happen firsthand as songwriters would sometimes struggle and wrestle with getting the songs out. Other times, the songs poured out faster than they could write. Either way, there was magic and emotion, and experiences that can never be fully replaced by AI. But then, I was working in Nashville when people started talking about this thing (streaming) where no one would buy CDs anymore.”
She is on point.
I will never forget watching the magic happen one afternoon at Nickel and Dime studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Sister Hazel was working on their second record for Universal Records with producer Richie Zito; in walks Emily Saliers from the Indigo Girls to lay down vocals with the band on the song “Champagne High.”
The entire band contributed to the arrangement, and they worked on it for hours before actually laying down the track.
I will never forget that moment and the layers of ideas and the time it took to get it right. When it came out a year later, “Champagne High” reached No. 22 on the U.S. Adult 40, and the video featured actor Brittany Daniels.
The AI music revolution is just getting started and I will sign off today adding another pivotal music moment to the list above. That would be the first time I heard the ChatGPT fake Eminem song about cats. It was April 2023. A user asked CGPT to write an Eminem rap song about cats and it delivered.
You can watch a snippet below and the rap goes like this “cats cats cats they’re always on the prowl/they’re sneaky and sly, with their eyes on the goal.”
Maybe we don’t have anything to fear from artificial intelligence music after all.
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Blake Dowling is CEO of Aegis Business Technologies; he can be reached at [email protected].
