[askafriend]

Music, entertainment, and branding cannot be separated in the mainstream. Let me put it this way - a large reason I listen to The Weeknd is because of the interesting lifestyle and excess that he portrays through his branding, his music videos, and his whole persona/vibe.

It's never just about the music, which is why you see a ton of amazingly talented SoundCloud producers that no one has ever heard of. They understand the music but lack the branding and persona development that gets people to actually stick to their music.

AI produced music will be like computer generated art - too distant for most people unless there is another component on top of the music.

That's my initial take. Curious to see what people think of my opinion.

[sdflkd]

> Let me put it this way - a large reason I listen to The Weeknd is because of the interesting lifestyle and excess that he portrays through his branding, his music videos, and his whole persona/vibe.

A large part is the evolution of the persona too. Following his growth as an individual has been amazing (although House of Balloons is still my favorite project).

[backpropaganda]

While you're correct, AI musicians can easily have all the features of a real musician. Check out Hatsune Miku. Although the music and lyrics are written by humans, the singer is a completely fictional character who sings (generates) the music. Fans love her (it?). So, we've already solved the persona problem. Just need to generate good lyrics and melody as well now.

[ss248]

Not really. Hatsune Miku is more like an instrument. Like piano or violin, but synthesized human voice (not completely synthesized even, they used voice samples from the real human). Miku is one of many vocaloids. You can think of vocaloid as family of instruments, like violin family in traditional music with violin, viola, cello etc. In my opinion, she is not even the best vocaloid, but most widely known for sure. And, as with all musical instruments, it all comes to how composer uses her. Most songs you hear only because composer is already fairly popular in doujin circles.

AI generated music is completely different field, because AI is the composer there. This is why in the original article they talk about how they want to create symbiosis of AI and human composer, essentially creating another tool aka instrument, but this time human needs to do even less in terms of actual music creation.

[dcre]

> too distant for most people unless there is another component on top of the music

That's exactly the point of this tool. This tool is meant to produce background music for commercials that's cheaper than what's currently available. The "another component" is the crap that music is in the background of.

[franciscop]

I totally agree, search for Vocaloid or Hatsune Miku for a similar thing. I even went to a live performance in Japan (probably as the only foreigner from what I saw) and it was amazing.

[dabadoo]

That's true only for a selection of music, even if its a large part.

I personally don't care. I just want to listen to something that sounds good.