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by mckirk 996 days ago
My absolute favorite application of this tech so far is The Beach Boys singing 'Hurt'. It's the first time I seriously didn't notice any artifacts, and it just works so well even though it really shouldn't.

Enjoy: https://youtu.be/gmNSFqyg_Z8

5 comments

I don't know what I was expecting but that isn't Hurt, it's Surfin' USA with Hurt's lyrics that sound extremely jittery and grainy.

I'm curious though if some AI soon could in fact synthesize the Beach Boys' style with the actual chords and melody from the NIN song, possibly with some of the pathos of Johnny Cash as well.

I agree. The "x words over y music" can be fun, but isn't really impressive as a true genre parody.

The one that always comes to mind for me is this video of an Eminem interview done from scratch as a Talking Heads song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfl3N9nesRg

This is potentially something that generative AI could be good at doing (at least recreating vocals), but this parody of the Talking Heads required a lot of very clever insight into what made a good Talking Heads song and returned a convincing and novel melody. And I think we are still a ways off.

Yeah, Nick Lutsko is super super funny and a very talented musician. That’s hard to replicate.
More evidence that AI is an artistic tool of new media and not a replacement of the old.
The one I found fun was the matrix ice ice baby mashup. That was sort of janky but good enough to be fun.
The name of the channel is "There I Ruined It".. That's the point, the person who created it did it specifically to make you feel like that.
Yeah, I hate it to the point of being personally offended. It has nothing to do with Johnny Cash's rendition. I'd probably feel a bit better, but not much, if it were advertised as a NIN mashup.
Yeah that’s kind of the theme of the YouTube channel - I think it’s hilarious honestly, but maybe you have to go into it knowing what to expect.
Yeah, based on the parent, and the genius of the musicians involved, I was expecting something more than the sum of its parts. Hurt is an incredibly powerful song, and the Cash rendition imbues it with another beautiful layer.

As a joke, I can see it being funny, but it was a jarring way to experience it.

I'm sorry, I probably should have advertised that better.
NIN and Cash have equal billing on that video. Many people might only know Cash's rendition...
It's definitely in the realm of "soulless"
That's... Really nice.
This account is one of the absolute top tier creators for weird music mixes. The recent deep faking stuff has been shockingly good. I think this is a good example of an "acceptable" use of AI, as long as artists/composers etc rights are all settled.

its always more fun when its a real group of talented people being silly, but I'd listen to an album of weird mashup like this for sure.

The graininess of the recording covers over a lot of potential problems. But given that this attempt keeps the Beach Boy’s tempo and enunciation, I think this technique, whatever it is, would make a much more compelling version of Michael Jackson covering Eat It.
That hurt