[dist-epoch]

Question: could you enjoy a song if you knew absolutely nothing about the artist? Let's make it instrumental so you can't judge the voice.

From what you say I infer you couldn't, you need to know about their life, their struggles, their views on things, etc.

Some people can actually enjoy just the pure sound. Electronic club music tends to be like that, where if you listen it in a club or on the radio in a long mix you might have no idea what song is being played, the vocals and lyrics are ultra-minimal so no "human expression" there.

[janetmissed]

of course I think you can enjoy music as just "pure sound". I have no doubt that generative music models will make perfectly adequate music, and will almost certainly have the capacity to make songs that are great and moving. But just like visual mediums, music is more than just a file. Music is cultural. Electronic music is absolutely human expression, even if it isn't making some grand statement on society or the human condition it exists in context of other electronic music tracks. By simply having someone feel the drive to create a song and making creative decisions about how that song should sound and feels it makes a comment on the genre of electronic music, and contributes to the cultural project of music.

thanks for the thoughtful comment and I hope you have a nice day.