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AI generated music starts to be serious

24567…10

Comments

  • AudioGusAudioGus

    I guess this is OT because its not 100% AI (although even chickbot above is technically soylent green / made outta people) but I find these genre swappy things fun...

  • GavinskiGavinski

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • SquishySquishy

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

    I don’t concern myself with what the majority’s musical tastes are. Let them listen to crap, I’ll do me.

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • GavinskiGavinski

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

    I don’t concern myself with what the majority’s musical tastes are. Let them listen to crap, I’ll do me.

    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

  • SquishySquishy
    edited October 2025

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

    I don’t concern myself with what the majority’s musical tastes are. Let them listen to crap, I’ll do me.

    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I don’t think artists like Waits concerned themselves with that stuff tho. And even with his esoteric (to many) career he did just fine. Bring back the starving artist then! Renaissance!!

    If you’re making music to make money (like this ai stuff) then I prolly don’t wanna hear it haha

  • GavinskiGavinski
    edited October 2025

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

    I don’t concern myself with what the majority’s musical tastes are. Let them listen to crap, I’ll do me.

    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I don’t think artists like Waits concerned themselves with that stuff tho. And even with his esoteric (to many) career he did just fine. Bring back the starving artist then! Renaissance!!

    If you’re making music to make money (like this ai stuff) then I prolly don’t wanna hear it haha

    I don’t think you’ve thought this through though. Things like the British welfare state allowed loads of working class people to become musicians through the 60s to the 90s. It enabled them not to care about money. We don’t live in such a society any more, and we’re all the more culturally (and probably morally) impoverished for it. We now live in a society where only the rich can afford to become artists, as their parents etc fund them. The poor are too busy scraping a living from their zero hours jobs at Amazon and Uber to make art

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • SquishySquishy
    edited October 2025

    @Gavinski
    Totally agree. I remember when the wildfire hit LA recently and all these “indie” artists lost their million dollar homes. I grew up when indie artists like Flaming Lips and Violent Femmes were living in their touring vans, shows giving them cigarette money, gas to get to the next show, and and mayyybe a meal at Taco Bell. Sure, I’m probably romanticizing, but these factors helped shape them as artists and their musical output. But now “indie artists” are trust fund kids supported by mommy n daddy to pursue their musical aspirations. But to say there aren’t still van dwellers out there going gig to gig even just for the satisfaction and joy of performing their art for world is crazy to me, and I think they’ll always be out there. Since we were referencing Waits, I’m sure that’s how he started as well. 100% if you wanna make music for a living youre fucked these days, but if you simply love music and want nothing more than to share yours with the world? It won’t be easy, but isn’t that the point of art? (Again prolly romanticizing haha)

  • GavinskiGavinski

    @offbrands said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

    I don’t concern myself with what the majority’s musical tastes are. Let them listen to crap, I’ll do me.

    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I don’t think artists like Waits concerned themselves with that stuff tho. And even with his esoteric (to many) career he did just fine. Bring back the starving artist then! Renaissance!!

    If you’re making music to make money (like this ai stuff) then I prolly don’t wanna hear it haha

    I don’t think you’ve thought this through though. Things like the British welfare state allowed loads of working class people to become musicians through the 60s to the 90s. It enabled them not to care about money. We don’t live in such a society any more, and we’re all the more culturally (and probably morally) impoverished for it. We now live in a society where only the rich can afford to become artists, as their parents etc fund them. The poor are too busy scraping a living from their zero hours jobs at Amazon and Uber to make art

    Not sure I completely agree with the welfare state part, but you’re more or less on it.

    My claim about the welfare state is pretty fact-based and uncontroversial though! The 70s and 80s UK music scene wouldn't have been what it was without free university education (especially the art schools were formative for loads of bands), cheap council housing (free if you were on unemployment benefit) and unemployment benefit itself (with little to no pressure put on people to get jobs). There are books and articles on this topic, the main one I can't remember the name of. But Mark Fisher has also talked a lot, and very convincingly, about this.

  • GavinskiGavinski

    @Gavinski said:

    @offbrands said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

    I don’t concern myself with what the majority’s musical tastes are. Let them listen to crap, I’ll do me.

    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I don’t think artists like Waits concerned themselves with that stuff tho. And even with his esoteric (to many) career he did just fine. Bring back the starving artist then! Renaissance!!

    If you’re making music to make money (like this ai stuff) then I prolly don’t wanna hear it haha

    I don’t think you’ve thought this through though. Things like the British welfare state allowed loads of working class people to become musicians through the 60s to the 90s. It enabled them not to care about money. We don’t live in such a society any more, and we’re all the more culturally (and probably morally) impoverished for it. We now live in a society where only the rich can afford to become artists, as their parents etc fund them. The poor are too busy scraping a living from their zero hours jobs at Amazon and Uber to make art

    Not sure I completely agree with the welfare state part, but you’re more or less on it.

    My claim about the welfare state is pretty fact-based and uncontroversial though! The 70s and 80s UK music scene wouldn't have been what it was without free university education (especially the art schools were formative for loads of bands), cheap council housing (free if you were on unemployment benefit) and unemployment benefit itself (with little to no pressure put on people to get jobs). There are books and articles on this topic, the main one I can't remember the name of. But Mark Fisher has also talked a lot, and very convincingly, about this.

    See this for example https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/29/britain-welfare-rich-art-artists-housing-social-security

  • GavinskiGavinski

    @Squishy said:
    @Gavinski
    Totally agree. I remember when the wildfire hit LA recently and all these “indie” artists lost their million dollar homes. I grew up when indie artists like Flaming Lips and Violent Femmes were living in their touring vans, shows giving them cigarette money, gas to get to the next show, and and mayyybe a meal at Taco Bell. Sure, I’m probably romanticizing, but these factors helped shape them as artists and their musical output. But now “indie artists” are trust fund kids supported by mommy n daddy to pursue their musical aspirations. But to say there aren’t still van dwellers out there going gig to gig even just for the satisfaction and joy of performing their art for world is crazy to me, and I think they’ll always be out there. Since we were referencing Waits, I’m sure that’s how he started as well. 100% if you wanna make music for a living youre fucked these days, but if you simply love music and want nothing more than to share yours with the world? It won’t be easy, but isn’t that the point of art? (Again prolly romanticizing haha)

    Sure there will always be people who'll do this. But is that the world we want? Why the fuk shouldn't human artists be able to make a living lol? And why should we on this forum not be deeply concerned about the direction things are headed? I envy how relaxed and optimistic you seem, in a way, but that attitude is also dangerous, tbh. We should be concerned and we should be doing something to shape our world instead of feeling there's nothing we can do so why bother...

  • heshes
    edited October 2025

    @Gavinski said:
    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I'm not so sure that "making a living" from music will matter. I still see Universal Basic Income or something like it becoming the norm. I mean, what are people going to do decades down the road when AI and robots are doing all the work, generating wealth, and keeping the economy going? The most likely answer seems to be that people will be working much less, if at all, and will have much more leisure time to do the things they want to do. It's already clear that this is unlikely to be a utopia, but it may be an improvement in some ways. Seems like a lot of people on this forum say they'll want to just want to throw in the towel if AI becomes better than humans at creative endeavors. But I doubt whether that will be their actual reaction when it does happen.

  • waka_xwaka_x
    edited October 2025

    Gavinski points at this ->
    https://www.amazon.com/K-punk-Collected-Unpublished-Writings-Fisher/dp/191224828X
    a book that you should read.
    Or listen to what Stewart Lee has to say about alternative comedy scene and how/why it was born.
    Or do both of the above.
    :)

  • SquishySquishy

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:
    @Gavinski
    Totally agree. I remember when the wildfire hit LA recently and all these “indie” artists lost their million dollar homes. I grew up when indie artists like Flaming Lips and Violent Femmes were living in their touring vans, shows giving them cigarette money, gas to get to the next show, and and mayyybe a meal at Taco Bell. Sure, I’m probably romanticizing, but these factors helped shape them as artists and their musical output. But now “indie artists” are trust fund kids supported by mommy n daddy to pursue their musical aspirations. But to say there aren’t still van dwellers out there going gig to gig even just for the satisfaction and joy of performing their art for world is crazy to me, and I think they’ll always be out there. Since we were referencing Waits, I’m sure that’s how he started as well. 100% if you wanna make music for a living youre fucked these days, but if you simply love music and want nothing more than to share yours with the world? It won’t be easy, but isn’t that the point of art? (Again prolly romanticizing haha)

    Sure there will always be people who'll do this. But is that the world we want? Why the fuk shouldn't human artists be able to make a living lol? And why should we on this forum not be deeply concerned about the direction things are headed? I envy how relaxed and optimistic you seem, in a way, but that attitude is also dangerous, tbh. We should be concerned and we should be doing something to shape our world instead of feeling there's nothing we can do so why bother...

    Yes, my passivity and romanticism can be a flaw. And great point: “Be the change you want to see in the world”!

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • GavinskiGavinski

    @hes said:

    @Gavinski said:
    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I'm not so sure that "making a living" from music will matter. I still see Universal Basic Income or something like it becoming the norm. I mean, what are people going to do decades down the road when AI and robots are doing all the work, generating wealth, and keeping the economy going? The most likely answer seems to be that people will be working much less, if at all, and will have much more leisure time to do the things they want to do. It's already clear that this is unlikely to be a utopia, but it may be an improvement in some ways. Seems like a lot of people on this forum say they'll want to just want to throw in the towel if AI becomes better than humans at creative endeavors. But I doubt whether that will be their actual reaction when it does happen.

    UBI would indeed be a great solution but it's a very complex thing when you think it through. Defining 'universal' and 'basic' is not so easy. Yuval Harari had some interesting discussion on this in one of his books, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, I think, or maybe Homo Deus.

  • GavinskiGavinski

    @offbrands said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @offbrands said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

    I don’t concern myself with what the majority’s musical tastes are. Let them listen to crap, I’ll do me.

    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I don’t think artists like Waits concerned themselves with that stuff tho. And even with his esoteric (to many) career he did just fine. Bring back the starving artist then! Renaissance!!

    If you’re making music to make money (like this ai stuff) then I prolly don’t wanna hear it haha

    I don’t think you’ve thought this through though. Things like the British welfare state allowed loads of working class people to become musicians through the 60s to the 90s. It enabled them not to care about money. We don’t live in such a society any more, and we’re all the more culturally (and probably morally) impoverished for it. We now live in a society where only the rich can afford to become artists, as their parents etc fund them. The poor are too busy scraping a living from their zero hours jobs at Amazon and Uber to make art

    Not sure I completely agree with the welfare state part, but you’re more or less on it.

    My claim about the welfare state is pretty fact-based and uncontroversial though! The 70s and 80s UK music scene wouldn't have been what it was without free university education (especially the art schools were formative for loads of bands), cheap council housing (free if you were on unemployment benefit) and unemployment benefit itself (with little to no pressure put on people to get jobs). There are books and articles on this topic, the main one I can't remember the name of. But Mark Fisher has also talked a lot, and very convincingly, about this.

    See this for example https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/29/britain-welfare-rich-art-artists-housing-social-security

    Thats all I meant by "not sure," I didn't want to claim that I knew more about it than I did/didn't

    Makes sense, that's great. I appreciate the article share and for the response.

    Ah OK! Yeah really interesting topic!

  • waka_xwaka_x

    one very good video about slop that man makes.:)

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • waka_xwaka_x
    edited October 2025

    this is also a good read on subject:

    "Slopacalypse" Now: AI Is an Unmitigated Disaster for Society

    “AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations,” says Cory Doctorow.

    https://www.realtimetechpocalypse.com/p/the-slopacalypse-is-here-ai-is-an

    ** also the new Cory D's book:
    Enshittification
    https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

  • AudioGusAudioGus

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

    I don’t concern myself with what the majority’s musical tastes are. Let them listen to crap, I’ll do me.

    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I don’t think artists like Waits concerned themselves with that stuff tho. And even with his esoteric (to many) career he did just fine.

    That was a very different era where labels were looking for artists. Now artists need to be mini corporations and play the algorithm game, be their own marketing department long before any third parties are involved. An indie that should be focusing on self expression, their craft, relationship to the art has to obsess over stats first. One reason why "artists" today are pretty fucking boring and have zero mystique about them. Imagine Tom Waits in their 20s/30s begging for likes and subscribes, worrying about metrics.

  • GavinskiGavinski

    @offbrands said:

    @hes said:

    @Gavinski said:
    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I'm not so sure that "making a living" from music will matter. I still see Universal Basic Income or something like it becoming the norm. I mean, what are people going to do decades down the road when AI and robots are doing all the work, generating wealth, and keeping the economy going? The most likely answer seems to be that people will be working much less, if at all, and will have much more leisure time to do the things they want to do. It's already clear that this is unlikely to be a utopia, but it may be an improvement in some ways. Seems like a lot of people on this forum say they'll want to just want to throw in the towel if AI becomes better than humans at creative endeavors. But I doubt whether that will be their actual reaction when it does happen.

    A lot of ya'll ain't never been homeless, or are forgetting what being homeless feels like, and it shows.

    The powers that be will absolutely let us suffer, never forget that.

    My honorably discharged veteran, highly educated, mother who speaks several different languages suffered through multiple times being homeless, with children. I've suffered through it as a young adult, and had I not had good friends, would have been a reality again in my late 20's.

    I've never had a family member I could call up and get $50 bucks from. I have no family I could ask for a place to stay right now if It came down to it.

    The callousness of capitalism we've seen time and time again should dictate just fine that UBI is not an automatic conclusion.

    Sorry to hear all that. Yeah I've got a feeling that we're headed for a pretty dystopian future, I do hope I'm wrong!

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • AudioGusAudioGus

    @waka_x said:
    this is also a good read on subject:

    "Slopacalypse" Now: AI Is an Unmitigated Disaster for Society

    “AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations,” says Cory Doctorow.

    https://www.realtimetechpocalypse.com/p/the-slopacalypse-is-here-ai-is-an

    ** also the new Cory D's book:
    Enshittification
    https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

    I wouldn't worry about it, solar flare, any day now... just sayin. ;)

  • GavinskiGavinski

    @AudioGus said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @Gavinski said:

    @Squishy said:

    @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed but that’s not the point I was making. > @hes said:

    @Squishy said:
    I like to think of artists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits when considering this Ai stuff. Sure, you could prompt “make a rom waits still song” now and sure it’ll get pretty close, but without his catalog or career before it, these robots never would have got there on their own. Ai is “reactionary” imo, it can mimic but it can’t start from the ground up when it comes to musical creativity like theirs. Sure, the masses “can’t tell the difference” between this pop stuff because it’s the nature of the genre, but the masses don’t even know who Tom waits is (they might know “the waltzing Matilda song” but I’m sure they couldn’t tell you the name of the song haha)

    Edit: I’m leaving the Rom Waits typo, could be a good electronic artist name 🤙

    There are no artists who get there "on their own" or "from the ground up". Everyone is a product of the milieu they live in. Ask any artist for a list of their major influences: you'll get a list. It's impossible that they could be influenced by nothing and nobody in the culture they inhabit. The only way they can create is as a participant in their culture, influenced to varying degrees by everything around them.

    Agreed. Wasn’t the point I was making tho. Sure asking Tommy who his influences are, then plug all those influences into Ai and tell it to make something new and I guarantee it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the magic of Mr Waits. And “magic” is a great word for it; the human ability to be creative and go in new directions isn’t in the skillset of Ai and is the reason I’m not intimidated by Ai music. We will always have the magic, and as long as there are still listeners looking for that magic, we good.

    Nah, because many people have shit taste, are poorly informed, and repeatedly make decisions that are against their own best interests

    I don’t concern myself with what the majority’s musical tastes are. Let them listen to crap, I’ll do me.

    For sure. But the point is that there will be a lot less money and opportunities in the pot for people like Tom Waits to make a full time living from making music.

    I don’t think artists like Waits concerned themselves with that stuff tho. And even with his esoteric (to many) career he did just fine.

    That was a very different era where labels were looking for artists. Now artists need to be mini corporations and play the algorithm game, be their own marketing department long before any third parties are involved. An indie that should be focusing on self expression, their craft, relationship to the art has to obsess over stats first. One reason why "artists" today are pretty fucking boring and have zero mystique about them. Imagine Tom Waits in their 20s/30s begging for likes and subscribes, worrying about metrics.

    Yes trust me, this begging for likes and subs shit sucks balls lol

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • SquishySquishy
    edited October 2025

    .

  • ColoobarColoobar

    There's a group I ran across called Falken Theater. It's a group collaboration project using AI for the root and stems, but then use them as a base and build on and re-record all of the parts with their instruments.

    Also, AI-generated symphonic metal that's really impressive:

This discussion has been closed.