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Comment by stickfigure | Hacker News Reader

Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

I walked into a paint store recently and there was some interesting music playing on the PA. It was some sort of spanish-language 80s new wave I'd never heard before. It had a nice groove. I asked the guy at the counter about it and was surprised to find out it was AI.

So... was it as good as great music? No. But it beat the hell out of muzak. And it was genuinely novel in a way that pop music isn't. I will sacrifice a lot of pride for novelty.

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Seems weird to contrast AI music with auto-tuned music. Most of the AI music I've heard has been tuned perfectly. And I don't generally have a problem with music being in tune.

For my part, I mostly dislike AI music. But if there was to be some AI music that I didn't already dislike for its content, then I would dislike it specifically for being AI. Call me close-minded if you will. Some people don't really like music at all. In general, I love music.

Angine de Poitrine

What about it? Microtonal music can be perfectly in tune. Further, when people talk about auto-tune, they're normally talking about vocals, notably absent from Angine de Poitrine.

okay but the only choices are not "an AI simulation of music" and muzak. Actual music exists.

> Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

> And it was genuinely novel in a way that pop music isn't. I will sacrifice a lot of pride for novelty.

For one thing, "interesting" and "novel" are not particularly the point of art. An infinite TikTok feed of AI slop is in some sense infinitely interesting and novel.

But also, those concepts are subjective. Pop music has a ton of evolution and innovation if you break it down. Sure, not every hit is doing something clever, but plenty of them are. You might not find those features to be interesting but it takes ingenuity to stand out in an era where the barrier to entry is so low.

AI music is far less interesting than anything any person could create. Even if it's acoustically interesting, it's hollow and pointless because it contains no human expression.

AI music is a complete waste of compute. It exists only to further enrich an already wealthy stakeholder, and we should all be ashamed to have ended up in a place where it even exists.

It contains plenty human expression. It's ultimately made by people.

And I think it can be uniquely fun, because it allows for the very rare combination of truly off-beat ideas with excellent execution.

In real life, it very rarely happens that somebody will spend a lifetime learning, gather a band, and then record something extremely off-beat. Because there are risks to that. Destroying your image, having to find people that are on the same wavelength, having to justify the time and money it costs to record something weird and not marketable.

Sure, people make weird stuff once in a while, but very rarely, and generally it takes unique individuals that find some particular weird niche to work in, like Weird Al or Max Raabe. And even then they tend to pick something relatively tame and marketable and stick to that.

But AI can bypass all that, and that makes things interesting.

> In real life, it very rarely happens that somebody will spend a lifetime learning, gather a band, and then record something extremely off-beat.

My jaw literally dropped. Do you really believe this?

I think you just don't spend much time around people who love music.

It makes sense that someone like you would like AI music, I guess. You are clueless.

> My jaw literally dropped. Do you really believe this?

Sure. It happens in every field. When you invest a lot into something, it becomes risky or unprofitable to do some things.

Tech often drives things in the opposite direction. As it gets easier/cheaper/faster to create something, doing something odd and risky becomes easier to justify because there's less invested into it and there's fewer people whose cooperation is needed.

I'm not saying nobody does anything risky traditionally of course. But there's barriers to it, which become lesser once tech trivializes a good part of the process.

> It makes sense that someone like you would like AI music, I guess. You are clueless.

I like music in general, and am fairly indifferent as to how the goose is cooked. I listen to almost everything. There's no reason to exclude AI music. If it sounds good, it's good.

Awfully bold (and tech brained) claims about musicians for someone who couldn't care less how music is made.

What claims about musicians? The only claim I saw is that it's relatively rare to observe musicians doing the musician thing, and I think that's quite accurate because IMX musicians (in the sense that we mean for the current purposes) are rare individuals.

> In real life, it very rarely happens that somebody will spend a lifetime learning, gather a band, and then record something extremely off-beat. Because there are risks to that. Destroying your image, having to find people that are on the same wavelength, having to justify the time and money it costs to record something weird and not marketable.

> Sure, people make weird stuff once in a while, but very rarely, [...] and even then they tend to pick something relatively tame and marketable and stick to that.

> But AI can bypass all that, and that makes things interesting.

> Very few people genuinely "love music" in the way that you have in mind.

Those claims. They clearly come from a tech person’s surface level understanding of the music industry, which is a tiny fraction of all music and not representative of why people make it or what they enjoy. "Very few people genuinely love music" says it all. Have some self awareness. You're describing nothing but your own narrow perspective.

Let me try to steelman the parent's argument.

There are a finite number of musicians in the world. Most of them are working on music that either 1) appeals to them, specifically, or 2) appeals to enough of an audience that they can eek out a living. And chances are, if you're hearing it in public, you're getting #2.

I want music that appeals to me. My tastes are broad but not infinite, and I've already thoroughly plumbed the depths of my favorite genres - many of which are largely ignored by modern musicians (see #2 above). AI offers a way of getting new music for neglected or underdeveloped genres. Spanish language 80s new wave combined with reggae? Why not?

I listen to a lot of music across many disparate genres. I even play music (for fun). I have also enjoyed some AI generated music. It's not either/or, I can listen to both.

No, it has nothing to do with the music industry. If it were false that very few people genuinely love music in the way that leads to "spending a lifetime learning, gathering a band and then recording something extremely off-beat" then by now I would have met some people who did that. And it would be easier to find people who primarily listen to stuff that isn't mass-produced.

> I think you just don't spend much time around people who love music.

This doesn't contradict GP at all. Very few people genuinely "love music" in the way that you have in mind.

You need to listen more than the Top 10 charts my dude. The fact that you use Weird Al as an example of experimental musician says it all about your depth of knowledge.

In the 1980s, Weird Al was definitely experimental. Your comment just shows how young you are.

You're still showing how ignorant you are. Even in 1980, Weird Al was pretty vanilla. The spectrum of music is wide, and it would do you good to go and explore it (and while you're at it, try making some!).

Making blind (and wrong) assumptions about people here is also a sign of immaturity.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself:

> Your comment just shows how young you are.

The vast majority of music is made with no regards to marketability, it's just people doing whatever they personally like. An incredibly small amount of artists have any sort of "image", that necessitates being popular already.

And often the weirdest artists are also the most prolific because they tend to like experimenting for experimenting's sake.

> Even if it's acoustically interesting, it's hollow and pointless because it contains no human expression.

Most of the "top 40" consistently comes across the same way to me (and pretty much always has), so.

> Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

You're right, this sure was a controversial take.

Anyway, surely this dichotomy only matters if your only choices are "AI generated music" and "autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music"". However, there is a bunch of good music outside of the "pop music" zone, which isn't AI generated, so why not go with some of that instead? Nobody is forcing you to listen to pop music.

I do go with that? 99% of the time I listen to human music. My main complaint is that humans aren't making music that I like fast enough. What's wrong with listening to AI music too?

> AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

My experience has been that AI music mostly is that.

I checked out from pop music roughly 30 years ago, when I moved out of my parents house. There is literally NOTHING that interests me in the pop music charts.

>Controversial take: AI music is more interesting than the autotuned, quantized, mass-market-optimized slop that dominates contemporary pop "music".

Controversial take: AI shows that people simply don't give a shit and just confirms that mass culture is a mistake and the death of everything that is good and sacred.

>Controversial take: AI shows that people simply don't give a shit and just confirms that mass culture is a mistake and the death of everything that is good and sacred.

Controversial take: For ages, it's been clear that most people have never given a shit, it just took AI for most to realize it.

>80s new wave

>it was genuinely novel

Look, I don't know the song so I can't say how novel it is, but to me, it completely misses the point if its made by a music generation model. The point of music is not to make a bunch of novel sounds. Music is a means by which a human can express themselves, the whole _point_ of art is human expression.

Just because its not art doesn't mean its not funny or interesting to listen to.

Bird's aren't making art when they sing, I still like listening to birds. Why can't the sounds AI make be in the same category.

Well, anybody can enjoy anything. But I personally would say birdsong is of infinitely higher value than genAI music.

Art is subjective. It sounds like AI music did evoke an emotional response from OP, which IMO is also just as important of what we define as the purpose of art: evoking emotion and awe from consuming art. A connection is being made from the creator to the consumer. I view AI as merely another tool to that means.

Human expression with art can go both ways from producing and experiencing.

Discussions about music always boil down to “stop liking what I don’t like!”.

What I'm saying is what they like isn't music. People can also just have bad taste, we don't need to pretend that everyone's tastes are equally valid.

try Jazz, infinitely more interesting than anything Ai could make

I saw a live band last week (daft punk meets prince), they wrote a song about Ai and used an auto tuner for it

1. Find some truism, like that corners pop culture are trash

2. Call it slop

3. Claim victory

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