Artificial Intelligence is pretty crazy. Just a couple of years ago AI videos looked very rough. Nowadays, it can be hard to tell between AI and real videos. Large companies like Coca-Cola are even using AI video to advertise. One of the other things coming from AI has been music. “Heart on My Sleeve” (alt) was a viral song supposedly created by Drake featuring the Weeknd, however, it had been created by AI.
I decided to try my hand at making some AI generated music. On my first try, I just switched out the voice, essentially making it an AI cover. Here are the two songs, one is the original, and the other is the AI cover. See if you can guess which one is the AI cover.
Option 1 Option 2
If you guessed the first one is AI, you would be correct. I replaced the original voice, Joni Mitchell, with AI Taylor Swift. What I noticed is how it doesn’t sound exactly like Swift, but more like Mitchell doing a really good Taylor Swift impression. Mitchell’s voice is fuller than Swift’s, but Swift has more range. It cuts through the instrumentation, and this bleeds into the AI version of Swift.
On my second try, I tasked AI with replicating a Jack White garage rock revival song.
Option 1 Option 2
If you thought the first one was AI, you would be wrong. The AI really had trouble creating White’s voice. For unique vocal styles like Jack White, Bob Dylan, and Bono, the AI can’t seem to replicate that thing in their voice that sets them apart.
Next, we are going to turn it up a notch and try AI generation of a song in the style of MF Doom.
Option 1 Option 2
If you guessed the first, you are correct. This one scares me. The AI sounds so much like MF Doom, I might not be able to tell the difference. The AI song kind of loses the sound during the chorus, but it is still incredible.
While AI music is easy and cool to make, it has its downsides. For example, Spotify has leaned into putting AI generated music on their platform. This is not surprising considering you don’t have to pay AI nearly as much as real artists, and Spotify is always looking for ways to cut costs to optimize profits. Many generic playlists on Spotify, often titled “Chill Relaxing Vibes” or “Mellow LoFi Beats,” are now composed of AI music. This is largely bad for artists, because they are being replaced with cheaper workers so to speak. AI also doesn’t credit the material it uses. It doesn’t create out of nothing. AI is trained on a dataset of songs and uses those to create something “original.” In the case of human made songs, songwriters are credited even if they weren’t directly involved in the performance of the music (interpolation), and they are paid for their contribution to the song. Often AI spits out vocals that sound a lot like popular artists without giving credit. This is not fair, since Spotify and the AI are profiting off of a person’s likeness or work. In the end, people will listen to things they like, and if they like AI music better, that is what Spotify will favor and put out there.
