GenAI killed music discovery for me. How are folks discovering HUMAN music in the modern era?
GenAI killed music discovery for me. How are folks discovering HUMAN music in the modern era?
So first off, let me set this straight.
I actually like GenAI music. It offers me a way to er... "create" tracks that resonate with a particular moment in my life. It's more personal and relevant than anything most artists produce. But that's where it ends - I don't want to hear GenAI mass market slop. Heck, I don't want to hear MOST folk's AI Generated stuff. That's for them. The music I generate is for me.
Moving on from that - I primarily use Spotify currently for music discovery, and up until a few months ago it's been the most reliable way to find new Artists that might interest me. Their algorithm, while not perfect, generally hooked me up with artists that were in the ballpark of what I like and were REAL.
Today, about half of my "Release Radar" is AI generated slop. Some of it is published under their own names and labels which is fine, but others are transparently attempting to dupe listeners by imitating or outright impersonating known bands. However, even in the "nice" case of well labeled and non-impersonating AI tunes, it's significantly getting in the way of finding new stuff.
I think I'm done with Spotify, recent statements from the CEO has me thinking that they don't consider this to be a problem. They aren't looking to fix this issue, and aren't even pretending to.
But the problem is, none of the other music streaming services are in a better situation. None have sought to deal with the artist impersonation problem or general labeling of AI generated music.
I feel like I have to go back to CD's and word-of-mouth like back in the "old days" - at least if I'm to be sure that the music was actually made by a human. But how long would it be before we start getting CD's with AI generated music on them? My hope is that the fad is too "low effort" to bother with pressing vinyl or burning CD's.
How are you discovering new (human) music in this rapidly changing landscape?
I’m curious what kind of music you listen to that the platforms keep recommending AI-generated music. I don’t think I’ve ever been recommended AI music (yet) on spotify or youtube.
But to answer your question, sometimes I search a specific genre I want on youtube music and check out the community playlists. I listen to them until I hear something good, then I check out the artist from there.
I wondered the same thing actually.
After some googling I saw two trends emerge so far that impacted me.
- A general proliferation of lower-effort Electronic music (particularly Lo-Fi and *wave genres) that are harder to distinguish from their human-made counterparts.
- A wave of metalcore impersonation with AI just a couple weeks ago.
The metalcore one hit me hard as I just got into the genre and don't yet have enough familiarity to find the generated stuff uncanny.
Basically that's why it's music discovery that's impacted - not listening to already established bands.
As an example of this, one of my favorite bands is VAST (Jon Crosby) but he's pretty inactive and doesn't report songs that have been mistakenly added to his artist profile. I know this artist so well that I can tell within seconds if it's actually him or not. So this AI problem is much more manageable for bands I already know and love.
Discovering new music however, has become a terrible experience full of disappointment and confusion.
How are fake artists able to add songs to real artists profile? I'd assume it would be impossible for me to make a fake The Weeknd song and add it to Spotify?
As for new artists that get recommended, a quick search should be able to make it clear if an artist is a real person / group no? With tour dates or pictures and stuff?
For discovery, check out https://rateyourmusic.com/! You can rate music and then use automated suggestions, or better yet, go on albums you like and check out profiles of people that made reviews that resonate with you for other stuff they like. It's old-school, based on humans! You can look into charts by genres as well.
Instead of collecting a physical music library, you can consider DRM-free digital as well. You can buy albums in such formats at Bandcamp, Qobuz, 7digital. Of course you can sail the high seas as well once in a while. Personally I'm proud to support artists, but I have much less scruples concerning copyright over music made by musicians that have passed away.
Bandcamp, Qobuz, 7digital
Yup, I do that where possible now. Usually only for albums though.
I also buy a lot of band merch these days and try to go when they play locally.
I only take to the high seas in the event I can't find a particular hifi release or something equally niche and eBay is no help.
CD's have a nostalgia appeal to it for me, and since I'm finally financially stable I've been wanting to get back into collecting physical media. It's just hard because not many new bands bother with physical media at all anymore. At least outside of limited run releases.
As an aside, I don't get the resurgence of tape players at all! Tape being lower fidelity coupled with the shorter lifespan was something I thought people disliked.
UPDATE:
RYM is awesome. Thank you!
I suggest you check out the feeds on Bandcamp. I find a lot of great new music that way. If you like comedy, lots of comedy shows have musical guests. Late Stage Live for example has great musical guests that may be new to you.
Generally speaking, corpos like Spotify are more interested in paying Joe Rogan than helping you find quality music.
feeds on Bandcamp.
I have a Bandcamp account, but weren't they acquired and sorta lost their souls as well? I'll go check it out again and see what's there!
They were bought and sold by Epic Games. I've been buying albums off there since I left Spotify after Joe Rogan joined it. I haven't noticed a difference in that aspect since all of their fuckery.
Yes that's somewhat true but it has mostly translated to less programming generally and especially fewer "bandcamp fridays"
the feeds are still pretty good and you can see what indie music people are actually buying
YouTube music is good enough
Been getting most of my new stuff via youtube recommendations, not of music but music videos. Then if I like it I track them down elsewhere and listen to more tracks
Netlabels, music magazines, curators such as https://www.etherdiver.com/category/other-peoples-music/ mastodon hashtags and groups, lemmy groups...
Looks like this is about to go away. 😢
EDIT: Looking at the persons thread as to why they are shutting down is... odd? Like, okay dude, you aint handing this over to anyone and nuking it - being an ass about it doesn't help. And I say that not as a random internet denizen, but someone who supports multiple websites including tucson.social. I know there will be a day to dim the lights or pass the torch, but I'd never play up being the victim quite like this creator has.
Read their blogposts, including the older ones, before you judge. The person has recieved a loooot of harrasement behind the scenes, so I would ask you to not say mean things that contribute to it. The station is still live and has a great directory available of hand curated fediverse artists. The ethos of ethical music discovery will be continued, one way or another, by the community, even after the station closes down.