An AI-Generated Country Song Is Topping A Billboard Chart, And That Should Infuriate Us All
An AI-Generated Country Song Is Topping A Billboard Chart, And That Should Infuriate Us All
It's country music, not Mozart, they are all pretty much the same anyway. It's formulaic and works with a group of people who don't want innovation or change.
A dirt road A cold beer A blue jeans A red pickup A rural noun, simple adjective
No shoes No shirt No Jews You didn't hear that Sort of a mental typo
I walk and talk like a field hand But the boots I'm wearing cost three grand I write songs about riding tractors From the comfort of a private jet
I could sing in Mandarin You'd still know I'm pandering Hunting deer, chasing trout A Bud Light with the logo facing out
Hear that subtle mandolin That's textbook pandering I own a private ranch that I rarely use I don't like dirt
[Spoken:] One verse, one chorus in the bag Now it's time to talk to the ladies I am hoping my Southern charm offsets all these rape-y vibes I'm putting out
Good girl In a straw hat With her arms out in a corn field That is a scarecrow Thought it was a human woman, sorry
A cold night A cold beer A cold jeans Strike that last one
I'm wanting you I hope you're feeling me Subtextually
We go to bed, you doze off So I take your country girl clothes off I put my hands on your body It feels like hay, It's a fucking scarecrow again
Like Mike's Evander-ing Fuck your ears, I'm pandering I write songs for the people who do Jobs in the towns that I'd never move to
Legalize gerrymandering Tolerate my pandering You got a beautiful mouth I got a beautiful
You dumb motherfuckers want a key change?
Thematically meandering Emphatically pandering I got a tight grip on my demo's balls Say the word "truck", they jizz in their overalls
You don't know what land you're in I'm in the land of pandering And I'll be upfront I do what I do 'cause I'm a total fucking cunt-ry boy
I'm a Mozart hater and have to say Mozart is also very formulaic. Fuck the classical era of classic music, it's boring as hell
thats a weird take. you have consider things in the time they were written which really pushed the envelope for the 1780s. Im still giving you an upvote cause you specified the classical era of classical music, I think my favorite symphonies were written post 1900
Get back to us in 400 years and see how many students in Conservatories are studying Garth Brooks.
Yeah, it was always gonna be either Country or Christian music that got AI’ed first. Music for morons basically
Its a genre just like most others. They are all very similar thats why they are in the same genre.
Country is about beer, dirt roads and memories.
Rap is about sex and money
Pop is about sex relationships and breakups.
Punk rock is about breakups and depression.
Sure there are outliers but its not like country is the only genre with very similar music.
Metal is about sex, relationships, breakups, depression, addiction, war, religion, politics, freedom, dragons, and dwarves.
I, too, came to these comments to shit on country music.
What’s original about most popular songs. They’re usually lyrically simple with a catchy beat and chorus. Something AI would easily be good at and it could churn out mediocre music easily, and a catchy popular tune wouldn’t be too difficult with interation. Country is no exception.
I don't wanna defend pop music too much but "catchy" is one of those aspects of music that's easy to immediately recognize but extremely hard to pull off. In order to be catchy a melody needs to be both wholly familiar feeling but also juuuuuust different enough to surprise our ears.
I'm not saying a generative AI couldn't ever pull it off if you drained enough lakes to do it, but while it's very good at producing the "familiar" it's very very bad at producing anything "surprising".
Plus you can spam thousands of songs easily, one is bound to be catchy and successful, an outlier on the bell curve.
I'm curious what they will do for live concerts, hire a perfomer or AI all the way with some generated video?
AI's gonna ruin country music. Watch, their trucks are gonna run away, they'll catch their dog cheating and their wives are all broke down.
While I hate AI generated music, art, etc. I consider it funny to see that they are aiming at the lowest hanging fruit where human slop meets AI slop.
So is it beers, trucks, babes, and America, or "I killed that good for nothing sonofabitch husband and I'd do it again"
Almost, it was the man, and his pesky interference with our protagonists freedom. And guns.
I feel like we all know the answer without even reading the article
Well, it was definitely going to be within modern country where it became successful and accepted.
It's been algorithm slop since the late 90's, exactly like boy bands. What's the surprise?
In the end the outcome will always matter.
Look at corporations. They thrive, harm and exploit and all know it and the masses still use their products and services because they are often too good or too monopolistic to not.
The same will be true for AI content. If it's by the masses perceived as good content it will be successful.
And to be fair.... Many human creations that get large traction and fanbases these days are not great quality. The bar to surpass really, really low in many cases.
We humans are simply dumb on average.
I have seen people moved to tears from ai music. To me no matter how good it sounds, I still feel like I’m listening to modem noises. A recent funeral for example, an ai song, written by a thoughtless prompt, filled with bored, tired cliches that could have just as easily been written by a corporate communications department, was the tear filled tribute to my step-mother as she was lowered into the ground.
It was the single most dystopian moment of my life.
Nobody in the world except some tasteless US peasants listens or gives a fuck about moronic country 'music'.
It's all bots
I've been collecting music for a while on my hard drive and AI-generated stuff has been one of my worries. I tend to download a lot of vaporwave from Bandcamp (sometimes full labels at a time) and some of those artists have used AI. I'm sure some unmarked AI slop has sneaked into my collection this way and I don't know which albums/tracks.
An ai generated artist is also topping the R&b charts
I like real music about real experiences and feelings, regardless of genre. For every McArtist there a real artist who does it from the heart. For every mumble rapper there is an Immortal Technique. For every AI country artist there's a Willie Nelson.
It’s probably an improvement to be honest.
I for one look forward to more people recognising slob for what it is, man made or not.
It's long overdue for artists to make something actually artistic.
man made or not.
If there is a silver lining to any of this AI nonsense it's that it just might wake some people up to the fact that they have been fed corporate slop for decades. AI changes nothing except it makes slop faster.
Bo Burnham told us what pop country is, this isn't surprising
brother pop music has been bullshit for decades.
May be bullshit but at least it was made by humans
robotized humans
There has always been bullshit that was popular, but at the same time there were pop artists who made wonderful, interesting music.
I don't know how anyone can't like at least ONE song by The Weeknd.
Country music has been slop long before AI.
When a computer can just toss all your shit in a blender and spit it back out, and it satisfies fans of your genre to this extent, then frankly this is a badly needed wake up call to country music.
It's not though. I don't think many people are arguing it is impossible for a computer to produce "music" that sounds good and is not immediately recognizable as AI generated. Most people are arguing that AI generated music is soulless slop by nature due to the fact it is machine generated.
I don't think many people are arguing it is impossible for a computer to produce "music" that sounds good
I suspect that the poster above you doesn't find AI music to sound good and I don't either. I feel that such a large number of people gravitating to the bland generic sonic droll is indeed an indictment of society. Especially of not valuing music education enough.
This just goes to show how bad country has become.
LOL. As if it was ever good.
Johnny Cash would like a word.
There’s a YouTube channel hosted by a guy that’s been a studio engineer for decades. He can’t tell AI from humans anymore- and it’s not just country.
the last video i watched about this clearly showed the channels blend poorly with ai so is ai production better in the last 3 months or are they doing a manual mix by human hand later?
First we start by using language correctly. It's not a song. It's a stream of audio data which has been algorithmically extruded out of a massive training dataset (which is most likely comprised of stolen content). We then only perceive it to be a song because the audio data as interpreted by our brain is similar to actual songs we've heard.
Billboard, just like every other organization which offers a content platform, should ban generated synthetic data files. They are taking the place of actual art created by actual artists and it's utterly ridiculous.
It's interesting how the music industry is handling AI versus Hollywood... I don't really hear as much backlash from musicians as we do from actors, which is strange. I suppose actors are much higher profile generally and well unionized.
Yeah, the music industry has always been highly exploitative. There was a brief period of awesomeness in the late 90s/early aughts where indie music found real success through the Internet. How times have changed…so much for the worse. 😭
According to another article , the only requirement to reaching that position is selling 3,000 copies. It was basically a PR stunt and it worked, since headlines are gobbling it up and spreading the "artist"'s name all over the place.
Thank you! I made a similar comment elsewhere. This was a chart for sales, and because generative AI can't even be copyrighted there is no reason to purchase it. This has publicity stunt written all over it.
Country music songs, since 2001, have pretty much been as formulaic as any llm could derive. I’m saddened but certainly not surprised.
Most people are fucking idiots. Thats why ai and corps will prevail.
Odd that it's on top of a sales chart when AI music can't be copyrighted, so anyone could just get it for free. It makes me suspect it's presence there might be inauthentic.
AI music can’t be copyrighted
That's true (though it may depend on which country you are in). But if "a human contributes creatively to an AI-generated work, such as by writing lyrics or modifying melodies, that work may be eligible for copyright".
You can guarantee that labels/authors will do enough to make sure they can get copyright.
Country today, actual music next week.
Everything goes to shit. At least the climate is going UP UP UP
Tbh I predicted that a computer would be able to make a hit country song over a decade ago. It's extremely formulaic and the lack of creativity in popular country is almost a point of pride for fans. I'm just kind of surprised it took this long if I'm being honest.
Really? People like the formula?
I guess people like the hallmark channel too so I guess that tracks
I'm ok with AI country because it's a trash trite genre anyway.
First, they came for country, and I said nothing
then they came for western, and I said nothing
I listen to nearly all genres and 99% of what gets released is garbage across all genres. Not sure why people are singling out country.
Not sure why people are singling out country.
LOL
That's ... kinda pathetic for the industry, though not surprising for a genre that lost it's heart ages ago.
Someone pointed out to me a while back the main draw of human made art is the effort put in and the genuine connection people make with the artist. When you actually engage with the art, it's provocative and emotional and has that connection. Slop can't do that. It's like empty calories for the soul.
But that argument falls apart for commercial endeavors --- plenty of human made slop also exists and while it may look pretty (or in this case, sound pretty), the artistry is lacking. It's made to top charts, not build a connection. You lack the artist's emotions, creativity, the imperfections that make it genuine, even the backstory behind the piece, etc. All that is art.
County (and other commercial pop) has lacked that for ages. There are genuine artists out there, but marketing and promotional strategies tend to drown them out with slop. No surprise that side is getting the AI overhaul.
A lot of people will happily consume anything if they enjoy it even a bit and it doesn't take any effort to digest. Doesn't need to be good nor offer meaning or anything, if it's just easy and pleasurable enough to make passing time a little more bearable. Empty calories for the soul is a good way to put it, but to a lot of people that's still plenty enough. Engaging with art requires at least some effort. Mentally, emotionally, sometimes physically...
But that's why my analogy works; imagine if all you ever got to eat was potato chips. You'd survive, at least you a little bit, but your quality of life would be abysmal. On occasion they might not be too bad but in excess, or exclusively, you'd die young. Yes, it does take effort to consume something better, especially in a society incentivized to continue feeding you empty calories, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try getting a fresh vegetable in your system.
The song in question?
(No, not really)
This is the same guy behind both songs though right?
Yep. This is the end of human culture.
Not only is it ai, its country. Honesty, coming from a heavy country family and town... I don't get the appeal one bit.
I say while sipping tea and listening to King Stephen.
I mean country music can be made by a donkey anyway. Only the old country is good
It looks like pretty much every one of the commenters agree that if a machine can replace your art, you fucking deserve to be replaced. It's been a long, long time coming for popular country music.
Song billboard charts still exist?
During summer, in Hungary the top listened Spotify track was an AI song with the title "I stuck a sausage in my ass".
I listened to their tracks, musically they are all decent, actually I liked them better than most pop songs. The lyrics is something like a parody punk band, it could have been an underground hit if played live. Composition is the weak part, some songs are unnecessarily long just repeating the same line, some too short, some using an opera style for whatever reason.
As a bottom line, AI already brings a decent average level in music especially if no lyrics is involved.
Why is this site cancer? I keep getting errors and it forces a reload.
Not just that but lately a lot of songs from different genres. Of course they're starting to fill something like Spotify.
Just like Elsagate "color" videos.
Not surprising. Capitalism wants money. Most people don't care about things like "Art" or "long term".
I mean if it is good for what it is, then why not
People who listen to country music aren't exactly discerning.