AI already has a significant role in the music industry. It can spot various patterns and trends in vast amounts of data that humans aren’t able to see. This allows artists and creators to know which songs to promote and when to promote them to have the best visibility. This is great for social media users trying to get their product out to the masses who wouldn’t know how or when to do it. AI can even predict if a song will have commercial success or not and analyze audience sentiment.
AI can also mix and master music. Online music software LANDR, which stands for “left and right”, can master a full, release-ready track, matching the industry loudness levels for streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. It uses advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques to analyze and enhance the quality of audio tracks. [...]
AI also impacts composition and songwriting. It can generate original compositions, melodies and lyrics based on existing music data. The AI will analyze existing music and attempt to replicate a new piece with the same or similar elements it’s been given. Continue reading from Recording Arts Canada
Many feel that AI in the music industry will open up many new avenues in music production including a “golden era of creativity” as the AI will be able to combine sounds and genres in ways that was unthought of before. This would allow artists to produce music that goes beyond known genres and reach an entirely new level of personalization. Claire. L. Evans from the band YACHTs says that “AI forced us to come up against patterns that have no relationship to comfort. It gave us the skills to break out of our own habits,” inspiringly the use of AI in YACHTs music got them their very first Grammy nomination for best immersive album!.
On the other hand, the legality around AI produced music is truly obscure. Whether the creator of the algorithm, the AI itself, or the owner of the music that the AI was trained on is the owner of the piece created by the AI continues to create a lot of ambiguity as to how AI will be used going forward. Policy counsel Meredith Rose states “There’s nothing legally requiring you to give the artist any profits from it unless you’re directly sampling,” So what would this mean for established and upcoming artists trying to make their way through the industry? Would this hinder their creative processes? AI could be used to create the next hit pop song by using old popular songs as data and creating a similar composition, thus being able to replace actual artists. Moreover, other issues that may arise include marketing songs as being similar to songs of an artist in order to get more traction. This may result in artists having a difficult time proving that a song is meant to sound like theirs. Unless they know exactly what the AI was trained on, it would be difficult to work backwards as it is very hard to extrapolate the original data that was given to the AI. Continue reading from the University of Waterloo
AI Music Generators (The Westport Library)
Generative AI is Revolutionizing Music (Forbes)
AI in the Music Industry (Financial Times)
The Beatles Release Their Last New Song Thanks to AI and Archival Recordings (CBS News)
What are Students Saying About A.I.-Generated Music? (The New York Times)
When You Realize Your Favorite New Song was Written and Performed by...AI (NPR)
