The era of AI music is upon us. Over the weekend, a song featuring AI-generated vocals from Drake and the Weeknd went viral and then was pulled from streaming services by Universal Music Group, who condemned the track as “infringing content created with generative AI.” New Drake AI songs are already popping up, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to music created by artificial intelligence.
This past week, a project known as AISIS made the rounds online. It was billed as “an alternate reality concept album where the band’s 95-97 line-up continued to write music, or perhaps all got together years later to write a record akin to the first 3 albums, and only now has the master DAT tape from that session surfaced.”
The Lost Tapes / Vol. 1 was not completely generated by AI — its instrumentation and lyrics were created by a UK band called Breezer, who make music that sounds a bit like Oasis, but they used generative AI to mimic the voice of Liam Gallagher to make these sound like real long-lost Oasis songs.
In an interview with The Guardian, Breezer leader Bobby Geraghty talked about the process behind making AI songs: “AI is still very much controlled by the user. You need to feed it exactly what it needs to replicate,” he said. “I don’t think it’s at the point where AI could write a song. Although, having said that, a lot of people have asked if the music was AI generated, which it’s not.”
Liam Gallagher, patron saint of Twitter, weighed in on AISIS when asked about it during a recent spat of replies. “Not the album heard a tune it’s better than all the other snizzle out there,” he said in response to one that asked if he listened to it. “Mad as fuck I sound mega,” he said to another one — a compliment in Liam-speak.
While Liam is pro-AI, he’s anti-Coachella, even though Oasis played the festival back in 2002. “Pathetic festival,” he wrote when asked if he would replace Frank Ocean for weekend 2. “Never wouldn’t catch me at an establishment like that.”
Behold, AISIS:
