on convenience

that was easy!

I’m thankful for technology. The internet has fueled my passion and, quite literally, pays my bills. Yet, for the last decade, I find myself returning to the same question.

is everything supposed to be so easy? what do we lose with convenience?

music production & songwriting

Equally applicable to what’s currently happening with the WGA strikes, the music industry has begun asking if songwriters and producers (who lack the protection of a union) can be replaced with Generative AI. The answer appears to range from “it’s just another tool” to a flat-out yes. What’s so bad about things being easier anyways?

“commodification of the human spirit”

We’ve been moving in this direction forever - from analog to digital, from live instruments to MIDIs & samples, from beat-matching to the Sync button, from record crates to USBs. Most synths can already play themselves and there’s plenty of auto-mixing DJ apps. Is GenAI just an extension of that progress or is it something else?

Regardless, there is a deeper philosophical question here that Nick Cave captures really nicely in his Red Hand Files newsletter, when asked about GenAI songwriting:

ChatGPT rejects any notions of creative struggle, that our endeavors animate and nurture our lives giving them depth and meaning. It rejects that there is a collective, essential and unconscious human spirit underpinning our existence, connecting us all through our mutual striving.

ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary.  

So let’s say GenAI can create a good, marketable, streamable song from scratch. Isn’t that besides the point? Who cares? Why do people make art? Does art need to be made quickly and efficiently? Is it just a product (or content) to be sold (or streamed*)?

(feat. GenAI)

Nick Cave’s sentiment, although romantic and eloquent, represents probably the most pessimistic view of GenAI’s involvement in the creative process. This video of Lupe Fiasco working with TextFX to write a song shows that it can serve as a collaborator, in the same way that a sample or even a VST (aka virtual instruments) might.

I’ve always been peeved when people critique music based on how it was made. The “I could make this!” crowd (but you didn’t!). After all, your relationship with music has to do with how it makes you feel. If it moves you, who cares how it was made?

That being said, there’s a certain magic to music intrinsically tied to the human(s) behind it. Will we see producers employing GenAI in ways as awe-inspiring as J Dilla or Burial’s use of samples, drum machines and production software? It seems possible, if not likely.

But, if GenAI becomes fully autonomous, that magic risks becoming simply a magic trick.

Imagine a music streaming service that creates its own content (music) using GenAI based off of viewer behavior and preferences to maximize user retention. Not too different with what Netflix has done with its constant stream of trashy, yet addictive, TV. Artists, listeners and music itself deserve better…

“the tide of amateurism”

In David Byrne’s How Music Works, he makes an interesting observation about how the advent of recorded music impacted amateur musicianship:

In the modern age, people have come to feel that art and music are the production of individual effort rather than something that emerges from a community…

The rise of commercially made recordings accelerated a huge shift in attitudes. Their promulgation meant that the more cosmopolitan music of folks who lived in big cities, and even the professional musicians in far-off countries, could now be heard everywhere. Amateurs and local music makers must have been somewhat intimidated…

Prior to recorded music, if common folk wanted to hear music, they either had to play it themself or go to a communal space (church, pub etc.) to hear it. As music became a commodity, music of the ‘hood became competition…

The first record players could record as well as play, so for a short while every amateur had the possibility of becoming a recording artist…But fairly soon, companies realized that more money could be made if the flow of music was one-way, so the recording feature was eliminated…

It can often seem that those in power don’t want us to enjoy making things for ourselves—they’d prefer to establish a cultural hierarchy that devalues our amateur efforts and encourages consumption rather than creation…

Is it really possible that the way technology changed how we receive music wasn’t entirely a good thing for creative individuals, or for us generally as a culture?

Byrne goes on to quote (and pokes fun at) an excoriating 1906 essay from John Philip Sousa titled “The Menace of Mechanical Music”

When music can be heard in the homes without the labor or study and close application, and without the slow process of acquiring technic, it will be simply a question of time when the amateur disappears entirely. The tide of amateurism cannot but recede, until there will be left only the mechanical device and the professional executants. Then what of the national throat? Will it not weaken?

Sousa’s passion is admirable and he’s not entirely wrong. However, technology has already begun to solve the problem Sousa purports it created. It is easier than ever to create music and there are entire genres / aesthetics defined by their amateurism and imperfection. The “national throat” is very much in tact!

By making creation even more accessible, could GenAI help unlock creative potential in people who may otherwise not engage with music creation? Will it fuel the next wave of bedroom producers, rappers and singer-songwriters?

music discovery

While I don’t make music, I do spend a lot of time looking for it. I’ll admit - I’m biased. Ever since Spotify playlists practically wiped us music bloggers out, I’ve been a hater. So much so that I’ve never paid for or used Spotify in my life. I’ll admit to some YouTube rabbit holes but that’s the extent of my use of lean-back algorithmic music discovery.

“passivity and smooth homogeneity”

To be clear, I acknowledge the upside of the DSPs (Spotify, Apple Music etc.). Streaming services have helped so many artists reach a broader audience and made it easier for the casual listener to expand their library. They have also helped bridge genre, geographical and language divides making for a more global music scene than ever. However, the passivity of algorithmic discovery can diminish the adventure of finding new music and the subsequent personal connection it creates.

In a recent newsletter from record label / artist mgmt company Godmode, the writer Will Gottsegen puts it more eloquently than I could:

Finding new music has always been a form of work (it’s easier to stick to what you already like), but in trying to extract that work from the process of discovery, streaming platforms have created a new kind of listening experience: one more defined by passivity and smooth homogeneity, with less of the surprises you might expect from any human-made mixtape.

For me, though, constantly encountering these recommendations has amounted to a kind of fatigue. It goes beyond Smart Shuffle: products like Discover Weekly, a continuously updated playlist of “new music and deep cuts picked for you” first introduced in 2015, are meant to keep you listening, and thereby generating revenue for a company that, 17 years after its founding, has yet to turn a profit. But they can also have the effect of keeping you complacent.

that song from TikTok…

The rise in short-form video platforms (aka TikTok) as a primary source of music discovery has taken this a step further. Not only is music quite literally pushed to the background but fans are not even being exposed to full songs, let alone the artists behind them.

That’s not to say there aren’t some cool TikTokers — curators who go out of their way to provide education, DJs who build a following with creative blends and artists showing off their musical talents. Plenty of music that goes viral on TikTok is legitimately good. It has also introduced younger generations to catalog music they may have never otherwise come across. I swear I’m not just hating on the next generation of music fans. I have full faith in the kids. They’re still making, finding and supporting dope music.

Nonetheless, discovery devoid of context has created a new low bar for music fandom. Fans don’t know the names of the songs, let alone the artists behind them, making it harder for those artists to capitalize on viral moments. The ways people consume and discover music has direct implications for how people approach making music — see the ever-growing number of lazy “reinterpretations” of classic songs that have made their way onto the Billboard charts in the last couple years. But that’s a topic for another time.

the process

As someone who grew up with a less organized version of the Internet, I’ve fallen in love with the manual dig. Checking out my favorite music publications / newsletters, following artists & labels on Twitter/IG/SoundCloud, Shazam-ing while listening to community radio & DJ sets (either at the clerb or online), scouring Bandcamp’s editorial recs, stalking my favorite DJs’ Bandcamp collections (here’s mine!) and browsing buymusicclub lists. I even miss the chaos of the Limewire days - when downloads were like a box of chocolates cuz you never knew what you were gunna get.

Admittedly there are algorithmic elements to many of these methods but there’s something more personal about the point of discovery. Either because the recommendation is hand-picked by another human or it feels that you are truly discovering something yourself.

I’m certainly not arguing against the concept of using technology to organize information. Rather, I’m making the case for the “form of work” Gottsegen refers to: engaging in a process that takes some effort and submitting to a healthy dose of chaos. By putting in that extra time, music fans can pick up the context and pull on threads to learn about a new artist, label, or genre along the way.

What’s so bad about a little work? What’s the reward when there’s no risk? How much is passive consumption diminishing the nourishment music has to offer?

I believe there’s an appetite to bring active music discovery (and listening) back. Who wants to come over and play some slaps??

“generational elasticity”

Art, culture, technology and economics are in constant conversation. Hip-hop, the most essential American cultural innovation, epitomizes this better than anything. I’m just old enough to remember the tail-end of the now-preposterous “is hip-hop even music?” debates. Some of the arguments against hip-hop’s validity were eerily similar to those against new tools for music creation (others were just racist).

As music fans, we are all a product of what we were listening to during our formative years, and transitively, how we were finding it. I’m sure someone who grew up going to record stores would argue convincingly that the way I go about music discovery is far less fulfilling.

We do, in fact, lose something with each incremental convenience we gain. There will always be lazy applications of technology and thoughtful ones. But the “collective, essential and unconscious human spirit,” which Nick Cave speaks of, tends to find a way to prevail.

I’m not denying the very real threats that creativity (and creatives) face as we move forward and, more broadly, the nefarious way corporations, politicians and algorithms are impacting our society. Despite these looming forces, we do still have the choice to take time and care in our creative practices, even if it means occasionally forgoing some convenience.

If you truly love music, the rewards for remaining open not only to new music but new ways of finding it are immense. In a recent conversation with someone much wiser than me, I learned the term “generational elasticity.” In context it was used to described what it requires to have longevity in music. Broadening it’s meaning, though, it becomes a muscle and a practice within itself. I’m (clearly) working on it!