AI hits the music industry
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 18 July 2023
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Note: We want to be clear that this episode does include material that has been generated by Financial Times journalists using AI tools...we've done it to illustrate just how much AI is influencing the music industry.
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AI has arrived in the music world, and the industry is being forced to wrangle with it. The technology is now sophisticated enough to create entirely new deepfake songs. This year, millions of fake covers, and songs that clone the voices of musical artists, have appeared online. The FT’s pop critic Ludo Hunter-Tilney has fallen down a wormhole to make sense of how these programs work. He actually made a song of his own, an original fake song in the style of Tom Waits. He plays it for us, and it’s pretty bad.
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We love hearing from you! You can email us at [email protected]. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.
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Links:
– Ludo’s piece for FT Life and Arts: Can AI make me a musical star? https://on.ft.com/3XRMnoZ
– Ludo is on Twitter @ludohunter
– Anna Nicolaou on why Spotify has ejected thousands of AI-made songs: https://on.ft.com/3rvSqnq
– One of Ludo’s recent stories – a review of Glastonbury festival: https://on.ft.com/3rvSq6U
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Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.
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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.
Songs played: “Downtown Train” written by Tom Waits, published by Island Records. “Gritty Troubador’s Backstreet”, written by chatGPT, Ludo Hunter-Tilney, Voicify.ai and Boomy.
Songs referenced: “Dancing Queen” written by Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson, published by Stockholm Records and MCA/Universal. “Ni**as in Paris” written by Kanye West, Shawn Carter, John Altschuler, Dave Krinsky, Jeff Cox and Dave Cox, published by Roc-A-Fella, Roc Nation and Def Jam. “A Thousand Miles” written by Vanessa Carlton, produced by Ron Fair and Curtis Schweizer, published by A&M.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, listeners. A quick correction before we start the show. Last week, we ran a rerun about women's spies. |
| 0:07.1 | And in the intro, we said that Britain recently appointed one of the women in the story to director of GCHQ. |
| 0:13.5 | That was wrong. Britain did recently appoint the first woman director of GCHQ, but it wasn't one of the women interviewed for the story. |
| 0:22.2 | Also a note on this episode, which is about AI and music, we want to be clear that it does |
| 0:27.2 | include material that's been generated by FT journalists using AI tools. We've done it to illustrate |
| 0:33.1 | just how much AI is influencing the music industry. Okay, on with the show. |
| 0:42.0 | The legendary musician Tom Waits has always been known for this growling voice |
| 0:47.2 | and for songs that tell stories. |
| 0:50.3 | He's one of those musicians that other musicians idolize |
| 0:53.6 | because he's gritty and experimental |
| 0:56.3 | and hard to pin down. |
| 0:58.7 | To get a sense, here's a beat from his song Downtown Train. Every night Every night is just the same |
| 1:13.0 | Recently, our pop music critic here at the FT, Ludo Hunter Tillney, did something very un-Tom whites. |
| 1:21.6 | He got him to sing Abba. |
| 1:25.0 | Ninety-nine and the nights alone. Looking a far face to go. You may be able to sleep by the night's You may be wondering, did Ludo call Tom Waits and convince him to sing Dancing Queen by Abba? |
| 1:49.6 | He did not. |
| 1:51.1 | What Ludo did was use an AI algorithm to create a voice that sounded like Tom Waits singing Abba. |
| 1:58.2 | I mean, it sounded wobbly at beginning, but then suddenly the voice clicked in, it clicked |
| 2:01.8 | in as the, as, as, as, as Abba really got into their stride. Waits and Abba for a brief, |
| 2:07.7 | but deliriously exciting moment where as one in harmony. AI technology is now sophisticated enough |
| 2:14.0 | that you can use a series of different programs to make up an entire deep fake song. |
| 2:19.3 | And that means that the music industry is actively trying to figure out what that means as we speak. |
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