What Next: TBD | Here Comes the A.I. Music Slop

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s hard to make money in the music industry. But if you could flood every streamer with hundreds of “original” songs without having to, you know, write or produce it yourself, there’s money there—and less for everyone else. Guests: Chris Molanphy, host of Slate’s Hit Parade podcast. Kate Knibbs, senior writer at Wired Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick heads up before we get started, this episode contains adult language and some inappropriate
0:06.0	and unfortunately extremely catchy songs.
0:10.4	All right, you've been warned.
0:16.4	Why don't you introduce yourself so that TBD listeners know who you are?
0:21.3	Hi, my name is Chris Malanfi, and I'm the host of the Slate Podcast Hit Parade and the writer of their Why is this song number one series.
0:30.1	Chris is also a very good sport because he did not know what we were up to.
0:36.2	I asked you on today because we want to play some music for you and get your opinion on it.
0:44.3	Okay.
0:45.1	Let's start, uh, guys, with the first cut.
0:51.4	Okay. First Cut.
1:08.0	You're so deep brave you love the sense of sin
1:10.3	want to die deep into the dark at this within. It feels like something written by a large language model, only because even though I'm accustomed to not always understanding pop song lyrics,
1:28.0	because sometimes, you know, things are garbled.
1:30.7	Best as I can tell, the lyrics to that don't make a whole lot of sense.
1:36.9	And that's important for country music in particular,
1:40.9	because country music is more than most current popular song forms, really about the lyrics.
1:47.8	Hmm, you might be under something.
1:51.2	I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do to you.
1:55.3	Let's play the chorus.
1:57.9	Nothing goes to waste. Make love Oh my shitter
2:04.3	It's your destiny
2:06.3	Oh my brown
	...

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