Spotify to launch a new tool allowing fans to create covers and remixes of their favorite songs from participating artists and songwriters.
Interested what this will potentially bring into dj sphere. Live remixing 2.0?
Death of the music industry, and they thought Napster was bad.
Death of the commercial music industry at least. AI is clearly taking over in places where the audience doesn’t care about the origin of the music the listen to…
But luckily you still have scenes where artists are appreciated. But forget about making money with it, those scenes are just too small…
Isn’t this a good thing? I rather pay for the real musical diamonds and get the next uninspired cover on the cheap, instead of paying premium for commercial boosted artists.
that’s another way to look at it. But after thinking about it for 5 minutes I started to see a resemblance with people copying CDs and MP3s. Some of those people’s argument is: I only pay for artists I really like, not the junk I have to play at a gig.
The problem is that if you want quality, you need professionally trained (or equal by experience) musicians and songwriters. That takes a lot of time: If an artist wants to output quality, he has to input so much time that he doesn’t have time for a “daytime job”. So he has to make a living out of music. If consumers don’t pay for music they “don’t like enough”, that limits the possible revenue for serious artists, and in turn will mean less artists will take the leap to quit their daytime job to pursue their dream of becoming great…
Others have made the argument that money can’t be the biggest drive in creating art, but in the end we need money to survive. Do we really want to live in a world were nobody earns enough in art so they can’t devote their life to it? Do we really want to live in a world with only weekend warriors and AI making art? Thats already happening right now…
I’m not sure I follow that line of thinking. If money were the main driver, we wouldn’t see so many people participating in marching bands, orchestras, local bands, or DJing from their bedrooms and garages. While there are certainly mediocre or even bad performers, plenty of DJs and bands perform at a level that isn’t much worse than commercially promoted artists or even artists who lip-sync during live shows.
I think the bigger issue is that consumers are often lazy when it comes to discovering music. The internet had the potential to bring real freedom to the music industry by reducing reliance on labels and gatekeepers. Yet many people still gravitate toward generic genre playlists, effectively recentralizing music selection. For the masses who sing along to whatever commercial hits are pushed to them, whether those songs are made by AI or humans, most of the money will continue flowing to the same commercial players anyway; though there are, of course, exceptions.
For local and independent artists, AI is simply another tool. I view it much like the rise of bikini DJs. Are some people - myself included - jealous of their success? Probably. Did it make me lose interest in playing music my own way? Not at all.
(Readability edit)
Yeah, being in an orchestra myself, you do see the difference though. I am an amateur who has a day-job, and I play at an amateur level. Most of us are. There are some people in our orchestra however that have a higher degree in music education and do music full time. (they grew up in our orchestra, and keep playing with us for the friendship), and the difference really shows… If they really want, they wipe the floor with us amateurs 
The reality however is that these people are just music teachers. They probably once dreamt of playing in a national orchestra, and went for the higher music education, but chances you’ll get in a pro orchestra are next to none. Being the next Hans Zimmer isn’t obvious either. So they settle for less… I don’t want to compare my paycheck with theirs, otherwise they’ll be extremely unhappy, but they did follow their passion! R.E.S.P.E.C.T…
In cover bands it’s even more obvious: most coverbands that get more than 5 bookings per year are filled with the same kind of music teachers, while myself playing electric guitar at an amateur level never managed to get my band off the ground. Of course we played at a lower level, but the bigger problem is that the coverband market declined for years (in favor of DJs), so that only professional bands get booked…
Luckily for us DJs there is a lot of demand, so we still get gigs at an amateur level. But once we get replaced by AI tools you’ll see this decline very rapidly… And once this happened, you’ll be playing for your aunths and uncles once or twice a year, just as we are in our orchestra…
Oh, no, I am not doing it for the money, but having gigs would be nice
Thanks for this perspective. I’m not sure if things will play out exactly like that though.
If we stop investing time in things we like to do, just because AI can do it better anyway or because stardom is not achievable, then we are probably in for a bumpy ride as a society. AI will touch many more industries than only music, so that mindset could become a bigger problem than the technology itself.
For me, the key part is “things we like to do”. There are many sports where athletes will never earn enough to make a living from it, but the sports still continue to exist. Could the level be higher if everyone could invest all their time in it? Sure. But is that always relevant to the world? Not really. The value is often in people doing it, enjoying it, improving, competing, and being part of a scene.
I think the same can apply to music, especially when we talk about local bands, smaller scenes and people making music because they love it. Doing something real and fun, with or without a big crowd, may actually become more attractive than commercial AI-supported perfection.
So I agree that paid time and serious practice can improve quality. But I don’t think music only has value when it reaches professional perfection or commercial success. Maybe the human, imperfect and local side of music becomes even more important because of AI. More “battle of the bands” kind of gigs, smaller live scenes, local events, that sort of thing.
And on the “getting gigs” part: I agree that problem already exists. A lot of event organizers are already quite risk-averse and look at the economics of an act. They often prefer proven names, safe formats and predictable ticket sales. 
Are there too few gigs for the number of musicians willing to play? 
Well I agree an a large part: if music is your passion, you will pursue it, no matter what.
but while rehearsals are cool (being part of the sum that’s more than its parts it a great feeling), getting gigs is the ultimate reward, the ultimate recognition of the hard work you’ve put in. You see this in orchestras and coverbands alike, were rehearsal attendance rises towards a gig, an drastically drops after it…
So yes, there are definitely too few gigs for the people wanting to play music.
Another reality is that people just don’t care. You know, when I finished a piano piece, and friends or family come over, I am eager to let them hear it, only to notice that mid song they are already talking to my wife about other things. It’s not their fault, I am the music nerd, not them…
so your audience doesn’t really care. That’s frustrating. It becomes even more frustrating when the same audience is OK with AI generating background music…
I think the issue here is more that people are familiar with the term AI and love to be negative about it…
Actually, automated ways of playing/creating music have been around for a long time.
I have apps on my phone and tablet that can provide a melody or rhythm when I simply place my finger on the screen. Synths have had arpeggiators for decades.
My Maschine+ has an arpeggiator, and also a random button that generates a riff (in any key I wish) at the correct tempo and time signature. I didn’t write it, the device did.
True, it all started with Thomas Edison inventing the phonograph. Since then the music scene changed constantly, sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad ways. Even the DJ scene is frowned upon by some musicians, but its way more complex then how they view it…
AI is just a next steps in music history. Well see were it takes us…