Predicting impact of AI on music market

[ElmerJFudd]

https://www.gearnews.com/gema-ai-study-predicts-a-30-drop-in-sales-for-producers-by-2028/

 

“GEMA AI Study: What do the numbers reveal?  According to the study, by 2028, the presence of AI-generated music in the market could result in as much as a 30 percent drop in sales… the global market share of generative music is set to grow from its current $300 million size to over $3 billion...”

I can see the concern about the work and the business changing.  Output will increase, quality - hard to say, need for services and staff will decrease (arranging, instrumental playing - even singing, mixing, mastering, marketing, are likely most affected, especially in styles that are already making use of  the tech now.   Ever more saturated market - yeah that could cause reduction in sales/streams.  Disposability, sameness might have an affect on interest in music overall.  
 

The market has already been hugely affected by social media.  YouTube, TikTok, etc. are giving artists a path to audiences directly without the need for labels or the music business as we are used to it.  But the big money is arena filling “live” performance.  And for that you still need backers.  

[Anderton]

14 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

I can see the concern about the work and the business changing.  Output will increase, quality - hard to say, need for services and staff will decrease (arranging, instrumental playing - even singing, mixing, mastering, marketing, are likely most affected, especially in styles that are already making use of  the tech now.   Ever more saturated market - yeah that could cause reduction in sales/streams.  Disposability, sameness might have an affect on interest in music overall.  
 

The market has already been hugely affected by social media.  YouTube, TikTok, etc. are giving artists a path to audiences directly without the need for labels or the music business as we are used to it.  But the big money is arena filling “live” performance.  And for that you still need backers.  

 

The most important question about any advance is when you look back and ask whether it made things better or worse. The internet has indeed leveled the playing field for getting music out into the world, but it requires musicians to think as much about marketing, if not more, than about music. And obviously, remuneration has changed a bit - the rich still get richer, but the poor don't get poorer. They just stay poor. The only musical "middle class" left is the one that can make money playing gigs in a world of decreasing venues.

 

Consumers have proven that quality isn't that important, so AI will take care of their needs by fulfilling their needs - but not challenging those needs. AI will give the people what they want.

 

That sounds good in principle, but people can't want something when they don't know it exists. How many people said "I really want Jamaicans whacked out on killer marijuana to listen to Miami radio stations fading in and out so they get a strange sense of rhythm, and come up with a form of music that's heavy on bass and spare on instrumentation." Yet when reggae hit, people lapped it up...even though they didn't know they wanted it.

 

Will AI produce another reggae? Another hardcore Belgian techno? Probably not, unless it gets there by modifying what it already knows. Already, AI is folding back on itself, and it's only a few years old. It's kind of like a cute baby that discovers how to light matches. The baby's still cute, but might burn down the house.

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

30 minutes ago, Anderton said:

 

The most important question about any advance is when you look back and ask whether it made things better or worse. The internet has indeed leveled the playing field for getting music out into the world, but it requires musicians to think as much about marketing, if not more, than about music. And obviously, remuneration has changed a bit - the rich still get richer, but the poor don't get poorer. They just stay poor. The only musical "middle class" left is the one that can make money playing gigs in a world of decreasing venues.

 

Consumers have proven that quality isn't that important, so AI will take care of their needs by fulfilling their needs - but not challenging those needs. AI will give the people what they want.

 

That sounds good in principle, but people can't want something when they don't know it exists. How many people said "I really want Jamaicans whacked out on killer marijuana to listen to Miami radio stations fading in and out so they get a strange sense of rhythm, and come up with a form of music that's heavy on bass and spare on instrumentation." Yet when reggae hit, people lapped it up...even though they didn't know they wanted it.

 

Will AI produce another reggae? Another hardcore Belgian techno? Probably not, unless it gets there by modifying what it already knows. Already, AI is folding back on itself, and it's only a few years old. It's kind of like a cute baby that discovers how to light matches. The baby's still cute, but might burn down the house.

 

 

And this is just music! We are seeing more and more AI models in advertising. Real human models are losing $$$ and an AI model will never age. 

At some point there will be no more humans on television or in movies. I don't watch anyway and the last time I saw a live music concert was David Lindley at the Lincoln Theater in Mount Vernon. Great show but our seats were way off yonder and the ambient delay and reverb were pretty mushy back there. 

[Anderton]

25 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

At some point there will be no more humans on television or in movies.

 

Of all people, I think Kiss has figured this out. They're creating virtual versions of themselves, which I assume will be used to generate new content (without them being "live" and looking ancient) as well as license content, like movies and comic books. And then they can leave the licensing to their heirs, who will have an income stream for decades to come.

 

BUT the reason for any success will be because they had already established their identity in the pre-AI age. Consider this: if Taylor Swift hadn't already become famous during the era of CDs, before streaming hit and record companies could still break artists, if she started out now would she reach the same level she's at now over time?

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, Anderton said:

 

Of all people, I think Kiss has figured this out. They're creating virtual versions of themselves, which I assume will be used to generate new content (without them being "live" and looking ancient) as well as license content, like movies and comic books. And then they can leave the licensing to their heirs, who will have an income stream for decades to come.

 

BUT the reason for any success will be because they had already established their identity in the pre-AI age. Consider this: if Taylor Swift hadn't already become famous during the era of CDs, before streaming hit and record companies could still break artists, if she started out now would she reach the same level she's at now over time?

Consider Looney Tunes to be the harbinger of what has come to pass. Coyote and Roadrunner but in human AI form. Another lovely possibility is porn stars, they will be able to do things that humans cannot ever approach. The variations are as endless as human imagination, "real" people who are well beyond real.

[Notes_Norton]

10 hours ago, Anderton said:

The internet has indeed leveled the playing field for getting music out into the world, but it requires musicians to think as much about marketing, if not more, than about music.

The 'net opened the gates. No longer do you need to send a demo with something 'extra' inside to get the 'gatekeeper' to even listen to it.

Millions of musicians who could not get national exposure can get heard, but that creates another problem. How to get enough people to listen to your music. And with all those musicians out there, how to make enough money to survive on, when Spotify will pay you a fraction of a penny per play, YouTube depends on getting enough subscribers to make money with the ads, and so on.

 

I see a career opening for someone bands hire for marketing, so they can spend the appropriate amount of time creating music.

 

Enter AI. We all know that the vast majority of pop music just recycles what came before. When Berry Gordy was courting us, he said, “Don't try to write something new, write whatever is a hit now.” This is what AI does best. 

As AI gets better, I see the possibility of AI “bands” writing music faster than humans can, looking perfect in the video, and crowding that exposure market even more than it already is.

 

I'm glad I can still make a living playing live in front of an appreciative audience.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[ProfD]

On 2/5/2024 at 9:55 AM, Notes_Norton said:

I'm glad I can still make a living playing live in front of an appreciative audience.

IMO, live performance will never die nor can AI replace it.😎

[Thethirdapple]

Quote

We live in a spectacular society, that is, our whole life is surrounded by an immense accumulation of spectacles. Things that were once directly lived are now lived by proxy. Once an experience is taken out of the real world it becomes a commodity. As a commodity the spectacular is developed to the detriment of the real. It becomes a substitute for experience.

 

— Lawrence Law, Images and Everyday Life

 

[Anderton]

Wow, that's insightful. Not to derail the thread, but there's no better example than politics, where governing has given way to spectacle. But there are also "blockbuster" movies that are about spectacle instead of characters, concerts are about backing tracks and pyrotechnics, the media is about click bait attention-grabbing instead of substance, Facebook is about data mining instead of interpersonal communication...none of these relate to the real world, but about creating better commodities.

[ProfD]

At one point in time, folks had to go to a theater or venue to see and hear a live performance.

 

Sheet music sales and the film and recording industry definitely turned the arts into a commodity. 

 

The business of art as entertainment has come a long way since piano rolls, stage plays and a few musicians and singers playing wherever they could gather.

 

However, I believe the further along we go technologically, live performance will return as a social outlet.😎

[Philbo King]

I don't think AI music will ever advance the art. 

 

But it will make possible royalty-free chud "R&B" (whatever that means) music to appear in more places, like dentist offices, Walmart, mall stores, etc., contributing to the ongoing ensh*ttification trend.

[KuruPrionz]

At this time, there is no human culture, tribe, group that does not have music. 

We love music and many of us love to play it. America has a relatively short tradition of separating "musicians" from ordinary people but EVERYBODY loves music and people have been movin' and a groovin' since time immemorial. Computer generated music may be able to emulate aspects of human generated music but Artificial Intelligence is "artificial" and can only attempt to duplicate intelligence. Creativity is an art, not a programmed blatherspew. 

AI generated music will not be able to generate the human experience of music at the level required to entrance us as a species. Some people will like some of it. It may gain traction among the public at a certain point but that peak will dwindle when we as a species realize it's just total and utter bullshit, a failed attempt at replicating emotion and the quirks of humanity. 

[Anderton]

I think Machine Learning will have far more impact on making our lives as musicians better, compared to AI. Yet I rarely hear anyone talking about it, let alone highlighting the difference between the two.

[Notes_Norton]

On 2/11/2024 at 9:41 PM, ProfD said:

IMO, live performance will never die nor can AI replace it.😎

I hope you are correct.

 

But the music, that we play live, may be generated by AI.

The public is not educated on how to listen to music, so the finer artistic points will not register with the masses. They will respond to the same old recycled lyric themes, and whatever the influencers tell them is the music they should be liking.

I've played music for a living most of my life, so far. That means quite a few genres and eras of popular music. To make a living, we need to play what the public wants to hear.

 

There were eras when people listened to more artful and complex music, but that was only because it was what was happening at the time. 

This is not to say that the simpler forms of music that tend to dominate pop charts are bad. To me, songs like “Mustang Sally” are like your favorite junk food. A lot of fun to play, but not very nutritious. At least they don't make you fat.

 

And I've gone from playing in big bands to a duo with backing tracks. I make my own backing tracks from scratch. I know it's easier to just buy karaoke tracks. The advantages are: I can put them in our best key, rearrange them for the best live impact, mix them for live performance instead of a recorded one, lengthen or shorten them, and play my own solos instead of listening to whoever did it on the karaoke track.

I am lucky to be able to make a living doing music and nothing but music. The artist in me wants to listen to great symphonic or jazz music, but the entertainer in me wants to simply have a party with an energetic and appreciative audience.

I dearly hope that in my lifetime, this will never change.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[Threadslayer]

17 hours ago, Philbo King said:

But it will make possible royalty-free chud "R&B" (whatever that means) music to appear in more places, like dentist offices, Walmart, mall stores, etc., contributing to the ongoing ensh*ttification trend.

I actually kind of like this idea. Replacing MUZAK elevator music with ad hoc royalty free AI generated noises. Another related application would be background music for websites without having to deal with ASCAP or BMI

[ProfD]

41 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

But the music, that we play live, may be generated by AI.

 

I am lucky to be able to make a living doing music and nothing but music. The artist in me wants to listen to great symphonic or jazz music, but the entertainer in me wants to simply have a party with an energetic and appreciative audience.

I dearly hope that in my lifetime, this will never change.

Your gig is safe.  AI will not adversely affect it. 😉

 

In my eternal optimism, artists and musicians with a unique voice/style/sound/flavor will always be able to find an audience.

 

Those artists/bands may have to reduce footprint using technology and smaller PA systems to get in and out of smaller venues. 

 

As I mentioned, younger folks will attend those live performances in order to socialize.😎

[ElmerJFudd]

48 minutes ago, ProfD said:

Your gig is safe.  AI will not adversely affect it. 😉

 

In my eternal optimism, artists and musicians with a unique voice/style/sound/flavor will always be able to find an audience.

 

Those artists/bands may have to reduce footprint using technology and smaller PA systems to get in and out of smaller venues. 

 

As I mentioned, younger folks will attend those live performances in order to socialize.😎

The corporates will scan the artist’s body and timbre of his voice like they do for CGI movies and own the virtual person.  Making albums and concert movies for decades long after the source person has grown old and passed on.  Even new material written by AI “in the style of”.  

[David Emm]

I have no doubt that teams of lawyers are sharpening every available knife for cutting away the pesky human element ASAP. It'll be like the horrific "gray goo" scenario, in which unconstrained nanobots replicate until they cover the earth. We've been conditioned to chase gravy until we'll finally get it to the exclusion of everything else and starve for want of any biscuits or sausage. If I can time it just right, I should assume room temperature just as the Supreme Court allows artists to be sued for buying brushes and children punished for playing oatmeal boxes as drums. 

 

Is it live or is it Memorex or are you just hopped up on goofballs? All hail Emperor Max Headroom! 😬

[David Emm]

On 2/12/2024 at 8:43 PM, Anderton said:

I think Machine Learning will have far more impact on making our lives as musicians better, compared to AI. Yet I rarely hear anyone talking about it, let alone highlighting the difference between the two.

 

I went digging and found this on Coursera:

 

"In common usage, the terms 'machine learning' and 'artificial intelligence' are often used interchangeably with one another due to the prevalence of machine learning for AI purposes in the world today. But, the two terms are meaningfully distinct. While AI refers to the general attempt to create machines capable of human-like cognitive abilities, machine learning specifically refers to the use of algorithms and data sets to do so."

 

My interpretation: Godzilla and Kong are each pulling on one of my legs, waiting for me to scream like Rodan. 🙄

[Notes_Norton]

The big question … Will AI ever attain both intuition and true self-awareness?

In monumental points in human history, someone had the intuition to come up with something totally off-the-wall and ended up completely changing things, hopefully for the better.

Would AI have ever invented the internal combustion energy, if AI was around back then?

 

Would AI have gotten the idea to take discreet components and combine them on a chip to make an integrated circuit?

 

Would AI have invented flash memory that needs no power to retain what was written?

Would AI have come up with the idea for a spacecraft to use the gravity of another planet to launch a space probe farther with the amount of fuel it had on board?

When it gets there, I will call it true artificial intelligence. What we have now isn't really intelligence, it's recycling ideas. A lot of humans recycle ideas too, it is the norm. But without those occasional other sparks, we'd all be hunting beasts with clubs for dinner.

Of course, that's my take on the subject, and I'm by no means an expert on AI, so I may have missed the big picture.
 

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[Thethirdapple]

The impact of AI on the music market will be one of continued formulaic safe space for advertisers.

 

And because it is nearly impossible to find a single definition of AI, this makes the term the ultimate marketing hook.

 

If it is broken down to actual case use, then AI as an algorithm is something we use all the time. Whether that algorithm derives from a top down approach or from a bottom up method of action, the math remains a "static" set of instructions created without any self correcting consequences. There is no negative impact on the code if the code results in a "bad" outcome... 

 

sociopaths creating sociopathic algorithms is not a recipe for success in any humanized sense.

 

Simulating intelligence certainly can be a useful tool, both in production and the marketing of music. Luckily creating "music" and being human remains an essentially emotionally creative endeavor. I am certain that algorithms will also one day accurately trigger emotions. But the ability to live/feel and translate despair, joy, heartache or any emotion in mathematical terms, for creating new expressions, seems well out of reach... for now.

 

and just in case its already too late... I love you SKYNET

 

 

PEACE

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[Anderton]

great post

[ProfD]

There's a ton of incidental music being made by humans using sequencers and DAWs. 

 

I believe that aspect of music production will be AI-driven moreso than creating AI-K-Pop.😎