Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1753772075588cropped-Screen Shot 2025-07-29 at 2.53.17 PM.png" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Screenshot from Spotify</span></span></span></div><p>NEW YORK, United States — A rising tide of artificial intelligence (AI) bands is ushering in a new era where work will be scarcer for musicians.</p><p>Whether it&#x27;s Velvet Sundown&#x27;s 1970s-style rock or country music projects &quot;Aventhis&quot; and &quot;The Devil Inside,&quot; bands whose members are pure AI creations are seeing more than a million plays on streaming giant Spotify.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2025/7/9/-we-re-ai-popular-indie-rock-band-admits-1040">&#x27;We&#x27;re AI,&#x27; popular indie rock band admits</a></div><p>No major streaming service clearly labels tracks that come entirely from AI, except France&#x27;s Deezer.</p><p>Meanwhile, the producers of these songs tend to be unreachable.</p><p>&quot;I feel like we&#x27;re at a place where nobody is really talking about it, but we are feeling it,&quot; said music producer, composer and performer Leo Sidran.</p><p>&quot;There is going to be a lot of music released that we can&#x27;t really tell who made it or how it was made.&quot;</p><p>The Oscar-winning artist sees the rise of AI music as perhaps a sign of how &quot;generic and formulaic&quot; genres have become.</p><p>AI highlights the chasm between music people listen to &quot;passively&quot; while doing other things and &quot;active&quot; listening in which fans care about what artists convey, said producer and composer Yung Spielburg on the Imagine AI Live podcast.</p><p>Spielburg believes musicians will win out over AI with &quot;active&quot; listeners but will be under pressure when it comes to tunes people play in the background while cooking dinner or performing mundane tasks.</p><p>If listeners can&#x27;t discern which tunes are AI-made, publishers and labels will likely opt for synthetic bands that don&#x27;t earn royalties, Spielburg predicted.</p><p>&quot;AI is already in the music business and it&#x27;s not going away because it is cheap and convenient,&quot; said Mathieu Gendreau, associate professor at Rowan University in New Jersey, who is also a music industry executive.</p><p>&quot;That will make it even more difficult for musicians to make a living.&quot;</p><p>Music streaming platforms already fill playlists with mood music attributed to artists about whom no information can be found, according to University of Rochester School of Music professor Dennis DeSantis.</p><p>Meanwhile, AI-generated soundtracks have become tempting, cost-saving options in movies, television shows, ads, shops, elevators and other venues, DeSantis added.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>AI TAKES ALL? </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Composer Sidran says he and his music industry peers have seen a sharp slowdown in work coming their way since late last year.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/2024/2/1/will-ai-kill-music-or-herald-a-new-era-of-creativity-1818">Will AI kill music, or herald a new era of creativity?</a></div><p>&quot;I suspect that AI is a big part of the reason,&quot; said Sidran, host of &quot;The Third Story&quot; podcast.</p><p>&quot;I get the feeling that a lot of the clients that would come to me for original music, or even music from a library of our work, are using AI to solve those problems.&quot;</p><p>Technology has repeatedly helped shape the music industry, from electric guitars and synthesizers to multi-track recording and voice modulators.</p><p>Unlike such technologies that gave artists new tools and techniques, AI could lead to the &quot;eradication of the chance of sustainability for the vast majority of artists,&quot; warned George Howard, a professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music.</p><p>&quot;AI is a far different challenge than any other historical technological innovation,&quot; Howard said. &quot;And one that will likely be zero-sum.&quot;</p><p>Howard hopes courts will side with artists in the numerous legal battles with generative AI giants whose models imitate their styles or works.</p><p>Gendreau sees AI music as being here to stay and teaches students to be entrepreneurs as well as artists in order to survive in the business.</p><p>Sidran advises musicians to highlight what makes them unique, avoiding the expected in their works because &quot;AI will have done it.&quot;</p><p>And, at least for now, musicians should capitalize on live shows where AI bands have yet to take the stage.</p><div><strong>—Thomas Urbain, Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEOS</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IQHlzhJhDSk?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VZsdkjOV2H4?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>An Oscar-winning artist sees the rise of AI music as perhaps a sign of how "generic and formulaic" genres have become.</p>

An Oscar-winning artist sees the rise of AI music as perhaps a sign of how "generic and formulaic" genres have become.

AI bands signal new era for music business

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AI bands signal new era for music business

Agence France-Presse

Published Jul 29, 2025 03:01 PM PHT

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