Technology

This is the reality a lot of people don't want to face, a huge amount of popular music is just established patterns put together in the way music school teaches is the right way then pushed with endless hype from the money hungry corporations.

We are absolutely going to see a kid in his bedroom use AI to make a concept album that resonates with people and garners popular acclaim - I don't know when it will happen but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's this decade.

People used to say that same nonsence about samplers and drum machines, it's the same trend as when people said Shakespeare isn't poetry because he hadn't been trained in Latin and Greek enough or Cezanne wasn't a real artist, or a million other times people have confidently declared we're at the end of history and nothing new will ever be good.

What people need to remember is when they see Rick Astley singing his heart out it's lyrics written by Pete Waterman and music from session artists put together by university trained professionals to shift units - soulless music has been a thing for a long time and no one ever cared before.

Obsessive kids have been making great music in their bedroom for decades now, aphex twin gets industry acclaime for twiddling some knobs and so will whoever gets popular doing the equivalent interesting things with AI.

He's wrong in the sense that Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder are just as much cultural reflections as they are artists. Popular art and celebrity are effectively inseparable. This is why each generation often doesn't "get" the popular art of others.

The reality is that there's nothing stopping an AI from becoming a celebrity, and I'm a bit surprised it hasn't happened yet. Once that happens, the art it produces will be lauded, and people who are not the direct participants in mainstream popular culture will be confused and in some cases upset or offended by it. And the wheel will continue to turn.