So who is The Velvet Sundown? All characters, stories, music, voices and lyrics are original creations generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools employed as creative instruments. Any resemblance to actual places, events or persons - living or deceased - is purely coincidental and unintentional. Not quite human. Not quite machine. The Velvet Sundown lives somewhere in between.
It's a sad turn of events for songwriters and recording artists.
I think the quality of writing songs by humans could be better than what AI can currently do, but we all know that the quality of the song has nothing to do with its popularity.
I remember the lyrics to this popular song of the disco era:
||: Get up and boogie, Get up and boogie (That's right) Get up and boogie, Get up and boogie (That's right) Get up and boogie, Get up and boogie (That's right) Boogie, Boogie :||
Repeat ad nauseam
Most pop music is recycled simple themes both lyrically and musically, which is what AI does well. Of course, there are and have always been brilliant exceptions.
I'm glad I'm a live performer, and I was born in the 20th century. It'll be interesting to watch what happens now.
I wouldn't call that a breakthrough or a hit. Sure it's getting some streaming activity but I'm sure it'll be short lived.
Possibly mostly out of curiosity. I have to say that I really couldn't watch or listen for very long. It's horrible (IMHO).
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2026 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
Just watching the fingers of the guitarist(s) in the video makes me queasy. Guess I just added to the streaming clicks...
Two days ago I listened to an NPR article by a professional music composer who acknowledged that AI was already better than he was at doing what he does, which was primarily soundtracks. Rather than being freaked out, he seemed awestruck. Wish I could find the link...
DC Ron BiaB Audiophile Presonus Studio One ASUS I9-12900K DAW, 32 GB RAM Presonus Faderport 16 Too many guitars (is that a thing?)
I love how the singer has to move over to the mike and the sound remains the same.
To be fair, an awful lot of conventional videos are just as irritating on that issue. Mouth movements vs voice projection mismatches, too.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2026 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
I'm all for AI moving forwards and creating hit records, and of course you can write your own hit as well, but for the majority of writers probably AI will be able to do it better.
Think of the positives, you can be the Colonel Tom Parker manager of your own AI band and reap most of the profits.
Windows 10 (64bit) M-Audio Fast Track Pro, Band in a Box 2025, Cubase 14, Cakewalk and far too many VST plugins that I probably don't need or will ever use
I'm all for AI moving forwards and creating hit records, and of course you can write your own hit as well, but for the majority of writers probably AI will be able to do it better.
Think of the positives, you can be the Colonel Tom Parker manager of your own AI band and reap most of the profits.
I basically agree. If you want to use AI, great, if you don't, that's great too. It's a tool. Personally, I find AI-driven stem separation fantastic. And I find AI in science and technology even more astounding.
For those that oppose it, AI in music production will be here for a long, long time to come. As for the "Corner Bar", I find the video absolutely horrid and cartoonish, and the music only so-so.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
I hope it eventually might create a resurgence in live music and performances, but probably never to the degree it once was.
It made me think - has anyone covered one of the Velvet Sundown's songs yet? They have, and not sure if my mind is playing tricks but the human version sounds good! Youtube - Sons of Legion cover 'Dust on the wind' Andrew D
Whether you like it or not, AI will change things, and to survive, you need to adapt to the changes.
The then future Mrs. Notes and I were in a 5-piece band. We had personnel problems and the cost of living was going, but band pay wasn't. So we decided to be a duo.
Being that I play sax, flute, guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and eventually wind synth, I made backing tracks on a Teac, 4 channel, reel-to-reel tape recorder. We mixed to cassettes and brought a lot of them to the gig. One song per cassette, on a dual cassette deck so I could go from song to song quickly.
Older musicians said I was putting other musicians out of work, and I responded that I was putting two musicians to work. We were playing smaller rooms, and making more per-person than we were in the 5 piece. Plus, we had no personnel problems.
Smaller, better sounding PA gear, MIDI, sequencers, DAWs, mp3s and quite a few other things came and went along the way. Some of the things I tried turned out to be rejects, others keepers.
Survival doesn't strictly go to the fittest, it goes to those who can adapt to the changes.
If I was in the songwriting business, I'd be studying AI. If AI ever invades the live performance arena, I'll jump on it.
"Survival doesn't strictly go to the fittest, it goes to those who can adapt to the changes"
Perhaps this could be put on a T-shirt, and handed out to every high school student at their graduation! In our "snowbird" music group in Arizona, we still have people who insist on using hardcopies and a 3 ring binder instead of a computer or tablet.. It works for them, I sure couldn't do it.
It made me think - has anyone covered one of the Velvet Sundown's songs yet? They have, and not sure if my mind is playing tricks but the human version sounds good! Youtube - Sons of Legion cover 'Dust on the wind'
This is getting interesting. We have: Humans doing covers of human music Humans doing covers of AI music AI bots doing covers of human music
Are we going to see AI bots doing covers of AI music?
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
... This is getting interesting. We have: Humans doing covers of human music Humans doing covers of AI music AI bots doing covers of human music
Are we going to see AI bots doing covers of AI music?
Why not? It's definitely a possibility...
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
I'll never accept that AI can replace a human in any art. Real music is about soul. AI doesn't have it.
True, but a lot of popular music/art has no soul.
I say AI can't produce great art (yet), but people will buy B.S. if they are told it's great art.
I saw a documentary about a woman who, as a gag gift, bought the ugliest picture she could find at a yard sale, and gave it to her friend. It looked like a painter's drop cloth.
Someone told her friend it looked like a Jackson Pollock. So she took it to dealer after dealer, museum after museum, and was told that it wasn't great art as it didn't have the Pollock soul.
She removed the frame and saw a fingerprint, and had that analyzed. Turns out it was Pollock's fingerprint, with the same paint as one of the colors on the painting. All of a sudden, this worthless piece of crap became great art, and she sold it for a huge sum of money.
In the art world, what the influencers say is more important than the work itself. To me, that's a sad state of affairs.
So if a soulless AI or human produced song is told by enough of the right people that it's great art, 90% of the public will believe it's great art.
In this streaming world that we much enjoy anyone can find their musical bubble and live in it. Our Spotify and YouTube bubble includes classic country, classic rock, blues, blues rock, jazz, the big Americana tent and more. Everyday, literally, we discover another artist that we had never listened to and that we now enjoy. It is endless. And other than our hiking and biking time we listen to music constantly. And to our ears our choice of music has soul ... human soul. No matter how exponentially AI music expands we simply will not be part of it nor worry about it.
On a side note we are amazed at the amount of folks who don't stream and constantly complain about not finding the music they desire. Oh and we have enough vinyl to fill two tall shelves and hundreds of CD's and cassettes. They hold no interest for us other than the historical perspective - some date back to the 1920's and others are rare 60's albums. We'd rather live in our music streaming bubble than to worry about these things. And we have ZERO intent of disparaging the folks who do amazing work with programming synth vocals, etc. Nor do we want to disparage those who follow with fascination all of these changes. Outside of music there are a few AI experiences we enjoy. Our google photos account contains 12,000+ photos and their AI search engine is amazing and efficient at finding a photo via a quick description. So I'm not a total curmudgeon. Although at a few months from 80 I reckon I'm allowed a bit of one. But it's OK to come in my yard. Pardon the marginally on topic ramble.
Bud
Last edited by Janice & Bud; 07/26/2507:33 AM.
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
Unlike you and Janice, I'm tending to go backwards, to old music. An old genre, anyway. Symphonies, from the Romantic era onward.
We are going to a concert to hear Shostakovich's 6th Symphony, plus a world premiere (new work) by R. Michael Daugherty.
I still gig for a living, so I get my rock, blues, country, soca, reggae, and other fix by playing them. I still listen to jazz, but after so many decades of that, much of it doesn't tickle me the way it used to. ON the other hand, there are a few outstanding new ones that can grab me.
But symphonies are so complex that even after listening to the same one, if it is a good one, hundreds of times, I can still hear something new.
Example, Dvorak's 9th. In the final movement there is a place where he combines two major themes for the melody, fragments of another for the bass, and another for the countermelody. And he did it so well, that I discovered that after hearing it scores of times.
But the point is, I don't care if AI writes the music or not. If AI came up with a symphony that moves my soul, I wouldn't reject it, but enjoy it.
However, AI is in its infancy now, but like all technology, it will get better--and quickly.
For me, there are two kinds of music: 1) Music I like 2) Music for someone else's ears
I really don't care who or what wrote or performed it, if I like it, I like it.
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