Originally Posted by Guitarhacker
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So if AI is writing uninspired, formulaic pablum..... what's new?

Many years ago, I was in a band that was going to be the first all-white band with a record deal from Motown. It eventually fell through because our manager and Motown couldn't agree on a contract. Motown didn't want to pay and our manager figured they were grooming a one-hit wonder band.

The money is in publishing and songwriting, not the recording performance. Motown wanted all the publishing rights, and anything we wrote would have a ghost songwriter, who didn't do anything except get 50% of the songwriting royalties for Motown (even if 5 people wrote the song, Motown wold get half).

But for a few months, we were opening concerts for the great Motown acts, and recording in their new, bigger studio in Detroit. It was a fun time of my life. A 19 year old kid being treated as a peer for Smokey, Marvin, Stevie, and the band now known as the Funk Brothers (they didn't have a name back then).

On writing songs, Berry Gordy gave us the same advice he gave others: Don't try to write something new, just write something that is close to what is a hit today.

That's exactly what AI does.

So how are human songwriters going to survive? That's the big question.

I don't write songs (I have a problem writing lyrics), so I'm in the live performance end. To get around DJs, Sports Bars, and so on, I went duo (downsized) and targeted the retirement market in Florida when I was still in my 30s. So far, so good, playing yacht clubs, country clubs, retirement developments, and other one-nighters.

But what are the human songwriters going to do?

Does anyone have any ideas on how to survive the AI era?


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