Knock Knock

Sep 15, 2023

goodwordnews 4 mins ago 0 Composer James Blake’s latest album, Wind Down, rings in my ears as I meet Oleg Stavitsky, co-founder of Berlin-based audio technology company Endel. As the sun turns to rain, the melancholy ambient piano-led tracks echo my mood. That may not be a coincidence, Stavitsky says, pointing to the album’s credits where Endel is listed alongside Blake as co-creator of the music. While Wind Down bears Blake’s name and face and was mixed from his ingredients – he provided individual tracks featuring drum beats and melodies – Endel’s technology generated the final product. Its sound engine, trained on thousands of internal stems, creates personalized “soundscapes” for listeners by adapting to externalities such as listeners’ heart rate, temperature or time of day. Stavitsky cites Brian Eno’s “generative music” as inspiration, with humans building a framework that machines can then arrange and rearrange. If Music AI’s Turing test is in good taste, Blake-Endel’s album doesn’t pass mine. I prefer soundscapes that are a little less chill. But I’m not Endel’s target audience. “Functional” music – whale song, white noise, anything designed to play in the background – garners 10 billion streams per month, Stavitsky says, double last year’s total and accounts for between 7 and 10% of the entire streaming market. Real humans listen to machines: Endel claims to have more than 2 million monthly listeners across all streaming platforms, entered into a playlist partnership with Amazon.com and released an “AI Lullaby” with Canadian electronic artist Grimes . All this is serious enough to shake the record companies, who are rightly beginning to wonder whether functional music is not the end of a dangerous divide. For now, Endel’s technology produces music to strict specifications, such as adhering to the C major scale, and aims to provide soundtracks for tasks such as rocking babies and adults to sleep . But how long before ChatGPT or something like that can create James Blake, Grimes, or Beatles music from scratch? AI-assisted music composer Benoit Carré says there isn’t yet a “big red button” for generating ready-made songs, but he lists what artificial intelligence tools can already do: create excerpts of songs in different genres, imitate styles. of individual lyricists and adopt the vocal timbres of particular singers. After sleepwalking through the last big disruption in MP3 file sharing twenty years ago, labels are reacting with sound and fury to what would normally be considered muzak. Universal Music Group NV, after recently denouncing “lower quality functional content” (which probably does not include Wind Down, released on a UMG-owned label), has reportedly asked streaming platforms to crack down on AI services by deleting old artist catalogs. to train their machines. Shareholders are nervous: when Exane BNP Paribas analysts downgraded UMG earlier this month citing AI’s disruptive potential, the stock lost €2 billion ($2.2 billion). dollars, or approximately Rs 17,962 crore) of market value in a single day. Although AI is a socially disruptive technology that requires guardrails, as my colleague Parmy Olson has written, there is also something more self-centered and performative about this “war on white noise.” UMG is less worried about the future of humanity than about protecting an already clearly unequal music streaming model. If functional music features prominently on platforms like Spotify Technology SA, it is because it serves as leverage in negotiations with music labels, whose collective market share is under pressure. It’s also very likely that of all the artists threatened by AI, iconic pop stars — the top 1 percent who account for 90 percent of streams — will be the most future-proof. UMG is working with streaming platform Deezer SA on a new “artist-centric” payment model to prioritize the music people actually listen to first. And Endel’s Stavitsky knows that humans have star power: his ambition is to convince labels to let his technology tap into the catalogs of artists like Taylor Swift or the Weeknd to produce sound versions of existing albums. It could strengthen, not disrupt, the rock aristocracy. The real problem is those at the bottom of the food chain. “It’s going to become much more difficult to get rid of the noise,” says Stavitsky. Even those who optimistically view AI as a tool for artists rather than a threat are worried. Denis Ladegaillerie, director of Paris-based music company Believe SA, says AI could help musicians in the same way that the punk generation’s “three chords are enough” sparked a democratic revolution in songwriting . But he also argues that equality and diversity will need even more protection in a global music market where curation algorithms already encourage winner-takes-all listening habits. “There’s a real problem here for regulators,” he says. The disruptive future of music therefore risks looking a lot like its past: noisy and unequal. Record companies are not entirely wrong to ask streaming platforms to clean up their act in favor of more “human” music. But it’s also a good time to think about fairer ways to distribute the benefits of streaming and bring out new human artists. If whales are on the verge of becoming a musically endangered species, what hope is there for the rest of us? © 2023 Bloomberg LP