In any given year, so much happens that we tend to forget what, at one point, seemed like the most important thing in the world. Sure, fast media cycles and 24/7 news via the Internet make it a certainty, but that’s why I love it when December rolls around and people start posting articles like “The Year That was “.

Country music has had a monster year in so many ways. From the wave of pop stars try the genre (some better than others) for CMAs starting to straighten out their behavior in some way, to a continued rise of independent artists to mainstream fame, you’d be hard-pressed to find a time when country music as a whole was in a better position than today these recent years. decades.

But it wasn’t just emerging artists who made a splash this year; many living legends have joined in the action and provided us with some legitimately remarkable works. At 91 years old, Willie Nelson two studio albums and one live album, George Strait released a new original project, and Dwight Yoakam I came back into the game with Better daysbut we also received new music from some country music legends who are no longer with us, such as previously unreleased Johnny Cash songs about Songwriter and new recordings of George Jones thanks to The Lost Sessions of Nashville.

But a conversation about the music released this year would be incomplete without bringing up what was once the elephant in the room.

Randy Travis with AI assistance

Randy Travis released her first song in over a decade in May. Title “Where does this come from”it’s honestly a beautiful song and seeing Randy’s name on our Friday new music The playlist actually made me smile, but there was just one tiny thing that was a conversation starter to say the least…

Randy suffered a stroke in 2013 that left him virtually speechless and unable to walk. He remained active in the country music community, but people immediately speculated when the song was announced that AI had been used to create the vocals, given that Randy can barely sing these days. It was later confirmed by producer.

To be honest, this wasn’t a ChatGPT creation with completely fabricated voices. The song was written by John Scott Sherrill, Scotty Emerick and James Dupre, a former competitor of The voiceprovided the basic vocal track. AI was then used to isolate Randy’s vocals from more than 40 of his songs and overlay it onto what Dupre had recorded.

Producer Kyle Lehning said they had to go “syllable by syllable” to get the correct sound:

“It freaked me out. When I listened to it, it was like, “Oh my God.” And I immediately thought, “This could work.” »

Then, as I listened more and more and could start digging into the nuances of it, I realized that for it to really work, it would take a little more massage.

Randy played a major role in the creation of this song, so these aren’t the people who took advantage of his iconic baritone for their own financial gain either:

“The fact that he’s here and can be, you know, a vital part of the decision-making process makes all the difference to me.”

Doctors have given country artist Randy Travis only a 2 percent chance of surviving his stroke. In addition to the paralysis, the part of his brain that handles speech and language was almost destroyed. He feared he would never sing again, but advanced AI changed that. pic.twitter.com/uYQaKEpUUJ

– CBS Sunday Morning (@CBSSunday) May 5, 2024

Everyone had an opinion one way or another, but the reality was simple: now that the cat was out of the bag, there was no putting it back in.

The future of AI in music

I think this is the best scenario for using AI in music.

It’s kind of magical to be able to give an artist who has literally lost his voice a way to realize his creative urges, and I think we can all support that. But the flip side is that this won’t just be used for Randy Travis or other aging artists. How long until artists receive AI-written songs? How long until IA sings the songs coming out of Nashville writers’ rooms? Damn, how long until we have AI superstars, with songs written, recorded and released solely by a computer?

We know that record companies nickel and dime their artists to no end, signing some to contracts where the artists effectively make no money, regardless of how popular their music is, while forcing them to make music that fits the label. “current trend”, so why wouldn’t he? does a company with this financial incentive remove the problematic part of the equation (a living person with hopes, dreams and passions) to fund an AI model that doesn’t argue, asks for more money and will only do exactly what he is told?

In fact, it might be quite fun to see what the music would sound like if the costumes removed the artists from the picture entirely. They might get a cold taste of reality when they realize that they actually have no creativity and can only mock the talents of others, forcing them to revert to real humans with tail between legs, something I would really like to see. Of course, there are a massive number of “fans” who will blindly listen to the radio or official Spotify playlists that feed them, so it’s possible that this will actually work for them, which is honestly terrifying.

Granted, I haven’t seen any other AI releases from major artists since (to my knowledge at least), so maybe that’s a sign that we all saw this and collectively pumped the brakes, but I still firmly believe that we will come back to this. this Randy Travis song like a fork in the road. Either the music industry will see what they’ve done, embrace it, and start churning out songs faster than you can listen to it, or we’ll draw a hard line in the sand and say, “Yeah, that was cool for him but we don’t want anything. more to do with that.”

I am in favor of later, but I am also realistic. I truly believe there will soon be two music industries, one with real artists still making real music and the other with AI machines creating easy-listening, catchy ear candy.

And if I were a betting man (which I am), I’d bet on AI ear candy being much more commercially popular, and that breaks my heart.