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Imagine a world where 80's new wave never ended. Imagine a world where the Police never broke up?

radarsat1 9y ago
This is the most insightful comment. Pop music tends to be particularly susceptible to the impression that it can be copied, because it seems to fit the idea more than any other genre (that is debatable of course) that successful music is a template. But even in pop, things progress. AI has been shown to be pretty decent at copying and modeling. Creativity? Not so much. We've been making the equivalent of HMM-based "music in the style of (i.e. generative stochastic processes modeled on) Beethoven" since the 60s, but such a design is to going to write the next hit. Or if it does, it won't write the following 10 by itself. You would think it's not true from how the radio presents it to you, but the fact is that people (eventually) get bored of hearing the same thing over and over.
- bsder 9y ago
  > You would think it's not true from how the radio presents it to you, but the fact is that people (eventually) get bored of hearing the same thing over and over. Evidence is against you. The number of radio stations that play something "new" are VASTLY outnumbered by the radio stations that play the same things over and over and over. If we start removing things which sound almost identical (See: modern "bro" country, etc.), the number of places where you can get exposed to new music dwindles to effective zero.
  - radarsat1 9y ago
    > The number of radio stations that play something "new" are VASTLY outnumbered by the radio stations that play the same things over and over and over. That's true. I'm not really convinced it's a reflection of what people want though, so much as a reflection of the bare minimum necessary to satisfy listeners. I feel it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy though --- it sells because it's there.. but everyone complains about it. And it's there because it's easier for companies to repeat the same thing than to make something new. It's not necessarily a reflection of what people want. It's more like.. the lowest common denominator. I think in the end, play time and music popularity are much more complicated social phenomena than whether people think a song "is good" or not. However, maybe you're right in that this phenomenon could play to the benefit of AI-generated music. But I really think it will hit the limits of people's patience, quickly.
- drusepth 9y ago
  >We've been making the equivalent of HMM-based "music in the style of (i.e. generative stochastic processes modeled on) Beethoven" since the 60s, but such a design is to going to write the next hit. Or if it does, it won't write the following 10 by itself. This is important to recognize, yes, but it's also important to realize that for every 1 AI agent that writes a hit, there's going to millions others (or more) crunching away at songs that aren't hits (like musicians currently, but many more, working more hours, and pumping out many more songs each). The next 10 hits don't need to all come from the same AI musician to "take over" pop. They just need to come from 10 of millions others all competing with each other (and humans) for those top spots. Even with current technology, this really isn't so much a music generation problem as it is a filter problem asking "how do you know which of these billion (generated or not) songs are going to be hits?".

This is the most insightful comment. Pop music tends to be particularly susceptible to the impression that it can be copied, because it seems to fit the idea more than any other genre (that is debatable of course) that successful music is a template. But even in pop, things progress. AI has been shown to be pretty decent at copying and modeling. Creativity? Not so much. We've been making the equivalent of HMM-based "music in the style of (i.e. generative stochastic processes modeled on) Beethoven" since the 60s, but such a design is to going to write the next hit. Or if it does, it won't write the following 10 by itself. You would think it's not true from how the radio presents it to you, but the fact is that people (eventually) get bored of hearing the same thing over and over.

bsder 9y ago
> You would think it's not true from how the radio presents it to you, but the fact is that people (eventually) get bored of hearing the same thing over and over. Evidence is against you. The number of radio stations that play something "new" are VASTLY outnumbered by the radio stations that play the same things over and over and over. If we start removing things which sound almost identical (See: modern "bro" country, etc.), the number of places where you can get exposed to new music dwindles to effective zero.
- radarsat1 9y ago
  > The number of radio stations that play something "new" are VASTLY outnumbered by the radio stations that play the same things over and over and over. That's true. I'm not really convinced it's a reflection of what people want though, so much as a reflection of the bare minimum necessary to satisfy listeners. I feel it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy though --- it sells because it's there.. but everyone complains about it. And it's there because it's easier for companies to repeat the same thing than to make something new. It's not necessarily a reflection of what people want. It's more like.. the lowest common denominator. I think in the end, play time and music popularity are much more complicated social phenomena than whether people think a song "is good" or not. However, maybe you're right in that this phenomenon could play to the benefit of AI-generated music. But I really think it will hit the limits of people's patience, quickly.
drusepth 9y ago
>We've been making the equivalent of HMM-based "music in the style of (i.e. generative stochastic processes modeled on) Beethoven" since the 60s, but such a design is to going to write the next hit. Or if it does, it won't write the following 10 by itself. This is important to recognize, yes, but it's also important to realize that for every 1 AI agent that writes a hit, there's going to millions others (or more) crunching away at songs that aren't hits (like musicians currently, but many more, working more hours, and pumping out many more songs each). The next 10 hits don't need to all come from the same AI musician to "take over" pop. They just need to come from 10 of millions others all competing with each other (and humans) for those top spots. Even with current technology, this really isn't so much a music generation problem as it is a filter problem asking "how do you know which of these billion (generated or not) songs are going to be hits?".