Computer music in real – The Velvet Sundown: Hurray, we are standardized

Even if everyone is talking about it: there is no AI. There are programs that are developed and applied by humans. In such a way that human working hours are saved, but only a few people have something in this economic system: even more money. Anne Roth only explained this on Monday in the »ND«.

On Tuesday, Spotify announced that a band has achieved more than a million streams that were completely based on AI: The Velvet Sundown. Your music sounds like better hippie pop of the early 70s: Neil Young or Fleetwood Mac. The “artificial” music is “honest music”. The band’s Spotify-Bio claims that one wants to “cancel the limits of authorship and identity”.

Clooned bands are nothing new: starting with the Monkees when “four crazy boys between 17 and 21 years” were sought and found in 1965 to play in a TV sitcom. The Frank-Farian projects Boney M. and Milli Vanilli are unforgettable: pay attention to the producer and not the image. Or as the young Campino put it: “Hurray, we are standardized, Hurray, we are shaped!”

Generating a band on the computer lowers the costs. This is important if nobody wants to buy records anymore. Why the excitement? Computers are common in recording technology. With the program »Logic Pro« from Apple, everyone can invent their own band at home.

Velvet Sundown is advertising for Spotify. There is nothing politically explosive. Unlike the robot singer Gene Galaxo, which Udo Lindenberg invented in 1976 to scourge capitalism. He made a kind of marching music techno and sang: “There used to be a word, that meant” problem ” / We paint that from the vocabulary / today life is so pleasant / not? Yeah! Not true?!”