Aerosmith removed from roller coaster preshow at Disney's Hollywood Studios

Lord Gonchar:

Yeah. And how many times have you seen the muppets?

Twice, when I was 7 and 8 years old, apparently (and I'm sure the programs are stashed away in some old box in my parents' basement).

Wow. That Muppet Babies stuff really was giagantic back then.

Crazy how they can't seem to get the lightning back in the bottle on most of this.

I just came here to say that I knew that I watched Muppet Babies when I had aged out of it, but I had no idea there were enough of us to start a support group.

Lord Gonchar:

Wolf Alice gave their producer Greg Kurstin writing credit on their latest album.

Yeah, they haven't been shy about saying that in interviews, but with the proviso that he's more of an enabler to make the record they wanted. Lots of piano on this one, compared to the last that I think had one song with piano. What I'm really getting at though is the pop stuff (which that Aerosmith song most definitely is), where you can have someone who is a talented performer like Beyonce and literally 100 people attached to a single song, and Ms. Knowles just shows up to sing it. There's a difference between producers trying to get something out of the artist (Antonoff and Tay Tay is another one) and a squad there to make product. I really think the Mutt Langes, Rick Rubins and Butch Vigs of the world aren't trying to put their stamp on things.

Art is often pretentious in that sense, I guess. Integrity and authenticity is so important to folks who have a more discerning taste. Not saying that's bad or good, it just is.

I'd wager most of the wane of the Muppets popularity was the death of Jim Henson. They didn't end up growing bigger as Disney did after Walt died.

I'm a huge fan of Korn. Like, lifetime fan since the very beginning. Throughout their career, I have been aware of how much producers have made their songs better. Even their debut album was altered by Producer Ross Robinson. The difference between that album and the demo that came before it is immensely different. Many, if not all, the songs were restructured, rewritten with some new lyrics, ect.

Getting outside influence from a Producer is pretty important. They force an artist to step outside themselves and hear what they are writing from a different perspective.

That's my take on producers in music.

AI, on the other hand, has the ability to steal what makes us human, which is creativity. It can be useful as a tool or shortcut, but the degree of how much AL is used to create something is parallel to how much of a soul a work of art has. I am always aware of how I use it. I don't want to sound or look like a robot.

Plus I hear that it will cause our demise sooner than later.

Just my opinion.

(AI was not used in the creation of this post.)

So what we're all pissed off about is the difference between "an artist with ability who gets shaped by the ideas fed to them instead of bring their own" and "an artist with their own ideas, that then get shaped by the same people in the same way"?

It's a rounding error.

If you're listening to it on Spotify, it's a product.

(AI was not used in the creation of this post either.)

Lord Gonchar:

(AI was not used in the creation of this post either.)

Never believe the robots

I think the argument boils down to "the artists that I like are awesome and the artists that you like have sold out to the man"

With regard to music, AI is today's drum machine of the 1980s. Drummers were all bent out of shape then because they thought they'd all be replaced.

I think the only true artists are those who were orphaned at birth, raised themselves on a deserted island, taught themselves music, made their own instruments and recording equipment and created their own distribution channel. Anyone else isn't worthy of recognition.

To me, if I like what a given artist produces, I don't really care how much help he/she may have gotten to produce it. And the idea that I am supposed to track down how much help he/she had to increase/decrease my enjoyment of it doesn't make much sense to me.

Shades:

I think the argument boils down to "the artists that I like are awesome and the artists that you like have sold out to the man"

From one angle, yes.

My angle is, they're all the same. It's great that they've fooled people, but...

Vater:
With regard to music, AI is today's drum machine of the 1980s.

Awwww. I've been holding that in my pocket for a while now. Waiting for the big discussion to feel right.

Flat out, AI is a drum machine, guitar machine, bass machine, vocal machine...

anything machine.

If you want me to tip my hand a bit, I'm so far beyond "prompt and use" with the AI music that I know it would break someone like Travis's brain.

At this point, creating something like that stupid Lou Bega cover is no different than bringing musicians into a studio and then manipulating their multiple takes into a performance. I'm literally doing (on a much less talented level) what the guys we're discussing - Mutt Lange, Greg Kirsten, Ross Robinson - do. It's just the the performances I'm working with were generated, not performed.

But, like Mike said - drum machine. That's a generated pattern, not a performance.

Quantinization? Machine intelligence aligning music to rythmic timing patterns. Every artist discussed in this thread's recordings use it. I first messed with the concept in (consumer recording software) Cakewalk...in 1998.

Sample swapping? Taking the performed and recorded sound and swapping it with a sample. You reduce the pulse of something like a snare drum hit to an electric impulse that siginals the machine to play/insert the audio sample. Yeah, you know what I'm gonna say about our favorite artists here too.

The music we enjoy (even live at scale) is SO far from someone simply performing a musical work for us that it's laughable how much what we call "music" or maybe more specifically "performed music" or "recorded music" has changed in 30, 50, 75 years.

And if you think there's not a whole market of up-and-comers who aren't being taught that being a "musician" or "band" is prompting AI until you get what you like and then simply performing that as your own work, then you really ARE fooling yourself.

There are more shades of grey then ever.

The tool is only as good as the person using it.

Sorry to crap on your hobby, Gonch. No disrespect is intended towards you directly. I can guess you are probably pretty talented and probably work hard to make what you create. And I get it. AI is easier and cheaper than finding real human musicians, trying to get them to do what you want, and renting a recording studio with all the bells and whistles, and paying the people to operate it. A lot of songwriters in Nashville are using it to write the next hit these days, or so I've heard.

Drum machines are great, but a rock band without a real drummer is boring as hell.

The acceptance of AI music really does hurt my brain. I respect Johnny Cash, Jesse Wells, Jack White, ect. because they are/were songwriters. Korn, Eminem, The Ramones (doesn't matter the genre) -they write music that comes from deep within themselves. It's self-expression. It's cathartic for them. Gaining fans who relate to your music and its message is a huge bonus.

For a large portion of my life, I've prided myself on collaborating with other like minded musicians to create music. It was my entire identity at one point in my life. Now that I am a hundred years old, I support kids picking up instruments and making music with other kids. It the greatest feeling in the world, even when the music you are making isn't perfect. I hate the idea of a kid losing out on the experience of picking up a guitar and practicing for hours and hours a day, then forming a band with their friends and writing stupid songs, because he decided to type a prompt into AI and create a song that way instead.

At the expense of rambling on, in 2000, during COVID, you saw so many musicians collaborating. That's because most musicians would go bananas without the ability to play music with others. The band I was in during the old days wrote and recorded a nine-song album, remotely, in less than a year. 2020 was one of the best years of my life because "we got the old band back together." I was that twenty-year-old kid again, hanging out (remotely) with my best friends, with a common goal of creating something that means something to us.

I can't say it sounded as good as something created by AI, or that anyone listened to it, but I am so immensely proud of it. If I would have just typed my lyrics into AI and told it what I wanted, it would have been a lot less fun.

As always, YMMV.

Lord Gonchar:

The music we enjoy

Speak for yourself, pal.

Lord Gonchar:

...and mostly powered by nostalgia at this point.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Also I'm slightly worried that Gonch AI will take over the world in the not too distant future.

Jeff:

I mean, the difference is that Steven Tyler is basically a walking skeleton, but Dr. Teeth looks like he's about the same age as he ever was.

I mean, the difference is that Dr. Teeth has never been credibly accused of S A

I don't listen to Spotify, I still buy music. I guess I'm weird like that. I got so tired of the services that I built my own and uploaded everything into it.

There's something about live performance that changes my perception of a band. It's different arrangements, varying tempo, mistakes, etc. I know some folks are doing click tracks and timecode, but they're so obvious when the lighting cues hit so perfectly with the percussion (Lindsey Stirling's Christmas tour was like this). And when you see someone who has extraordinary mastery of their instrument (or voice), it's something to see. Think guitarist Vernon Reid of Living Colour (or Corey Glover singing). I doubt "Cult of Personality" has ever been performed the same way twice, and I've seen them do it a dozen times. Or go big, and see an orchestra and choir perform Carmina Burana. AI can't do that.

And I'm not naive about who is writing stuff (I've watched enough Rick Beato videos). But I don't think it's coincidence that what I'm drawn to most is not the music-by-committee that the industry makes. Everyone works with a producer, but that's not the same as the "product artists."

LostKause:

I hate the idea of a kid losing out on the experience of picking up a guitar and practicing for hours and hours a day, then forming a band with their friends and writing stupid songs, because he decided to type a prompt into AI and create a song that way instead.

Before I reply to this specifically, let me say I actually agree with most of your sentiment - in spirit, at least. But that argument seems to be more the large "kids need boredom" or "kids need to explore and learn" argument, just boiled down to the subject at hand.

The inverse view could be one of gatekeeping:

"The way you created a piece of art is inferior."

What if a kid has no interest in playing a guitar or french horn or vibraphone, but really digs creating and enjoys the hell out of music. An hour ot five playing with AI, learning to tweak the prompts, adjust the output, make changes - you know, create - he uploads his music to the world and is told it sucks because he didn't make it "the right way", but had he made the exact same thing and done it "the right way" it would be really cool and we'd all encourage you to do it some more.

That's just old man "both ways uphill in the snow to school" back-in-my-day bull****, really.

If the end product is enjoyable, I'm not gonna gatekeep on some arbitrary workflow.*

Jeff:
I know some folks are doing click tracks and timecode

It'd be quicker to name those that aren't.

And I know how ****ty and cynical I sound, but there's a grey area where people (not you guys, and certainly not just here or in this circle), seem to **** on certain elements of the process/performance/whatever in one breath, then praise an artist who is doing the exact same thing in the next.

I have to believe people just don't understand.

PR works.

And Spotify was just the example for "commercial music" - if you're listening to anything produced and distributed in any real way and not some guy screaming into a tin can in an outhouse**, it's likely using several of these things that get an artist proclaimed as "less than" for doing so.
---

*for the most part

**and man, that guy's the absolute best, right? My third most listened to artist in 2025. (and if I had any conviction at all, later in this discussion I'd drop randomly in a post my lament over finding out the guy in the outhouse is actually AI and how he sucks now)

So who is that artist?

I disagree with your "who is using click tracks" because the intent in the case has more to do with production intent. Admittedly, this isn't what I was implying earlier. There are some musicals who are in that camp, like Six, which is very much a pop musical in terms of genre. But then you have something like Hamilton (needs a master mixer), which is not. Also admittedly, this isn't so much about the art as much as it is the performance, and Six is a very performance and dance show.

So maybe the click track "out" isn't what I meant. My last show was Garbage, and I know they've used click tracks prior to having a female bassist who sings backing (which changes their performance entirely), but I try to give them credit for the varied arrangements. Still, using that as an aid is lightyears away from machines doing the actual playing and writing. Poor example maybe, since the producers are also in the band.

I saw the same Garbage tour (absolutely backing tracks/midi/loops whatever...at least percussion - additional BG vocals and synths/weird noises too, but I'm being generous). So yeah.

Let me be clear I'm not faulting these artists, I'm faulting their listeners. I'm am totally ok with it.

Vig produces one thing in the studio and to effectively reproduce it live, they have play along with parts of the recordings - those backing tracks.

No biggie. But if you're hearing the equivalent of 7 musicians and only 4 people are on stage playing...where in the grey does that exist? Flat out, it's not four musicians playing me a song. It's four musicians using technology to enhance their performace - either to more closely match the recording, to gap missing elements, or whatever.

It's all a testament to the idea that all of art is a grey area...the creation of it even more so.

Jeff:

Still, using that as an aid is lightyears away from machines doing the actual playing

Isn't like every recorded Garbage track a drum machine?

With all of that said, Garbage is a terrible example because they're not really a band. They're a studio production packaged as a band. I mean, this is straight from an interview with Vig:

Butch Vig: Stupid Girl is one of the most simple songs we recorded, and the whole song was written over the bass groove and Clash sample. We decided to add textures, guitars, and keys to make the song dynamic rather than write a lot of complicated chord changes. Steve and I added a lot of ambient sound efx that float in and out of the mix, and there is a "glitchy" sound that comes in during the pre-chorus that was taken from one of our DAT players that had broken and started emitting bizarre noises.

But this is what I mean. It's not a performance, it's a production. Where in this is a band playing and where is it a couple of guys dicking with machines?

And maybe that's the most correct way to frame it? I think people still think of bands performing, it being recorded and you listening. Then that band tours and does the same thing live.

I could literally have you come to my house and hit each drum and cymbal on my kit once. Then edit those sounds into a performance with every note correct and perfectly in time...that you technically played.

I could teach you a simple beat in a few minutes, record one measure of that, then manipulate and loop it. Are you suddenly a drummer? My joking aside, this is EXACTLY what Vig does on a lot of Garbage stuff....when it's not a sample...or a drum machine.

You could learn to play drums to a perfectly professionally adequate level. The producer is (likely) still going to use the computer (and the machine learning) to quantinize your performance to be perfectly in time. This is 99% of music.

And, again, that pesky grey area - at what point does the art of a human using a bank of machines to manipulate someone else's performance to generate a new sound/beat/rhythm that they call their own start to be the lack of art that a human using a machine to generate a sound/beat/rhythm with an AI tool that they call their own. That's not a challenge, it's a thought excercise.

And autotune. If you're anything like me (and God, I hope not), all you have to do is watch Fil at Wings of Pegasus to simply be flabbergasted at how mainstream autotune and/or tracks are. And I expect this to be happening.

Because it still seems like it's the lack of work involved that gets to people.

"But you didn't do anything!"

I dunno, it's 4am.

Hey hey we're the Monkees...