Pet Shop Boys say AI can help complete their unfinished songs
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Artificial intelligence (AI) has proven to be a controversial issue in the music industry, resulting in legal hassles, job losses and a decline in musical quality.
Just last month, Universal Music Group had an AI song removed from online services because it represented a “copyright violation.”
However, British pop icons, the Pet Shop Boys, claim that the technology can be used in a positive way in the creative process.
The group’s lead singer, Neil Tennant, said AI can “fill in the blanks” when a song is unfinished, such as when the composer is suffering from writer’s block.
Tennant and his bandmate Chris Lowe said they are looking at new technology as they prepare their ‘Dreamworld’ greatest hits tour in Europe this summer.
Neil Tennant, performing here in Milan in May 2022, says AI could be a tool for songwriters to make music
“There’s a song we wrote a chorus for in 2003 and we never finished it because I couldn’t think of anything for the verses,” Tennant told the Radio Times.
“But now with AI, you could give it the bits you wrote, hit the button, and let it fill in the blanks.
“You could rewrite it, but it can still be helpful.”
The duo, who have never been afraid to embrace new technology, were impressed by Abba Voyage, the virtual concert featuring avatars of the four members of Abba performing their songs.
From May 2022, Abba Voyage concerts will be held in a purpose-built venue called Abba Arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London.
Abba Voyage runs through January 2024, giving band members a steady stream of income without having to take the stage themselves.
When asked if the Pet Shop Boys had thought about following in Abba’s footsteps, Tennant said, “Well, as we say, ‘They’re all looking at it,’ but I think Abba is a unique phenomenon.”
“They’re perfect for that presentation because their sound strived for perfection. They were only together for a short time, then they disappeared in a way no one else has.”
His bandmate Chris Lowe added, “So the answer is, we probably will.”
Pet Shop Boys look at new technology as they prep for their ‘Dreamworld’ tour in Europe this summer, possibly along the lines of Abba’s avatar experience in London (pictured)
Five years in the making, the concert featured four 3D digital versions of the group’s younger self singing and dancing to some 20 of their hits
Tennant was also surprised when their manager’s teenage daughter asked a bot to come up with a Pet Shop Boys-style song.
While it’s unclear which bot she was using, OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT, has a range of Pet Shop Boys-esque tunes on its online AI Jukebox.
OpenAI scraped 1.2 million songs, 600,000 of which were sung in English, from the internet and matched the lyrics and metadata, which were fed into the AI to generate approximations from many different artists.
Pet Shop Boys have embraced new innovations in their careers; in 1993, when promoting their album ‘Very’, they used state of the art computer technology to place themselves in a modern computer graphics world.
Meanwhile, their contemporaries Duran Duran used an AI named Huxley to create a music video for their 2021 hit “Invisible.
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The band’s keyboardist Nick Rhodes called AI the “new frontier” allowing albums to be “made in bedrooms by new musicians instead of big studios.”
“It’s easy for people to say it’s humans who can create masterpieces, but I think we know, we’re moving forward now and it’s an exciting time because machines will dictate some of the things we do and will help with much more,’ Rhodes said.
Listen to AI-generated tunes on OpenAI’s Jukebox below
However, using the technology as a composition tool raises some important copyright questions.
Recently, Canadian rapper Drake fell victim to AI songs developed to resemble him that his record company put a stop to.
Fake Drake songs — one called Winters Cold and the other called Not a Game — appeared on multiple platforms earlier this year, including TikTok and YouTube.
One YouTube user said, “You can see the AI say things and deliver certain lines in a way that Drake normally wouldn’t… but still this is some creepy sh*t.
Canadian rapper Drake (pictured) has fallen victim to songs created with artificial intelligence to resemble him
“Because you know that at some point they’re going to combine that AI with the robot prototypes that are out there. Before you know it… machines will take over.’
Also in April, an AI-generated song featuring the simulated voices of Drake and The Weeknd was pulled from streaming services by Universal Music Group for “infringing content created with generative AI.”
The song went viral and by the time it was taken down had been streamed 600,000 times on Spotify and 15 million views on TikTok views and 275,000 on YouTube.
But not all artists take a negative view of the idea; Elon Musk’s ex-Grimes told artists they can use her voice in AI-generated songs for a fair distribution of royalties.