What If Music AI Existed In 1966?

 

Every week on Monday, I get the results of my Google Alert on music AI. The articles are basically all championing its bright future--a kind of green-washing. 

What would music have been like in the 1960s, say 1967, the Summer of Love, if music AI existed then? 

 

1967-1969 was the pinnacle of spirituality in pop music, with the Finale the lunar landing. But it wasn't spiritual at all. It was something more prosaic: the US winning the Space Race. The "spirituality" of the moment was more of a desire than a reality of what it was really about, and yet lingers to this day.

AI is in some ways a desire for a Moon or Mars-landing, and we read mystical things into it. But with the current AI there's very little spirituality--it's leaving the humans out of the loop. It's a form of self-deprecation--perhaps self-loathing. We've become so misanthropic that the music has to be equally deprecating, even to the level where machines are having the ideas, and we're merely steering them.

Working with AI in music, at least to me, seems to suggest that having original ideas--or even the desire to create something from an original idea is quaint and sentimental. There is a more compelling allure in artificial intelligence in that we're going to have a machine make our content for us and therefore there is no need for us to be intimately involved. Perhaps we prefer things to be hands-off because we have gotten used to the pandemic precautions: It's safer to "glove and mask" in many things we do. Having ideas and manually shaping them is just this old thing that previous generations did: We don't necessarily have to be involved in idea creation and is perhaps something that we want to avoid, so as to be postmodernist or to do things with a feigned diffidence.

So if ideas emanate from algorithms rather than from someone playing a guitar and singing a melody, we would never have had a David Bowie for example.

 

***

 

1/11/2025

 

I’ve found that generated music can have a “magical” quality where it interprets a lyric in unpredictable ways. But “spirituality” in anything is dependent upon what we bring to it in the moment. For most listeners on first hearing a piece of (pop) music is mostly timbral: they might not tune into the lyrics. It can sometimes take years to get the meaning in lyrics–even if they were cryptic. Yes’ lyrics were typically cryptic, but Jon Anderson gave them a mystical quality. This is what AI is doing in some cases, but it might be just a few people who are interpreting them that way. I’ve always liked to leave a margin of ambiguity so that they are less literal and more like visual abstractions rather than portraits and landscapes. 

On “machines are having the ideas, and we’re merely steering them”: This is actually true because in fact it’s frequently the case where the generated ideas need lots of tweaking (steering) in order for them to be resolved. If you had a machine that could produce sculptures based on your textual inputs, you’d probably need to chisel them in some way. Sometimes they might be interesting as-is, which is sometimes the case with AI music. But it’s this idea of “signing off” on a generated piece because I know it wasn’t entirely the result of my thinking or skills–as opposed to knowing it was the result of my intentions. You can generate a piece of writing and change a few things and be fine with it as-is. But is it really what you were thinking?
 

ChatGPT’s result on the question, What would music have been like in 1967 if music AI existed then?

 

If music AI had existed in 1967, it would have likely created a fascinating intersection of emerging technologies and the dynamic music trends of the era. Here's an exploration of how AI could have influenced music in 1967:
 

1. Enhanced Psychedelia

 

Generative Soundscapes: AI could have contributed to the experimental soundscapes of psychedelic rock by generating algorithmic, evolving patterns that mirrored the era's fascination with surreal and mind-bending sounds. Bands like Pink Floyd or The Beatles (on albums like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) might have used AI to generate innovative textures, drone-like backgrounds, or unexpected melodic progressions.

 

Lyric Generation: AI could have been used to create surreal or nonsensical lyrics, reflecting the influence of the counterculture movement and experimentation with altered states of consciousness.

2. Automation in Production
 

Early Synth Integration: AI might have been integrated with the primitive synthesizers of the time (e.g., Moog synthesizers), automating aspects of sound design or creating adaptive, dynamic layers in a track.

 

AI Mixing and Mastering: Basic AI tools could have streamlined production by suggesting mixing balances or enhancing recording quality, which was still analog at the time.

 

[What I like about music AI is the "rapid prototyping" of production. Again, it's the idea of "signing off" on something as being just-ok and not putting in the effort to be unique. AI music is decidedly NOT unique, as music was in 1967. You could describe the music in a text prompt but it would typically be terrible visual gruel].

3. New Genres and Subcultures

 

Algorithmic Composition: AI could have contributed to the birth of proto-electronic or "computer music" genres by generating pieces algorithmically, possibly inspiring composers like Wendy Carlos or Karlheinz Stockhausen.

 

Cross-Cultural Fusions: AI could have analyzed and merged musical styles from around the globe, fostering the era's growing interest in world music and Eastern influences.

 

 [Big Maybe].

4. Interactive Music Experiences

 

Audience Participation: AI could have enabled real-time audience feedback to influence live performances or even allowed fans to co-create tracks in an embryonic form of interactive music technology.

 

[I had this idea in 2013 when I was writing Reset 2046, Algorithm Jockeys (AJs) would be doing this using data coming from smartphones or embedded chips].

5. Social and Countercultural Commentary
 

AI Lyrics for Protest Songs: AI might have analyzed political and social trends to generate poignant or satirical protest lyrics, contributing to the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements that shaped much of the era's music.

 

[Satirical protest lyrics?!]

6. Potential Backlash
 

Fear of Dehumanization: In an era defined by humanistic values and a counterculture push against technology-driven conformity, there might have been resistance to AI, seen as a threat to the authenticity and emotional depth of human creativity.

 

Ethical Questions: The use of AI in music could have sparked debates about authorship, originality, and the role of machines in artistic expression.

[This was also a part of the Reset 2046 narrative where genetically-engineered 20-something were militating against "neuroart" where anyone and everyone would create art and music by just having ideas, however bad or generic they were].