{"id":636343,"date":"2026-10-04T18:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T18:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/636343\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T18:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T18:52:15","slug":"please-dont-send-me-your-robot-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/636343\/","title":{"rendered":"Please don\u2019t send me your robot music"},"content":{"rendered":"

I couldn\u2019t help but notice some people on social media dunking on a post from @nicksaraev, a self-described entrepreneur helper, who boldly proclaimed<\/a> on X a few days ago: \u201cI am not joking when I say this. Spotify, Apple Music, and streaming in general is over. AI music is now very, very good. You just don\u2019t know yet because all AI music circulating today is from ~2-3 generations ago. Suno v6 pro et al has solved infinite personalized music.\u201d He followed it up with \u201cYes, this probably hurts your feelings. It\u2019s still going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

While my feelings are unhurt, and I don\u2019t really know what \u201cinfinite personalized music\u201d means or how it could be \u201csolved,\u201d at the same time, I can easily guess what is implied here and I don\u2019t actually want to know more. As one Bluesky user observed<\/a>, the inherent idea here comes \u201cwhen you have no concept of how people engage with music.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only thing I can think of that\u2019s worse than getting stuck on Greatest Hits or Top 40 is pushing a button and generating \u201cinfinite personalized music\u201d with no human influence.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, we don\u2019t seem able to escape this trend. I have a friend who has, on a few occasions, sent me AI-generated raps with his name or a joke inserted as the lyrics. They can be technically proficient, maybe even a little funny, but there is always an underlying cadence of the uncanny valley that I still doubt Suno v6 pro et al. or whatever has totally overcome. Please don\u2019t send me examples; I actually don\u2019t care. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m offended by the idea of generated art; it\u2019s just that it bores me. I\u2019m having plenty of fun engaging with music made with human ears, hands and minds.<\/p>\n

Way back in the Bush II and Obama years, I volunteered at my college radio station in the Music Procurement Department or whatever it was called. Our job was to sort through the massive mailer box of padded envelopes and bubble mailers that came in from record labels, big, small and in-between. It was like Christmas every Wednesday afternoon as we shredded packages and stacked CDs, occasional stickers and vinyl, splitting the spoils and loading them into our computers \u2014 by hand even! We made notes about what should get added to the radio catalog as fodder for our aspiring DJs \u2014 and what should get chucked out or given away for free at radio events.<\/p>\n

If we didn\u2019t already know the band, the way we chose which albums to review was often based on cover art, the promo materials we skimmed, or a sticker on the front that read RIYL: Recommended If You Like. Almost every artist would put something like \u201cRIYL: Jay-Z, Radiohead, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads.\u201d Sure, totally random indie label from Seattle, all of your bands sound exactly like Nirvana. It could be a pretty boring, sometimes horrifying process \u2014 I\u2019ll never forget the thrash metal song we received about Shannen Doherty that sounded like it was recorded in a blender. I still can\u2019t get over the inane lyrics: \u201cShannen Doherty, Shannen Doherty \/ You\u2019re in my head. Shannen Doherty, Shannen Doherty \/ I like bread.\u201d I wish I were making this up.<\/p>\n

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But the crate digging, which I also did in physical record stores, was always worth it when you found your new favorite band or heard the summer\u2019s hit track long before any of your friends. I was introduced to so many artists, many of whom I still turn to today. Hot Chip, Sea Wolf, Fleet Foxes, to name a few. It taught me to always give music a chance, no matter how ugly the art or how crusty the jewel case. Usually, you can listen to the song up to when the vocals kick in before giving up or listening longer. By then, you usually know if you\u2019re gonna hate it or not.<\/p>\n

I have no doubt AI music will keep improving, at least to a point, but I predict few people who actually love music are going to listen that way because it has lost its essence.<\/p>\n

I still devour new music this way, clocking a daily average of four hours of tunes familiar and novel. It helps me write and focus and relax and otherwise temper my mood throughout the day. I\u2019m always looking for new artists to try. And I hope I always consume \u2014 I hate that word, but there it is \u2014 music this way, instead of becoming a curmudgeon who only appreciates the tunes from their youth and thinks anything modern is trash. If you think that, you aren\u2019t digging deep enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only thing I can think of that\u2019s worse than getting stuck on Greatest Hits or Top 40 is pushing a button and generating \u201cinfinite personalized music\u201d with no human influence. It bores the sh*t out of me. It\u2019s not just the lack of discovery, though that is critical, maybe because it scratches those deep primal hunter\/gatherer itches. It\u2019s more about the lack of anything personal behind the music. No history, no struggle, no catharsis, no exploration, no humanity. I listen to music because it\u2019s flawed, raw and human, not just noise to fill my day. I have no doubt AI music will keep improving, at least to a point, but I predict few people who actually love music are going to listen that way because it has lost its essence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, I have streamed plenty of AI music on YouTube, often unintentionally when the vaporwave or atmospheric DnB<\/a> mix I\u2019m vibing to autoplays some slop channel. I can almost always tell when it\u2019s generated. There\u2019s a flatness, like an echo of a song you heard a long time ago, something better. It puts me to sleep and I inevitably switch it off. Maybe it\u2019s gotten better lately. But I still think I\u2019d notice. At any rate, I\u2019d never seek it out.<\/p>\n

As a child I was once gifted a \u201ccustom\u201d cassette tape with songs \u201cwritten for me.\u201d Every single track on the album was centered around \u201cTroy,\u201d with my name mentioned as often as possible. I listened to that thing over and over again, until I spilled a bottle of soap in my tape deck and ruined it. But anyway, none of the songs were actually produced with me in mind. It was made by a company called Kidselebration that in 1986 made \u201cpersonalized\u201d cassette tapes like these for a whole boatload of names. The songs never changed, someone just dubbed in a different name into the song for Kyle<\/a>, Sarah, Robert, etc. I can\u2019t imagine how much friggin\u2019 work this must have been before Pro Tools, but it was probably just the \u201880s equivalent of a lot of cut-and-paste.<\/p>\n

You can listen to the one for \u201cJessica<\/a>\u201d here if you really want to. Every time they say \u201cInsert Name,\u201d it sounds totally awkward and weird. But even as a kid, I suspected on some level that this tape wasn\u2019t really for me specifically. Something always felt off. If infinite personalized AI music doesn\u2019t give people the same vibe, maybe they\u2019re not listening hard enough. And please, don\u2019t send me your robot music. Send me anything else.<\/p>\n

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