‘This song sucks’: Nick Cave responds to ChatGPT song written in style of Nick Cave

[Charlie Bernstein]

Does anyone think that AI can take over guitar duties? . . .

Can't imagine why not.

Doesn't mean we can't play our guitars. But pop hits are already pretty well programmed and dubbed and sampled and looped. AI will just make it easier to do what they already do.

Interesting thing: I've been reading an interview with Paul Simon from thirty years ago. He predicted all of it. Said this is exactly where music would go: Melody would go away, beats would take over, and synthetic sounds would replace instruments.

 

[getbent]

Funny!

Obviously Buffett and FGL have been using AI for many years.

cheeseburger in paradise guy or the dude in omaha?

 

[58Bassman]

ChatGPT isn’t going to put real artists out of work anytime soon. Ad copy writers? Better look for a new career…

I seriously doubt AI will create an ad that contains "Where's the beef"?.

 

[teletail]

If songwriting could be reduced to a formula, then anyone could write a great song.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I seriously doubt AI will create an ad that contains "Where's the beef"?.

Sure it will. All you have to do is ask.

 

[chris m.]

If songwriting could be reduced to a formula, then anyone could write a great song.

Writing a great song and writing a hit song are no longer the same thing, if they ever were.

Even before Tik-Tok, there was "Kung Fu Fighting".

 

[cyclopean]

Hi.

Not sure we need another ChatGPT thread. And actually, this isn’t.

This is about Nick Cave’s views on songwriting, really.


https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...to-chatgpt-song-written-in-style-of-nick-cave


Below is his full reply.*

****** *****
Dear Mark,

Since its launch in November last year many people, most buzzing with a kind of algorithmic awe, have sent me songs ‘in the style of Nick Cave’ created by ChatGPT. There have been dozens of them. Suffice to say, I do not feel the same enthusiasm around this technology. I understand that ChatGPT is in its infancy but perhaps that is the emerging horror of AI – that it will forever be in its infancy, as it will always have further to go, and the direction is always forward, always faster. It can never be rolled back, or slowed down, as it moves us toward a utopian future, maybe, or our total destruction. Who can possibly say which? Judging by this song ‘in the style of Nick Cave’ though, it doesn’t look good, Mark. The apocalypse is well on its way. This song sucks.

What ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty. ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary but it cannot create a genuine song. It could perhaps in time create a song that is, on the surface, indistinguishable from an original, but it will always be a replication, a kind of burlesque.

Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being, it has been nowhere, it has endured nothing, it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations, and hence it doesn’t have the capacity for a shared transcendent experience, as it has no limitations from which to transcend. ChatGPT’s melancholy role is that it is destined to imitate and can never have an authentic human experience, no matter how devalued and inconsequential the human experience may in time become.

What makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite. It is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self. This is part of the authentic creative struggle that precedes the invention of a unique lyric of actual value; it is the breathless confrontation with one’s vulnerability, one’s perilousness, one’s smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden shocking discovery; it is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes in the inner workings of the song their own blood, their own struggle, their own suffering. This is what we humble humans can offer, that AI can only mimic, the transcendent journey of the artist that forever grapples with his or her own shortcomings. This is where human genius resides, deeply embedded within, yet reaching beyond, those limitations.

It may sound like I’m taking all this a little too personally, but I’m a songwriter who is engaged, at this very moment, in the process of songwriting. It’s a blood and guts business, here at my desk, that requires something of me to initiate the new and fresh idea. It requires my humanness. What that new idea is, I don’t know, but it is out there somewhere, searching for me. In time, we will find each other.

Mark, thanks for the song, but with all the love and respect in the world, this song is ********, a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human, and, well, I don’t much like it — although, hang on!, rereading it, there is a line in there that speaks to me —

‘I’ve got the fire of hell in my eyes’

— says the song ‘in the style of Nick Cave’, and that’s kind of true. I have got the fire of hell in my eyes – and it’s ChatGPT.

Love, Nick

****** *****

Pax/
Dean
* The song (and Cave’s full reply again) here

Nick Cave - The Red Hand Files - Issue #218 - I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think? Verse 1: In the depths of the night, I hear a call A voice that echoes, through the hall It

Dear Mark, Since its launch in November last year many people, most buzzing with a kind of algorithmic awe, have sent me songs ‘in the...

www.theredhandfiles.com

So if we can make chatgpt suffer, it will write good songs?

 

[BrazHog]

Writing a great song and writing a hit song are no longer the same thing, if they ever were.

Even before Tik-Tok, there was "Kung Fu Fighting".

A stone cold classic. Just because a song is goofy doesn't mean it's bad.

 

[chris m.]

A stone cold classic. Just because a song is goofy doesn't mean it's bad.

I loved it as a kid when it came out. I just gave it a fresh listen and it actually is a really good song, albeit a novelty topic. But it has proper structure, unlike current hits which are just endless repetition of a single 10 second Tik Tok hook.

 

[Timbresmith1]

I’m more worried about the ai coveting sentience status.
Sorry. They exist solely to serve humanity. Otherwise? To the scrap heap with them.

 

[getbent]

I’m more worried about the ai coveting sentience status.
Sorry. They exist solely to serve humanity. Otherwise? To the scrap heap with them.

empathy is a key part of sentience and being human.

 

[Willie Johnson]

"Chatgpt, write a complaint letter in the style of Nick Cave about a song created by chatgpt in the style of Nick Cave."

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I’m more worried about the ai coveting sentience status.
Sorry. They exist solely to serve humanity. Otherwise? To the scrap heap with them.

You'll recall, of course, that Skynet had other ideas!

 

[TokyoPortrait]

Hi.

Skynet

I can’t remember if I already mentioned this, but Skynet is real. As in, actually real.

I saw their building a few weeks ago, while attending a rugby game. For reals…

The fields were near some kind of small airport, and I guess it was some kind of aviation service industry company.

Pax/
Dean

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Hi.

I can’t remember if I already mentioned this, but Skynet is real. As in, actually real.

I saw their building a few weeks ago, while attending a rugby game. For reals…

The fields were near some kind of small airport, and I guess it was some kind of aviation service industry company.

Pax/
Dean

You don't need to convince me! Sounds like they're hiding it in plain sight.