Genuine human creativity takes time, but you know what doesn't? AI slop. There are countless AI models out there that can make something that passes for music, and you might come across those tracks on streaming services without realizing it. Google says it will begin labeling that content in YouTube Music, building on similar disclosures in the main YouTube app.
Google is not outright banning AI music or even speaking ill of it. "Generative AI is opening up new ways for artists to create, experiment, and share music," the company says in a blog post.
However, the company also acknowledges that people want to know if a song was created with generative AI tools. A new label for AI content on YouTube Music is now rolling out in the app and on the website, which looks a lot like a label Google began adding to AI-generated videos on YouTube earlier this year.
Bertrand Chamayou (Warner Classics) The pianist brings a singing quality and seeming effortlessness to the complete set of Songs Without Words
Mendelssohn wrote 48 Songs Without Words for solo piano: eight sets of six, mostly under three minutes long, emerging over a 16-year period that spanned most of his short adult life. The handful that still regularly make their way on to recital programmes are only the tip of the iceberg; the complete set hasn’t been recorded as much as you might think, which makes this new release from Bertrand Chamayou still more welcome.
These pieces belong to the world of Schubert Lieder, and Chamayou brings a singing quality to them from the off. The Duetto that rounds off the Op 38 set is beautifully done, the melodic lines alternating like a female and male voice, each lingering just slightly as the other voice takes over. Compared to other interpreters, Chamayou is often softer-edged, his playing a little smoother and more flowing, although there are exceptions: Op 62 No 6 – known as Spring Song, but originally titled Camberwell Green after the then-elegant London suburb where it was written – is given a perky, almost frothy touch in the accompaniment: spring bubbling under like frogspawn in a pond.
You’re Paul McCartney. So how come you’re still getting het up at a fictional version of you being marginally smaller than a fictional version of John Lennon?
There has been a lot of discourse and conjecture surrounding Sam Mendes’s forthcoming Beatles biopics. Some of this is logical (will people really turn out to see four near-identical films on the same day?), some creative (what animal did they have to shave to make John Lennon’s Abbey Road beard?). At every turn the film has been examined and factchecked and cross-referenced against testimonies from the band’s actual hairdresser.
But until now the remaining Beatles have managed to keep fairly quiet about the whole thing. Last year Ringo Starr mentioned that he’d sat down with Mendes to rework a scene he wasn’t happy with, and Paul McCartney has praised the guitar playing of Paul Mescal, but it appeared that no real red lines had been crossed. Until now.
As he releases new album Hippies, Thugs and Heroes, the 77-year-old British folk legend answers your questions about Billy Connolly, Californian fish and chips and whether he nearly joined the Eagles
Billy Connolly recalled being in a room with you, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake and John Martyn. Did you feel you were collectively doing something special? poscopy That might have been at the Royal Festival Hall [in 1969], where Fairport Convention had Nick and John as openers and Billy must have been backstage. He’d have been in the Humblebums with Gerry Rafferty, before he evolved from a banjo player who told jokes into a comedian who played a bit of banjo. He was always a fantastic bloke and we’ve been friends for a long time.
There was a great camaraderie between the stable of acts Joe Boyd produced: Fairport, the Incredible String Band, John Martyn, Chris McGregor. We felt different, not special, and didn’t feel successful because we weren’t. None of these people really sold many records in their lifetimes, but people are still discovering them now. This album is my latest attempt to sell some units.
(RCA) Massive in her home nation but less so outside, Angèle is aided by Justice, Soulwax and Caroline Polachek in a bold bid for broader appeal – but her resultant album can be generic as well as daring
As has often been pointed out, we live in an era where the traditional Anglo-American stranglehold over pop has been broken. Partly because streaming has presented listeners with a far broader choice of music than would once have been imaginable, and partly as a result of social media accounts doing the promotional departments’ job for them, the charts are now as likely to include music made in Seoul or Lagos as London or LA. Spurs’ 62,000-capacity stadium has recently hosted not just Jay-Z, Gorillaz and System of a Down, but India’s Arijit Singh, South Korea’s BTS, BigBang and Stray Kids, and Puerto Rico’s Bad Bunny, who addressed the crowd almost exclusively in Spanish.
Clearly, British audiences’ disinclination to be welded to English-speaking artists is a cheering thing. Equally clearly, there seem to be limits: the same interest hasn’t been afforded Francophone pop. The biggest French-speaking stars in recent memory have either dealt in dance music or acquiesced to recording in English. Belgian rapper Stromae has attracted media interest and co-signs from Kanye West and Lorde without ever progressing beyond cult status in the UK.
The Back to Black singer’s books, shoes and jigsaw puzzles have gone on display. Elsewhere, a leaky Barbican and some gloriously gloopy sculptures can be viewed in London galleries this week
What is it about music that makes even non-professionals want to hit the dancefloor, and is it disco, funk or even classical that does it best? Four leading choreographers discuss their theories, with the science to back them up
‘I don’t know what it is about house music that makes me move, but I just can’t help it,” says Faye Stoeser. “And I don’t care what I look like. I just go for it.” “If a Missy [Elliott] track comes on, that’s me, I’m in the zone,” says Dannielle “Rhimes” Lecointe. “With hip-hop it’s something deep within the gut that makes you want to move. It has so many rhythms to it – a heartbeat, a pulse, a ricochet – that you feel in so many different places of your body.”
What is the best music to dance to? Is it house music, it is hip-hop, is it disco or funk? Stoeser and Lecointe should have some insight since, as performers and choreographers, dancing is what they do for a living. When it comes to popular floorfillers, the DJ Intelligence platform found the most-requested track from UK DJs last year was Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody (with Abba’s Dancing Queen second, and Mr Brightside by the Killers third). In the US, Billboard’s top wedding song is Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. A 2013 Mixmag poll named Daft Punk’s One More Time as the ultimate dance track, whereas Radio 2 listeners in 2008 voted for Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.
But what about those for whom dancing is more than recreation? When it comes to dance on stage, there is plenty that isn’t driven by music at all. Back in the 1940s, the US choreographer Merce Cunningham began to disconnect dance and music in his collaborations with the composer John Cage, rehearsing the dancers in silence. Some choreographers use music to create dance in the studio that is totally different from what they’ll perform to on stage. Dance that’s focused on musical connection definitely went out of fashion for a while, but there are a bunch of shows coming up where music is the absolute driving force.
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