So first off, let me set this straight.
I actually like GenAI music. It offers me a way to er… “create” tracks that resonate with a particular moment in my life. It’s more personal and relevant than anything most artists produce. But that’s where it ends - I don’t want to hear GenAI mass market slop. Heck, I don’t want to hear MOST folk’s AI Generated stuff. That’s for them. The music I generate is for me.
Moving on from that - I primarily use Spotify currently for music discovery, and up until a few months ago it’s been the most reliable way to find new Artists that might interest me. Their algorithm, while not perfect, generally hooked me up with artists that were in the ballpark of what I like and were REAL.
Today, about half of my “Release Radar” is AI generated slop. Some of it is published under their own names and labels which is fine, but others are transparently attempting to dupe listeners by imitating or outright impersonating known bands. However, even in the “nice” case of well labeled and non-impersonating AI tunes, it’s significantly getting in the way of finding new stuff.
I think I’m done with Spotify, recent statements from the CEO has me thinking that they don’t consider this to be a problem. They aren’t looking to fix this issue, and aren’t even pretending to.
But the problem is, none of the other music streaming services are in a better situation. None have sought to deal with the artist impersonation problem or general labeling of AI generated music.
I feel like I have to go back to CD’s and word-of-mouth like back in the “old days” - at least if I’m to be sure that the music was actually made by a human. But how long would it be before we start getting CD’s with AI generated music on them? My hope is that the fad is too “low effort” to bother with pressing vinyl or burning CD’s.
How are you discovering new (human) music in this rapidly changing landscape?
Looks like this is about to go away. 😢
EDIT: Looking at the persons thread as to why they are shutting down is… odd? Like, okay dude, you aint handing this over to anyone and nuking it - being an ass about it doesn’t help. And I say that not as a random internet denizen, but someone who supports multiple websites including tucson.social. I know there will be a day to dim the lights or pass the torch, but I’d never play up being the victim quite like this creator has.
Read their blogposts, including the older ones, before you judge. The person has recieved a loooot of harrasement behind the scenes, so I would ask you to not say mean things that contribute to it. The station is still live and has a great directory available of hand curated fediverse artists. The ethos of ethical music discovery will be continued, one way or another, by the community, even after the station closes down.
I read a bit of it. And while I understand the desire to get away from folks on the internet being harassing. That is the problem of the internet right now. I’d be remiss to say that if I had a thin skin, Tucson.social would be a lot harder to run. I’m not excusing the meanness of the internet when I say this, after all, it’s one of tucson.social’s goal to deal with that. It’s just a pragmatic fact.
There’s also the fact that the Creator has no desire to hand this off. I understand that is work. And that I am not entitled to their work. However, it seems to perform a defeatist narrative. Which just doesn’t feel constructive.
I’m in no way trying to be mean.
It’s just that this Creator is coming across as “taking his/her/their ball and leaving.” It kind of makes it harder for the community to pick up where they left off. No platform, no code base. And I think it’s fair to criticize that. It comes across as “returning the meanness they received and redirecting it at people with good intentions”.
I’m the type of person who is well resourced enough to pick this up and continue. Had I known about this project earlier, I might have been pitching in this entire time. But reading these posts now make me feel pretty unwelcome at least in that capacity.
I too am optimistic about community picking up where they left off. It’s just that it’s a lot harder to do when there’s not even ashes to rebuild from.
I’m sure the Creator is a good person. And I have no ill will against them. But I am a little bit upset that what they built will be lost in entirety.
I think, going forward, open source will be a requirement for any sort of platform like this for me. I just don’t want to be forced to lose something good because the Creator has made that decision for me.
But to your point, I probably shouldn’t have called them an ass.
As an aside, I think you shouldn’t be recommending this site. If it’s going to shut down, then what is the point of learning about this? There certainly isn’t any ability to swoop in and try to keep it going. I hope the existing user base enjoys the sunset celebration! But as a new user it just doesn’t make sense.