Music and AI

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Someone online posted a statistic showing that "By 2022, 1 in 5 songs on the Billboard charts contained samples of previous songs.". I'm just really depressed about it. A few days ago, I got curious about what concerts were happening. It seemed like almost all of them were tribute bands from the 1960s or 70s. You hardly ever hear about tribute bands for acts from the 1990s. Even when I’ve performed or just watched shows as part of the audience - same thing. And I was born in the 1980s, so it’s not nostalgia. I think most people want to champion their own generation as being the most talented, rather than their parents' - but sometimes things are just the way they are. There are plenty of reasons for it, but the end result is the same. Yesterday, YouTube recommended me an album supposedly from 1970. But after just a few seconds, I could tell from the snare drum sound that it wasn’t actually from the 1970s or anything close. Then I read this in the description: "Founded in 1970, the fictional rock band Dervishan was a symbol of cultural and musical synthesis formed by five talented musicians from Iran, Turkey, the US, France, and Egypt." That kind of thing probably contributes to why we don’t hear truly unique musicians or artists anymore. And then I think about how much talent there was - and how many of those people are now gone. Ozzy Osbourne, Brian Wilson, Roberta Flack. Directors like David Lynch and Claude Chabrol. An actor like Gene Hackman. Even when I do come across older art I love, I can’t just search for "movies like ____" - because what makes something special is that it isn’t like anything else. It works on the surface, which is the most important thing, but it’s also so distinct that there’s nothing to compare it to. The internet is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, we have access to nearly everything - music, films, stand-up - all free and available from home. There are forums and recommendation tools that help in the beginning. But then you reach your forties and feel like there’s nothing left. Once you’ve seen the greatest stuff, after all the trial and error, it becomes hard to enjoy anything mediocre - especially when you already know what you like and what you don’t.