A.I. Covers: A New Subgenre in the Music World?

Written by Augustus McGhee, Photography by Gerd Altmann

The music business continues to expand and evolve over decades of new technology, along with amazing minds from aspiring artists and bands across the world. From exclusive live music to cassette tapes and CDs, many different outlets of listening to music have come alive for the audience to enjoy. Somehow, A.I. has found its way toward the industry, with various covers being created by fans all over the internet. Not only has this been a popular trend, but these covers have broken scales in terms of views and streams when distributed to all streaming platforms. This can easily raise some important questions: can A.I. be seen as an alternative to other music genres? Is A.I. capable of becoming its own genre? Although it can be possible, as we have seen many different scenarios happen deemed impossible before, it may be easier said than done. 

For starters, we can compare the emotional impact Artificial Intelligence and real human voices may have on viewers. With human artists being able to connect with their audience through true emotion expressed on their tracks, music created by Artificial Intelligence may not be able to uphold that same effect. A.I. covers are meant to show appreciation to previous songs, whether it be through comedic remixes, proper vocal leveling to match the original track’s passion and expression, or simply through putting a random voice on top of a hit single for fun. With today’s technology, it is most certain that while covers made through A.I. have the ability to vocalize and express, the emotional connection may not be there with fans of music understanding the creation behind it. Real humans feel real emotion, and unfortunately, it may be close to impossible to replicate that through technology alone.

Copyright and other legal issues surrounding distribution of singles can also be an obstacle Artificial Intelligence may face if it finds itself in the race to be a new subgenre of music. Most people who are fans of music, or have advanced knowledge on the business side of it, understand the process of distributing music on streaming platforms. Artificial Intelligence, at this moment, can be seen as an early preview to what the world may be able to do with such technology for years to come. Due to such a short time in existence to the world, many business and record labels who own these major singles that are being remixed through A.I. may not provide the licensing needed to make these covers exist in its own realm. 

For the past few decades, we have seen popular artists experience legal trouble with other artists, or record labels, over extremely technical copyright situations. For example, in March of 2015, Marvin Gaye and his family won a lawsuit against famous artist and producer Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for the hit song “Blurred Lines,” which had a similar feel to one of his hit songs “Got to Give Up,” sparking controversy amongst fans. The jury ruled in favor of the Gaye estate, stating that while the co-producers did not directly copy “Got to Give Up,” there was enough of a similar feel to warrant copyright infringement. It can take very small similarities between two hit singles for copyright to be warranted, and with A.I. being simply artificial in its creation of tracks, we can see this as just one of many limitations.

Although technology is more advanced than ever, music is an aspect that has been controlled and produced by humans since its creation. Music created through Artificial Intelligence may be just as entertaining as any famous single or throwback album from your childhood, which can help create more of a separate lane to other genres. However, an official label of subgenre over A.I. covers may be farther into the future than most expect.