The rise in AI-generated music has generated a lot of thoughts about the technology for Jack Antonoff.
The Bleachers frontman posted a note to fans via Instagram on Wednesday (May 13), ripping into so-called “musicians” who use artificial intelligence to create material. “What we do has become an ancient ritual,” Antonoff wrote. “You don’t have to write music anymore, you don’t have to record it and you don’t have to bring the band out and play it.”
“And yet for us, the idea of optimizing what we do is a complete miss of the entire point of what compels us in the first place,” he continued on behalf of the traditional music community. “So to everyone who is gassed up about the new ways you can fake making art, by all means drive right off that cliff. We’re genuinely happy to see you go … godless whores.”
The Grammy-winning producer observed that, in his eyes, “It’s mainly the out of touch shouting about following this nightmare,” referencing people in entertainment who have championed adapting to the ways AI is threatening to change the industry. “The new artists I know are genuinely uninterested in anything that doesn’t come from within,” he added.
Antonoff is known for speaking out about issues in the music industry, becoming one of the most vocal stars in his opposition to the concert industry monopoly. “You and your band can’t turn a profit, and then we have to watch the companies that own all these rooms and monopolize the whole f—ing thing and post billions of earnings,” he said in conversation with Hayley Williams for Rolling Stone in October.
In recent weeks, he also made a joke at Ticketmaster’s expense after the entertainment behemoth posted about having successfully “caught” scalpers using its services. “You caught you?” he wrote on X in April.
See Antonoff’s post about AI in music below.
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