AI or Artist? Unmasking the Truth Behind Your Favorite Tracks

You hit play, and the music washes over you.

A new melody, an irresistible beat, a voice that just gets you.

In the immortal words of Kylie Minogue, you cannot get it out of your head.

But as the notes reverberate, a quiet, nagging question emerges: Is this sound, this artist, truly human?

Or is the magic weaving through your headphones the product of a silicon brain, an algorithm, a phantom creator in the digital ether?

The burgeoning landscape of AI-generated music challenges our very definition of artistry.

It forces us to ask: Does it even matter if you love what you hear, or do listeners deserve to know the truth?

This is not a futuristic thought experiment; it is a present-day dilemma, as distinguishing human artists from AI-generated music becomes increasingly difficult.

This drives a critical demand for transparency and new detection tools on streaming platforms (BBC, 2023).

In short: Detecting AI-generated music and artists is growing harder as AI proliferates on streaming platforms.

With 97% of people unable to distinguish AI music from human, transparency and new detection tools are crucial for the music industry to maintain authenticity and inform listeners.

Why This Matters Now: The Blurring Lines of Creation

The digital airwaves are awash with new sounds.

A survey, published the week of October 25, 2023, revealed a striking truth: a staggering 97% of respondents could not spot an AI-generated song (BBC, 2023).

This statistic alone underscores the profound shift occurring in the music industry.

The rapid development of AI music generation tools means entire songs can now be created rapidly with a single prompt.

This has led to an “explosion” of AI music, sometimes derisively called “slop,” on streaming platforms (BBC, 2023).

This technological leap creates an urgent need for clear labeling and detection tools to inform consumers and maintain trust in artistic authenticity (BBC, 2023).

This proliferation challenges not just the listener’s ear, but also the core integrity of the music industry.

As of September 2023, 34% of content uploaded to Deezer was fully AI-generated, amounting to about 50,000 tracks daily (BBC, 2023).

This sheer volume of AI-generated content necessitates robust detection and filtering mechanisms to manage quality, combat “slop,” and uphold artistic integrity (BBC, 2023).

Spotify, for its part, removed over 75 million spam tracks in the year leading up to September 2023, indicating the scale of this challenge (BBC, 2023).

Yet, it is not all about full AI generation; some established artists are also using AI as a tool to support their creativity.

This highlights the nuanced role AI plays in modern music production and the complexity of achieving genuine transparency (BBC, 2023).

The Ghost in the Machine: Signs of an AI Artist

The story of The Velvet Sundown became a viral sensation in the summer of 2023.

Accusations that the band was entirely AI-generated ignited a fierce debate about authenticity.

The band, with no record label and a minimal social media footprint, quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners on Spotify after releasing two albums within weeks.

This raised suspicions in the music world.

While they initially denied the claims, they later described their project as a “synthetic project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced and visualised with the support of artificial intelligence,” calling it an “artistic provocation.” Yet, many fans felt betrayed (BBC, 2023).

Internet sleuths, and now seasoned experts, look for specific clues when trying to unmask an AI artist:

No Live Performances or Social Media Presence:

The Velvet Sundown exhibited classic red flags.

There were no glowing live reviews, concert photos, or videos.

The band members had not given interviews and lacked individual social media accounts.

Airbrushed photos with generic backgrounds also fueled suspicion.

This lack of a verifiable human presence is a significant indicator (BBC, 2023).

Unrealistic Productivity:

Professor Gina Neff, from the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, points to artists dropping multiple soundalike albums simultaneously as a telltale sign.

This superhuman output often mimics existing styles, like “classic rock hits that had been put in a blender” (BBC, 2023).

Formulaic or Emotionally Flat Music:

Musician and technology speaker LJ Rich notes that AI songs often have a “formulaic feel — sweet but without much substance or emotional weight.” Vocals can sound breathless, and lyrics, while grammatically correct, may lack the beautiful absurdity of human songwriting, like Alicia Keys’ “concrete jungle where dreams are made of” or The Rolling Stones’ double negatives in “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction).” Rich emphasizes: “If it doesn’t feel emotional, it’s a really big part… Does it create that tension and resolution that is a fundamental part of the music that we love?

Does it have a story inside it?” (BBC, 2023).

Too Perfect Production or Odd Vocals:

Tony Rigg, a music industry advisor and lecturer at the University of Lancashire, suggests looking for an overly polished sound, lacking the minor flaws and variances typical of human performance.

This could mean no vocal strain, odd phrasing, unnatural emotional delivery, or generic, repetitive lyrics.

AI “singers” may also have slurred consonants, incorrect plosives, or “ghost” harmonies appearing randomly (BBC, 2023).

Rigg poignantly explains, “AI hasn’t felt heartbreak yet… It knows patterns.

What makes music human is not just sound but the stories behind it” (BBC, 2023).

It is important to remember that these are “hints not proof,” and even experts acknowledge that for the casual listener, AI detection remains a challenging task (BBC, 2023).

The Human Element: What AI Still Can’t Replicate

Despite AI’s growing sophistication, there remains a distinct chasm between algorithmic generation and genuine human artistry.

This gap lies primarily in emotion, narrative, and the unique imperfections that imbue music with soul.

AI, while capable of mastering patterns, has not experienced heartbreak, joy, or existential longing.

It cannot translate lived experience into a melody that truly resonates on a deep, empathetic level.

As LJ Rich and Tony Rigg articulate, music’s power comes from its emotional tension, resolution, and the stories it tells (BBC, 2023).

Professor Gina Neff highlights this limitation in the context of future stars.

While AI can produce serviceable background music or a “mashup of rock hits in a blender,” it “won’t work for creating the superstars of the future who, of course, draw on the past but then make something completely new out of it” (BBC, 2023).

The human capacity for radical innovation, for pushing boundaries not just through technical mastery but through raw, unfiltered experience, remains outside AI’s current grasp.

The pursuit of music authenticity then becomes a quest for this very human touch—the strain in a voice, the unexpected lyrical twist, the emotional arc that only a sentient being can truly craft.

The Sound of Transparency: Industry’s Response to AI Music

The increasing prevalence of AI generated songs has ignited a crucial debate about transparency.

Currently, there is no legal obligation for streaming platforms to label AI-generated music.

However, the industry is beginning to recognize the need for change, spurred by listener demand for more information and by artists’ concerns about their work (BBC, 2023).

Steps Towards Transparency:

Deezer’s AI Detection Tool:

In January 2023, Deezer launched an AI detection tool, which by summer 2023 was tagging AI-generated music.

The company reported that as of September 2023, a staggering 34% of content uploaded to its platform was fully AI-generated, equating to about 50,000 tracks a day (BBC, 2023).

Manuel Moussallam, Deezer’s director of research, noted initial surprise at the high numbers detected.

Spotify’s Spam Filter and Metadata Support:

Spotify announced in September 2023 that it would roll out a new spam filter to prevent “slop” from being recommended to listeners.

The platform has already removed more than 75 million spam tracks in the past year.

Crucially, Spotify is also supporting a system by industry consortium DDEX to enable artists to disclose AI use in a track’s metadata, which will then be displayed on its app.

Spotify states this is about “strengthening trust” and recognizing “listeners’ desire for more information,” clarifying that it is “not about punishing artists who use AI responsibly or down-ranking tracks for disclosing information about how they were made” (BBC, 2023).

Artists Leading the Way:

Some artists are embracing AI transparently.

The Beatles notably used machine learning in 2023 to extract John Lennon’s voice for their “last song,” “Now and Then.” Imogen Heap, for example, released “Aftercare” in October 2023 with her AI model, ai.Mogen, which was trained on her voice.

Heap, who created the voice model as a chatbot to manage fan messages, hopes that listeners will “find peace” in connecting with the song, even if they later learn parts were AI-sung (BBC, 2023).

She advocates for more transparency in music, comparing it to ingredient labels on food: “We need that for music, and we need that for AI” (BBC, 2023).

This push for transparency also addresses deep concerns from other artists.

Hundreds of musicians, including Dua Lipa and Sir Elton John, have protested the unauthorized use of their songs in training AI tools, highlighting the ongoing ethical and legal questions around AI in creativity and intellectual property (BBC, 2023).

Conclusion: Does It Really Matter?

The question lingers: If a song captivates you, makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, does it truly matter if an AI wrote it?

Some argue that enjoyment is the primary purpose of music, making AI’s involvement irrelevant.

However, others contend that music fans deserve to make informed choices about what they consume, upholding the value of human authorship (BBC, 2023).

As LJ Rich thoughtfully poses, “Like if the music makes the hairs on the back of your neck go up, does it matter if an AI wrote it or not?” (BBC, 2023).

The truth is, it matters deeply for the future of art, for artist livelihoods, and for the authentic connection we seek through music.

The proliferation of AI music challenges us to redefine authenticity, to value both human ingenuity and the responsible integration of technology.

For listeners, the journey ahead will demand a more discerning ear and a greater reliance on transparent labeling.

For the music industry, the path forward requires embracing robust digital music trends while safeguarding the unique, irreplaceable spark of human creativity.

As AI continues to evolve, our collective responsibility will be to ensure that the stories behind the sound remain as important as the sound itself, preserving the soul of music for generations to come.

References

BBC. (2023, October 25). How can you tell if your new favourite artist is a real person?

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67180410