More holiday hijinks with AI

Earlier in the 2024 season, I posted a couple of actual albums of R-rated novelty Christmas music generated in part or totally through the use of artificial intelligence. Since then I've come across some other players in this nascent field of endeavor.

• Last Runner Records is a YouTube channel offering this kind of stuff, including Omar Henson's "Santa Humping Mommy," Lola Waters' "Shotgun Santa," the Sharon Sisters' "Under the Mistletoe With a Hairy Beaver," Douglas Dynamite's "We'll All Be Dead By Christmas," and Brett DeButts' "Happy F***** New Year." All of these are in pre-rock 'n roll pop styles and the artists, needless to say, are imaginary.
• Pablo Guccierez hosts another YouTube channel of this stuff, including the southern rock tune "It's a White Christmas (It's a Cocaine Christmas)," the country tune "I Shot Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Now Santa Is Out to Get Me," the vintage soul tunes "It's a New Year But I'm Still Doing the Same Sh*t" and "My Cat Pissed on Santa's Cookies," disco tunes like "Santa Crashed His Sleigh Into My House While Drunk" and "Santa and His Ho Ho Hos (Merry Pimpmas)," doo-wop tune "Your Kids Ain't Getting Sh*t For Christmas," and more non-holiday fare.
• Then there's Mischievous Melodies, which has a YouTube channel, a Bandcamp page, and entries in the usual streaming and download spaces, offering "He Likes To Stuff My Turkey at Christmas," "Kiss My T*ts Under the Mistletoe," and "I Caught Santa Jingling His Balls," all in pre-rock 'n roll pop styles.
• And although we normally don't cover jazz here, Human Curated offers two AI-generated jazz Christmas albums, one vocal, one instrumental.

YouTube apparently has a policy that requires disclosure when content is generated partly or wholly via artificial means, which is the main way I know this stuff isn't "real." Most, but not all of the players involved here go to the trouble of attributing these songs to fake artists with fake back stories about how these are "rare vinyl" from whatever epoch they're imitating.

I'm happy to play along with these items as long as we know what we're getting. The problem is that unlike all the AI images of seven-fingered Jesuses baptizing MAGA idiots that are sweeping social media, these AI songs don't surrender their secrets simply from listening. Indeed, various social media music threads are full of people noting how they can detect riffs and sounds from existing music in these AI tunes, even down to which antique plate reverbs and echoplexes are in use. 

And now that we know that Spotify has contracted with royalty-free soundtrack houses to fill their queues with generic (and royalty-free) tunes to fill their algorithmically generated playlists, how long is it going to be until Brett DeButts and Douglas Dynamite have artist pages and bios on the streaming services? And how many streaming minutes generated by them could have gone to flesh-and-blood singers and songwriters going forward? All useful questions in my mind. 

Of course, people reading this are probably music fans who will exercise their due diligence in these matters, but most people aren't fans to that degree and will not object to having their playlists fattened by Muzak as long as they recognize a few names and melodies. Then again, the Beatles' final single "Now and Then" had elements of AI used in its creation, so who's to say we won't eventually be inundated with productions like Frank Sinatra singing the Taylor Swift songbook with Nelson Riddle arrangements, or Elvis Presley reimagined as a hip-hop artist? Just like Napster, legal downloads and streaming, these things arrrived without any permission from existing gatekeepers and rent-seekers.

Still, speaking from experience, it remains possible to draw a crowd by picking up a musical instrument and playing live and in the moment, and people will continue to do this at bus stops, church picnics, bars and pubs, probably even on their front porches when the weather permits. You won't see this on any network TV shows or in your local hockey arena, but it will be there when you're ready for it.