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Country Music Moments 2024: AI Helps Bring Back The Iconic Voice Of Randy Travis
Throughout the course of any given year, so much happens that we tend to forget what at one point seemed like the biggest thing in the world. Granted, fast media cycles and 24/7 news via the internet make this a certainty, but that's why I love when December rolls around and people start pumping out "The Year That Was" type articles.
Country music had itself a monster year in all sorts of ways. From the wave of pop stars giving the genre a try (some better than others) to the CMAs starting to straighten their act out in some ways, to a continued rise of independent artists to mainstream fame, you'd be hard pressed to find a time where country music as a whole has been in a better place than right now in the past few decades.
It wasn't just up and coming artists making a splash this year though; plenty of living legends got in on the action and provided us with some legitimately great bodies of work. At 91 years old, Willie Nelson two studio and one live album, George Strait released a new original project, and Dwight Yoakam got back in the game with Brighter Days, but we also got new music from some country music legends that are no longer with us, such as previously unreleased Johnny Cash songs on Songwriter and new recordings from George Jones thanks to The Lost Nashville Sessions.
But a conversation on music released this year would be incomplete without bringing up what once was the elephant in the room.
Randy Travis With An AI Assist
Randy Travis released his first song in over a decade this May. Titled "Where That Came From", it's honestly a beautiful song and seeing Randy's name on our New Music Friday playlist actually brought a smile to my face, but there was just one tiny little thing that was a conversation starter to say the least...
Randy suffered a stroke back in 2013 that left him basically without a voice and the ability to walk. He's stayed active in the country music community but people were immediately speculating when the song was announced that AI had been used to create the vocals, given Randy can barely sing these days. This was later confirmed by the producer.
To be fair, this was not a ChatGPT creation with completely fabricated vocals. The song was written by John Scott Sherrill and Scotty Emerick and James Dupre, a former contestant on The Voice, provided the base vocal track. AI was then used to isolate Randy's voice from over 40 of his songs and overlay that onto what Dupre had recorded.
Producer Kyle Lehning said they had to go "syllable-by-syllable" to get the sound correct:
"It freaked me out. When I played it back, it was like, ‘Oh my.’ And I immediately though, ‘This might work.’
Then as I listened more and more and more, and could start to dig into the nuance of it, realized that in order to really make it work, it was going to take a little bit more massaging."
Randy had a major piece in the creation of this song so it also wasn't these people taking advantage of his iconic baritone for their own financial gain:
"Him being here and him being able to be, you know, a vital part of the decision-making process makes all the difference to me."
https://twitter.com/CBSSunday/status/1787108426050363841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1787108426050363841%7Ctwgr%5E926284a7d5cca9e7288d68b399e0498ffc2d1086%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.whiskeyriff.com%2F2024%2F05%2F05%2Ffans-divided-on-new-ai-created-randy-travis-single-as-he-gives-a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-how-it-came-to-life%2F
Everyone had an opinion one way or another but the reality was simple: Now that the cat was out of the bag, there was no way to put it back in.
The Future Of AI In Music
I believe this is the best case scenario for using AI in music.
It's a bit magical to be able to give an artist who literally lost their voice a way to fulfill their creative urges, that I think we can all get behind. But the flip side is that it's not going to just be used for Randy Travis or other aging artists. How long before artists are pitched AI written songs? How long before AI sings the songs coming out of Nashville writer rooms? Heck, how long before we have full on AI superstars, with songs written, recorded, and released by only a computer?
We know that record labels nickel and dime their artists to no end, signing some to deals where artists effectively make no money regardless of how popular their music gets while forcing them to make music that fits the "current trend", so why wouldn't a company with that financial incentive remove the problematic piece of the equation (a living person with hopes, dreams, and passions) to fund an AI model that doesn't argue, ask for more money, and will only do exactly as it's told?
Actually, it might be pretty funny to see what music looks like if the suits fully remove artists from the picture. They might get a cold taste of reality when they realize they actually have no creativity and can only mooch off others talents, forcing them to come crawling back to real humans with tails between their legs, something I'd really love to see. Of course, there's a massive amount of "fans" that will blindly listen to whatever radio or Spotify's Official playlists force feeds them, so it's possible that it actually works out for them, which is honestly terrifying.
Admittedly, I haven't seen any other AI releases from major artists since (that I know of at least), so maybe that's a sign that we all saw this and collectively hit the brakes, but I still firmly believe we will look back on this Randy Travis song as a fork in the road. Either the music industry will see what they did, embrace it, and begin to pump out tracks faster than you can listen, or we'll draw a hard line in the sand and say "Yeah, it was cool for him but we want nothing more to do with it".
I'm rooting for the later but I'm also a realist. I truly believe there will effectively be two music industries soon, one with real artists still making real music and one with AI machines creating easy to listen to, catchy ear candy.
And if I was a betting man (which I am), I'd put my money on the AI ear candy being significantly more commercially popular, and that breaks my heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azCEpoYLxeg
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