News October 2, 2018

Musicians have used algorithms to write a song in the style of The Strokes

Have you ever listened to your favourite band and thought, “Hey, this is easy, anyone could write a song like this”? Well, now a group of musicians have used computers to prove that notion, writing a song that perfectly imitates the style of The Strokes.

As Dazed notes, this new track was created for THE SONGULARITY, a “full-length pop album co-created by humans and machines”.

So what exactly went on here? Well, Botnik Studios, the folks behind this project have been dabbling with music and technology for some time now. According to their Kickstarter page, they’ve created songs that are composed out of Morrissey lyrics and Amazon reviews, as well as Beach Boys lyrics that have been mashed up with Ronald Reagan speeches.

Now, they’ve used computer algorithms to write a song that sounds pretty much exactly like what The Strokes would have written. Give it a listen.

Of course, they didn’t use computers to perform the track, with the folks behind Botnik Studios actually hitting the recording studios to lay down the tracks.

In a recent interview with Medium, CEO Jamie Brew explained where he thinks this technology will be leading us in the future. “I expect we’ll continue to see AI tech that tries to help people do things as fast as they can while making the fewest possible decisions.”

“I think one of Botnik’s roles is to resist that impulse and ask: ‘What decisions don’t we want to give away? What decisions do humans actually enjoy making?’,” he explained. “That’s the challenge of making the hybrid tech we’re trying to make: offering people decisions they want to make.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time that folks have used computers to imitate their musical idols. You might recall how just last year, a US teen used AI to generate a pretty accurate Kanye West track.

That’s it folks, pack it in, robots have won the musical war.