I’m sure at some point those who are passionate about music seek refuge in a particular sound or even whole genre to find peace from the real-world chaos. Six years ago (when we all descended into lockdown madness), I took a break from writing harsh electronic techno beats and submerged myself in ambient aural atmospheres. I listened to the genre often referred to as intelligent dance music. It provided the soundtrack to my daily routine morning walks around the neighborhood at dawn and long hikes in the mountains until dusk. Listening to and absorbing each minimal element in the music helped me tune out distracting noise and achieve the focus I desperately needed for years.

But then the world reopened, life seemed even more confusing, and I had a new type of anxiety. I would assume many other people felt the same and just powered through the new reality to regain a sense of normalcy. I went back to writing music but as many musical artists know Inspiration is never endless and I found myself stuck in the void. Just as a body builder who took a long hiatus from the gym, I started stretching and flexing my skills in other directions to warm up. During one of these stretching sessions, I created a track drawing influence from the music I listened to during lockdown. It would remain dormant in a folder with other exercises and unrealized ideas.

When SUNO was launched in 2023, that discussion turned to music. The quick progression of quality in generative AI surpassed understanding for practical uses. It was targeted and dismissed as a tool for laziness and exploitation. Although AI had not reached it’s full potential yet, we were at a point where consumers questioned the authenticity of what they were hearing and seeing. The temptation was too much for me to play devil’s advocate.

What if I released music that was unlike anything I had put out before and promoted it as AI? Would anyone who heard it know it wasn’t generated by AI? Would the reception be different from music released without the use of this new technology and would the song even get as much attention?

In 2024 I chose a project from my unreleased folder and Brian Emo - Pentimento was released on Bandcamp. It was promoted as an AI release with the description

“Using artificial intelligence, a long-time music lover is able to create music surpassing the limitations and financial burdens non musicians face. This new method of creating art is not intended to replace anyone's passion or livelihood but meant to compliment it.” The album artwork was purposely bland to further sell it as artificially created but it was from a manipulated photograph with licensed software.

My optimistic hypothesis was that listeners would be able to distinguish between AI “slop” and authentic human made music. I expected the release to be dismissed and attacked for being soulless, uninteresting, and unethical.  After all, music is a very powerful emotional language so anyone could tell if it was made by a robot imposter, right? This experiment did require dishonesty, but I rationalized that any money coming in from Bandcamp would go directly to charity. 

The post gathered 56 comments with mixed reactions and only 4 emoji reactions. One follower from what I noticed unfriended my account that day. Some people needed further context, the majority surprisingly answered yes or had favorable feedback, 2/3 of the other half responded negatively, and nobody in the thread questioned if the composition was actually created using AI. I thought one response was particularly interesting.  It was someone who felt comfortable picking the track apart calling it boring whether it was AI or not. This made me wonder if it wasn’t advertised as AI, would that person be as vocally critical? Was there a listener bias?

After one year of silence about the true origin of Brian Emo, I decided it was finally time to test the other side of the experiment and generate songs using SUNO to pass for organically composed music. I chose the dark alternative electronic music genre to cast the bait because I knew it very well. Unlike other music scenes, I felt it was easier to release art and remain obscure. With as little effort and creativity as possible, I used relatively vague prompts and it made enough material to sell as a full release. The generated results sounded like a crossover electronic industrial rock release with quality production and adequate lyrical content (if you were an American Aggro-tech fan and didn’t understand Dutch). WAAR MASCHINE - BEYOND THE MASKERS was released on Bandcamp and promoted as an EBM Industrial act from The Netherlands.