David Guetta Says The Future of Music Is In AI
David Guetta says “the future of music is in AI.” He came to the conclusion after he used the technology to add a vocal that sounds exactly like Eminem to a recent song. In a video he posted last week, he said he created the Eminem-style vocal “as a joke.” However, “it worked so good, I could not believe it.”
Guetta found an AI website in which he could just type in lyrics and select from “an artist you like.” His description for the AI was to write a verse “in the style of Eminem about Future Rave.” He then went to another site to recreate Eminem’s voice and plugged in the text to create the record we hear in the video. As for how the fans reacted to it, he said, “People went nuts!”
Let me introduce you to… Emin-AI-em 👀 pic.twitter.com/48prbMIBtv
— David Guetta (@davidguetta) February 3, 2023
Guetta, 55, is defending musicians’ use of AI as a tool in order to create new sounds in the future because “every new music style comes from a new technology.” Speaking to BBC music correspondent Mark Savage at the Brit Awards this Saturday (February 11), Guetta said: “I’m sure the future of music is in AI. For sure. There’s no doubt. But as a tool.”
“Nothing is going to replace taste,” he added. “What defines an artist is, you have a certain taste. You have a certain type of emotion you want to express. And you’re going to use all the modern instruments to do that.”
The “I’m Good” producer compared AI to instruments that have led to musical revolutions in the past. “Probably there would be no rock ‘n’ roll if there was no electric guitar. There would be no acid house without the Roland TB-303 [bass synthesiser] or the Roland TR-909 drum machine. There would be no hip-hop without the sampler.”
He told the publication why he posted it. “I just wanted to open the discussion and bring awareness.” Guetta said of the reactions: “It’s very funny, actually, because a lot of people are reacting. Some of them are like, ‘Oh, this is genius.’ Some of them are getting super mad at me. But I’m not going to release the record,” he added. “It is impossible to think that it’s a real collab, but it sounds exactly like him [Eminem].”
Some fans reacting to his Twitter post were impressed with the experiment, but others were less keen. One person pointed out, “If you’re playing it at a festival that you’re getting paid to play at, I believe the correct thing to do would’ve been to get Eminem’s permission to use his likeness, since you’re technically getting paid to rip his voice.” Meanwhile, another person wrote: “It’s interesting tbh but you could also asked the actual Eminem to be in the song for you. Since Ai is getting so big everyone is like since no one is putting out music I’ll just use Ai to do it for me it’s getting so scary.” Another person said, “Crazy! This can be dangerous!” While another chimed in, “Jesus this is bleak.”
Guetta followed the video up with a tweet that read: “obviously I won’t release this commercially.”
Variety noted last week that more AI-generated songs have been going viral on TikTok in recent months, with fans taking existing songs and using software to make them sound like another artist is singing them.