That's actually a bit creepy to me. How do you deal with a lack of novelty factor here though? Because ultimately, if you yourself generate all music you listen to, how could anything be surprising? I often listen to songs that surprise me in one way or another.
When I said exclusively, its not that I am not exposed to other songs as well. I do follow certain artists that I really enjoy listening to because I find their lyrics and melodies resonates with me, even when its not in the genre that I preferred.
It's just I don't go and explore songs actively. If my playlist suddenly randomize itself (which YouTube Music usually do even when I already selected a specific playlist), I usually just keep it randomizing the songs, I either skip the songs based on the intro or just the title.
Sometimes, I only write the lyrics without any melodies, or just give a base chords for the AI to work with without any melodies, and AI might surprise me on how it suddenly chose a certain melodies or chord progression.
So you can say I'm exploring, but only within the boundaries of the lyrics that I wrote. Or when YouTube Music randomly plays a song for me and I immediately resonates with it.
If you write your own songs, you'll realise that they are infinitely surprising to you, much like one's own children. Just endlessly fascinating. I sing my own songs all the time, probably more than other people's.
Of course, that doesn't mean I don't want to listen to new music by other people, or create more of my own. I'm simply sharing what it is to experience songs written by yourself. I saw Sting the other day talking about the very same thing to Rick Beato regarding songs he wrote 40 years ago, and I remember Brett Anderson of Suede saying that he loved listening to his own music. In fact, wouldn't it be weird if you didn't want to?
That's the feelings right? What's wrong with enjoying your creation right?
The song that I wrote has more values because it carries memories, emotions, and my internal state. I'm not saying other songs doesn't have values. It's just harder to resonate with, unless the melodies or lyrics align with my emotional state.
I listen to my own songs because I am songwriter, and still am even when I stopped doing it professionally. I am not doing it for the sake of "I just want to listen to my own songs and I will never listen to others". I listen just because "This song is meaningful for me"
And the "this song" in that quote above, can be mine, or other's.
Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) said something similar when asked if he listens to his own music. Paraphrased: There's this weird stigma about listening to your own music like it's egotistical. When you make yourself a sandwich, do you feel egotistical when you enjoy eating it?
That's like saying that in order to not be stressed you can only read books that you write yourself. Are we seriously going to act like any of this is normal or healthy?
The technology aspect of it is not the problem. You can use the underlying technology of it in any number of ways, some of which could even be artistic.
We are talking about people who rather generate some random Suno songs instead of just searching for some playlists of which there are thousands upon thousands. There is something deeply dystopian about that.
Extrapolate this idea for a second: 10, 20 years from now, people generating their TV shows, their porn (including the illegal kinds), their music of dead musicians. That's individualism at its most extreme. Culture is a shared experience, you can talk to other people about the same music, same fiction, same art, because it's out there and exists in the world. When on the other hand people normalize consuming their own custom AI-generated culture, that shared experience is completely lost. At best you'll get a friend or two to watch your sitcom episode, it's not going to be a water cooler conversation at work.
I understand your points and I think there is a chance of this going wrong. Especially with the current incentive structure behind it. I personally hate smartphones because the incentive there is to get people's attention and sell it.
But without this incentives I could imagine a future where Smartphones where actually good and have a more positive impact.
But back to culture. I don't see the problem of people listening to their own created music. Even now a lot of people make e.g great photos just for them selves. As long as we don't force people to do so that's fine in my books.
Still if the incentives are bad, this can go very go wrong in very distopian ways.
This is extremely hyperbolic. The guy says he has a specific taste that chills him out. Why are you guys so judgmental?
I love me some Deleuze and Hegel, but my life is full of "interesting" bits already. Sometimes you need something simple. Your example is wrong as well: he did not create his own music, he directed it and yes I would definitely love to read a book about some weird sci-fi ideas I have written in some style I love but myself cannot reproduce.
Im a hobbyist songwriter (melodies and lyricist) of decades feeding my trove of MP3s/songs to Suno. Listening to Suno produced version of my songs is way more satisfying then listening to other peoples music. My Suno slop of many decades has the most meaning as they all reflect a time, experience, a feeling in and about life to current world events, etc, etc. Before Suno I was singing my songs heard in my demos (play piano & guitar) and Im a terrible singer now they all sound pro and again are way more meaningful then anyone elses songs.
