THE MACHINES ARE WRITING SONGS NOW. SO WHAT?

Here we are.

AI just dropped an album. Your Spotify Discover Weekly is probably 30% robot-made already. And that "lo-fi beats to study to" track you've had on repeat? Could be lines of code masquerading as a bedroom producer.

Welcome to music's uncanny valley.

I spent the last three months going deep with every AI music tool I could get my hands on. Not as some tech evangelist or doomsday prophet—just a songwriter trying to understand if I should be embracing these things or running for the analog hills.

The answer isn't simple. But it is interesting.

THE REALITY CHECK

Here's what nobody's saying plainly: These AI music tools are simultaneously impressive and embarrassingly hollow.

Sure, Suno can write a passable trap beat about skateboarding cats in 30 seconds. AIVA can generate orchestral arrangements that sound almost human. ChatGPT can write lyrics that rhyme and mostly make sense.

But listen closer.

There's a fundamental emptiness. A perfectly manufactured void where the human struggle should be. Like biting into a beautiful apple and tasting nothing but air.

Think about your favorite song. What makes it hit you in the chest? It's not the perfect chord progression or the flawless production. It's knowing another human being bled something real into those sounds.

The machines can mimic our patterns. They can't mimic our pain, our ecstasy, our weird, specific lives.

THE BORING DYSTOPIA & THE INTERESTING REBELLION

Two futures are unfolding simultaneously:

THE BORING PATH:

The industry fills with risk-averse executives using AI to clone whatever worked last quarter. Streaming platforms flood with algorithm-perfected background music. Everyone chases the same digital ghosts. Music becomes content, optimized for engagement but engineered for forgetting.

THE INTERESTING PATH:

Artists use machines as weird new instruments, not replacements. They push AI into uncanny territories it wasn't designed for. They emphasize their humanity precisely because machines can't replicate it. They make music that's more raw, more strange, more culturally specific—more undeniably human.

One path leads to a beige sonic landscape. The other leads to a renaissance of what makes music matter in the first place.

Choose wisely.

THREE ANGLES FOR STAYING AHEAD

1. USE THE MACHINES, DON'T LET THEM USE YOU

The AI tools are here. Ignoring them won't make them disappear. But there's a critical difference between using them as sonic screwdrivers versus outsourcing your entire creative identity.

I friend of mine mentioned he fed Midjourney art into a music generator, then feed that music back into an image generator, then used that to inspire his own composition. The result wasn't AI music—it was human music with an expanded creative process. Interesting approach, right!?

Worth trying: Use AI to generate 10 wildly different ideas, then twist and warp them until they're unrecognizable. You're not looking for something good from the AI—you're looking for strange new starting points your brain wouldn't have conjured alone.

2. LEAN INTO YOUR SPECIFIC HUMANITY

The more generic your music, the more replaceable you are. The more it carries your specific fingerprints—your cultural background, your peculiar observations, your lived experiences—the more irreplaceable you become.

AI synthesizes what already exists. It can't pioneer the sounds that don't exist yet. It can't tell the stories that haven't been told yet. That's still on you.

Worth trying: Write a song about something so specific to your life that you're almost embarrassed by how personal it is. That's territory the algorithms can't touch.

3. KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NOVELTY AND SUBSTANCE

Right now, people are impressed by AI music because it's new. That novelty will fade frighteningly fast.

What remains after the novelty dissolves is the question that's always mattered: Does this music make me feel something real?

The technical barriers to making professional-sounding music are disappearing. Good. Let them. That just means the true barrier becomes having something genuine to say.

Worth trying: Before you start creating, ask yourself: "If the technical aspects of this were flawless, would it still matter?" If the answer is no, dig deeper.

THE PIONEERS WORTH WATCHING

The artists navigating this terrain most interestingly aren't the ones making headlines about "AI COLLABORATION!" They're the ones fundamentally rethinking the relationship between human and machine:

• Holly Herndon didn't just sample her voice into an AI—she built a digital instrument that extends her vocal expression beyond physical limitations while remaining undeniably her

• Taryn Southern, the creator behind "I AM AI" — the first album composed and produced with AI — didn't just feed prompts into an algorithm and call it a day. She strategically directed the AI's output, shaped its raw material, and infused the final product with her artistic vision and emotional intent. The result wasn't AI music; it was Taryn Southern music created with expanded tools.

  

  Taryn Southern

• Actress embraces the glitches and failures of AI systems, finding humanity precisely in the places where the technology breaks down

None of them use these tools to sound like everyone else. They use them to sound more intensely like themselves.

YOUR EXISTENTIAL TOOLKIT

The bare essentials for navigating this brave new world:

• A point of view that technology can assist but not generate

• Cultural context that algorithms can reference but not understand

• Lived experiences that can be described to machines but not lived by them

• The willingness to make uncomfortable art when the machines are optimizing for comfort

Because here's the truth beneath it all: When everything technical can be automated, the only scarcity becomes the authentic human element.

THE CONVERSATION CONTINUES

I'm fascinated by where all this is heading, and I want to hear your take:

• What's the most interesting (or disturbing) thing you've created with AI music tools?

• Which parts of your creative process feel most resistant to automation?

• What's one prediction you have about how this all unfolds in the next few years?

This isn't just content for the next newsletter—it's us collectively figuring out our future. Who’s with me?? 

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Stay inspired everyone!
Josh Schroeder
Founder, Thousand Echoes

P.S. If you've read this far, you're definitely my people. Like and subscribe to my YouTube channel for more unfiltered conversations about songwriting, creativity, and building a sustainable career as an independent artist. Can't wait to see you in the next video!