OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

Coldplay just want their music to be heard in the correct context

Clearly AI generated & full of wrong mistakes & wrong takes: https://singersroom.com/w5/best-pavement-songs-of-all-time/

I like that they never tire in pointing out that these Pavement songs are by the band Pavement

a wrong take AND a mistake

I like that they never tire in pointing out that these Pavement songs are by the band Pavement

Very important to start from first principles

That Edw@rd Toml1n is a very prolific writer

Google proofing from an AI? I’d welcome his coming here to tell us more about 80s band the Smashing Pumpkins.

music criticism is the laziest, most formulaic, and least insightful form of writing, so it makes sense that they would replace music writers with AI

omg google for Tomlin and find symsymsym

xpost helluva board to make that claim on :)

it's interesting that the positive/descriptive/bland house style of AI is at this point not just immediately recognisable but acutely annoying. have to wonder if there will be a reaction against this in regular non-AI writing, maybe this time next year everyone will be writing criticism like hunter s thompson. again.

CaAL, that will just inspire coders to develop a Gonzo module.

"I was wacked-out on peyote and household bleach when I listened to the latest Rihanna album. I took a loaded .45 and a bottle of Jose Cuervo and headed down I-80 while listening to it. Here are my impressions:"

A Spike Jonze film about teaching an AI to be edgy

AI having late night phone calls with a Lester Bangs hologram after losing virginity to an NFT

you can already ask chatbots to mimic writing styles anyway though

and I don't think it's the "house style of AI" you're hearing in that listicle, it's very much the alien way music is written about on Wikipedia

I think something weirdly off-putting (and recognizable) about AI-generated text is the mechanically perfect grammar... actual writers mix it up and bend the rules, y'know?

no there is definitely a house style of AI, I've been dealing with a load of students who've used it, some things it does:

* relentlessly seeing the difficulties in things, but then the positive side, and reminding people to be mindful and consider both sides of debates.
* discussing everything on the blandest, most impersonal terms but always avoiding any suggestion of systemic change
* never playing with language & grammar, there's no poetry to anything it puts out

I know it used to write in different styles, but I feel like that was beaten out of it at some point. if you try now it might identify some themes or tropes the author uses, but has no clue about how they use language, or if it has a clue then the heavy morality in play overrides it somehow.

look, it just can't do it.

Rihanna LP Review



Write a review of a Rihanna LP in the style of Hunter S Thompson

ChatGPT

Fear and Loathing in the Studio: A Review of Rihanna's Latest LP

The air was thick with smoke and the room was awash in neon lights as I sat down to listen to Rihanna's latest LP. I was expecting a wild ride, and let me tell you, I wasn't disappointed.

From the moment the first beat dropped, I was transported to a world of debauchery and excess. Rihanna's voice was like a siren's call, beckoning me deeper into the depths of her sonic universe.

As I listened to track after track, I couldn't help but feel like I was living in a fever dream. The beats were frenetic, the basslines thumping, and the lyrics were pure poetry. It was as if Rihanna had tapped into some primal energy source, channeling it directly into her music.

But for all its raucous energy, there was also a sense of darkness lurking just beneath the surface. The lyrics hinted at a life lived on the edge, where pleasure and pain were inextricably intertwined. It was as if Rihanna was daring us to come along for the ride, to embrace the madness and the chaos.

As the LP drew to a close, I was left feeling both exhilarated and exhausted. It was like I had been on a wild journey through the heart of Rihanna's psyche, and I wasn't quite sure if I was ready to come back to reality.

In the end, Rihanna's latest LP is a testament to her incredible talent and her fearless spirit. It's not for the faint of heart, but for those brave enough to take the plunge, it's an experience that they'll never forget.

music criticism is the laziest, most formulaic, and least insightful form of writing, so it makes sense that they would replace music writers with AI

― budo jeru, Thursday, May 4, 2023 8:07 AM

dunno if you're joking, but i genuinely feel this way about sports journalists. like i'd rate fox news shitheels above them (at least they have a sense of showmanship ffs).

xpost lol @ "the beats were frenetic" idk why that tickles me so much

xp I mean yes, that sucks bad, but it's not the same style as that Pavement thing, right?

which chatgpt are you using btw?

In one of my few experiments w/ChatGPT, I asked it to write a short story about a Google Pixel phone, in the style of a few different authors. For Hemingway and Joyce, it basically generated the same dull narrative, just swapping the location from Key West to Dublin... but for Bukowski, the story started with a few details equivalent to the Hunter S. thing above – "as I downed my final beer and swerved off the barstool," or whatever. Funny, but obv. no one would mistake it for the real thing.

I asked it to write a review of the Hamilton soundtrack in the style of Lester Bangs and it gave me a bunch of Freedom Rock lines: "Well, let me tell you, the Hamilton Soundtrack LP is a freaking revelation, man!"

all the AI generated pieces I've read of this kind come off as if the writer is being held hostage and forced to come up with listicles. "Dry facts only. I cut off a finger for every strongly held opinion you express."

I'm still on ChatGPT3, if anyone is on 4 they could give it a go?

These posts are going to seem so quaint after 1 or 2 years of exponential improvement in the technology.

Well maybe, but until it can actually listen to the music and at least mimic a human response to it, it's not going to write a half-decent music review.

It could just call everything shit and make you feel dumb for liking it

maybe those people were AI all along, makes sense.

These posts are going to seem so quaint after 1 or 2 years of exponential improvement in the technology.

That's why it's important to clown early and clown often while it's still shit

O noes Rockys Basilisk don't hurt me lol

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (That I Disagree With the Computer's Boygenius Rating)

this is supposed to be in the style of a 2002 Pitchfork review, I give ChatGPT a D-minus

Liz Phair's 1993 debut album, "Exile in Guyville," has long been heralded as a landmark release in the world of indie rock. A critical darling upon its release, the album has maintained its status as a touchstone of the genre for nearly three decades. But what is it about this album that continues to captivate listeners, even in 2023?

For starters, the songwriting on "Exile in Guyville" is top-notch. Phair's lyrics are sharp, witty, and often confrontational, touching on themes of sexuality, gender dynamics, and the perils of youth. Her voice is simultaneously vulnerable and confident, imbuing each track with a sense of urgency and authenticity.

Musically, the album draws heavily from the lo-fi sound that was popular in the early '90s, but Phair's pop sensibilities keep the songs from feeling too rough around the edges. From the crunchy guitars of "6'1"" to the acoustic strumming of "Divorce Song," each track is imbued with a distinct personality that keeps the listener engaged.

Of course, it's impossible to discuss "Exile in Guyville" without addressing its context. The album was conceived as a response to The Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main St.," and its exploration of the male-dominated rock scene of the time is a crucial part of its legacy. Phair's lyrics are unflinching in their examination of the ways in which women are often marginalized and objectified in music, and her refusal to shy away from these topics was a bold statement in 1993.

If there's one criticism that can be leveled at "Exile in Guyville," it's that some of the songs can feel a bit repetitive. The lo-fi sound and simple song structures can make it easy for tracks to blend together upon first listen. However, this is a minor quibble, and the album's strengths more than make up for any perceived weaknesses.

All in all, "Exile in Guyville" is a classic of the indie rock canon for a reason. Its incisive songwriting, unique sound, and fearless attitude continue to inspire new generations of musicians and listeners alike. Highly recommended.

Her voice is simultaneously vulnerable and confident

So how does it come up with an "observation" like this, which doesn't seem to be taken verbatim from something else on the Web? Does it pick and choose from lines which I do see online, like Phair's 25-year-old voice—as caustic and funny as it was candid and vulnerable and a girl from suburban Chicago with an electric guitar who sang explicitly about her sex drive and self-confidence with no hint of pretenses or pleasantries?

Seems plausible for a computer to take two opposing adjectives used to describe her voice and put them together with "simultaneously" to imply some depth in its observation.

Yeah I mean it's obviously plausible (it did it, after all!)... just wondering how it, like, technically works

Generative AI (at least at the moment) is both mind-boggling impressive and "yeah, so what?" banal, at the same time... it's hard to wrap my head around.

(I guess you might say it's... "simultaneously banal and impressive, imbuing the reader with a sense of both skepticism and discomfort")

god, this sucks so bad ... not just the writing but the sheer existence, and the future. :(

xxxpost - Part of the AI program combs the web for content and another part of it is programed to put that content into sentences that mimic human writing. By "plausible", I meant that it wouldn't be hard for a programmer to tell it to take two opposing adjectives describing a noun from the web and present them as "noun is simultaneously adjective 1 and adjective 2" to give the reader pause to consider how the noun could be described by both adjectives simultaneously and interpret that as some kind of human insight.

Is it actually part of its programming, to do that specific thing ("take two opposing adjectives...")? Or has it "learned" on its own that that type of construction is often found in the style of writing it's mimicking (review writing, in this case)?

the latter aiui

one thing that might help is that if you search just for the phrase "simultaneously vulnerable and confident" you do get plenty of results: none specifically referring to Phair that I saw, but many of them are about music/singing and some include the word "voice" as well.

you have to keep in mind it doesn't "know" anything about Liz Phair, obvs, it's trying to guess what a natural speaker would say in response to your prompt

There are plenty of Liz Phair articles that contain the words "vulnerable" and "confident" but not in the same sentence.

Also whatever program was used for that pavement listicle performed far worse than chapgpt did with Liz Phair or perhaps the scope of picking and describing the 10 best Pavement songs was too broad for it whereas emulating a review of one of the most talked about albums of the 90s should be right in it's wheelhouse.

I have tried to pay as little attention as possible to AI aside from shitposting-quality prompts, what sticks out most to me (with the Phair review) is the choppiness - it's competent but on the level of a high school sophomore grudgingly writing a short essay. I don't know if stronger prompts have generated anything with any kind of human flair.

I think that with AI chat bots at least, the amount of "learning" that they do is overstated. At their base, they only do what they've been told to do. The "voice" of their output is just reverse engineered sentence diagramming. They don't understand language any more than we humans understand our own consciousness. We input a sentence, they take our words and search for other applicable words to fulfil our command and they put what they find back into sentences. The words that they output don't mean anything to them, they're only concerned with the words we input and what the words in their code tell them to do with them.

The danger isn't that AI will become conscious and destroy us, it's that humans will mistakenly use it to destroy ourselves.

The impressive/startling thing to me – putting aside the arguably mediocre quality of the output, when compared to actual human work – is how well they "understand" such thin/basic prompts, and rich (and quick) their output is. Y'know, this part – they take our words and search for other applicable words to fulfil our command and they put what they find back into sentences. It's one thing to say it, and another to see it at work with a command like, Write a Liz Phair review.

the fact that what made the AI lightbulb go on for morrisp is a fake "Exile in Guyville" review... that just makes me feel like, these are my people here.

(those of you who aren't chatbots, anyway)

Across North and South Philly neighborhoods, two dozen or so rappers were defining a fierce local style: halting but high-velocity, herky-jerk but smooth, slick but hard.

today's pfork archive review lol

(not saying the review as a whole is bad, just funny timing)

Baffling choices aside, I’m kind of shocked this gauche and incompetent piece was let out the door:

https://www.avclub.com/the-cure-best-songs-ranked-1850397749/slides/33