"Making" Music Isn’t Enough.

I thought we went over this when I wrote Why Make Music? But now feels like the appropriate time to go over it again.

For most of human history, making music was hard. It was a skill developed over years—through blood, sweat, and tears. Tons of practice, tons of failure, and tons of imitation of those who came before us.

Then technology gave us shortcuts. Musicians could work faster, sound better, and make things they couldn’t have imagined on their own. How? By expanding our expressive range, accelerating our abilities, and giving us new powers to bring sonic visions to life.

Today, AI does us one better. It provides all of that imitation in one platform. You don’t need to know anything about music—you just describe what you want the song to sound like, and AI does the work. All of the work.

BUT—as I wrote in Why Make Music?—that only solves one part of the puzzle: the output. Sure, it might sound good. But it’s still a sterile, non-human product. For something to be art, the artist needs to be intentionally involved. And since these AI creations were also trained—let’s be honest, fed—on the work of real human artists, what we’re left with isn’t art.

It’s theft + output. And that, by definition, ain’t art. Oh, and you, great describer of music? You MADE nothing.

Velvet Sundown (ugh)

Enter Velvet Sundown—and the millions of fake AI bands about to come down the pike. If you haven’t heard of them, don’t worry. They don’t matter. Or rather—they don’t exist.

Velvet Sundown is a fully AI-generated “band” that racked up over 800,000 monthly listeners on Spotify before quietly admitting the truth (we think). No musicians. No origin story. No one home.

Just prompts and algorithms and a crappy name.

We’re at the crossroads. I hoped it would take longer, but technology moves fast. Too fast.

This cute little stunt will be seen by every musician wannabe—and soon we’ll have Velvet Sundowns in every genre, on every playlist, cluttering every inch of an already overwhelmed ecosystem. It’s already hard enough to get heard. Now imagine trying to compete with infinite, zero-cost, auto-generated content dressed up as artistry.  All thinking they deserve compensation for being boorishly clever.

It sounds like special kind of hell designed just for me.

Let’s Do This NOW

1. Label It - (Perhaps: Soul / Soulless?)

If a piece of music was created entirely—or substantially—by AI, it should say so. Just like we label food for ingredients or photos for filters. Most listeners don’t know what they’re hearing. Disclosure restores trust. It respects the audience.

“Music is by definition a human endeavor.” — Why Make Music?

2. Separate the Catalogues

Streaming platforms are not infinite. Every AI track displaces a human one—in playlists, recommendations, and royalties. We need a separate lane for AI-native music, especially those made without human authorship. Without that line, the system will drown in undifferentiated sludge.

“The point of music (and effectively all art) is to convey emotion, not provide an emotional proxy of an ‘even better’ emotional state…”. — Why Make Music?

3. AI Music Is Not Compensable & Misrepresentation Should Be Punished

AI-generated music is not a legal gray area—it’s a categorical one.

By its nature, music made entirely by AI should not be eligible for compensation. Why? Because it isn’t eligible for copyright.

The machine is doing the creative work. The user is describing an idea, not expressing one. And under current law, description alone is not enough to create a copyrightable work. No human authorship means there is no author. And if there’s no author, there can be no royalties.

So let’s stop pretending prompt engineering is a creative act deserving of compensation. It isn’t. Plus, thinking otherwise is rotting your brain. Check it out, it's a real thing.

Said differently:

If I, a human artist, must represent that I own my music to get paid—then a machine-made track can’t qualify, because there’s no one who can make that claim truthfully.

4. Respect the Role of Human Intent

This isn’t about tools. It’s about authorship. Technology has always helped artists, but always as an extension of intent. What AI risks removing is the why. Music without intent is just content. It pollutes the air, crowding out oxygen molecules—but it doesn’t carry meaning.

Music is easier to make than ever. But meaning? That’s still human. — Why Make Music?

Oh, and, actually MAKING music, human music, is still worth the effort. - "Making" Music Isn't Enough