NYT critic Jon Caramanica: AI in music is the new Auto Tune — already in every session, widely accepted within 24 months

from her and we appreciate her taking the time to come hang out with us while we uh throw soundboards and flashbangs around. Anyway, it sounds like we have someone in the reream waiting room.

Who do we got?

John.

Oh well,

John. We got John. Let's bring John.

Let's bring John in to the TV Ultra. John, thank you so much for taking the time. Been a bit of a crazy show.

Look at this setup. This is what do you have behind you?

The home library. What else would it be? Incredible.

Give us some recommendations. What's the best thing on that?

Um, there's an incredible history of Houston rap music that I highly recommend on this book.

What era? Like

this is like screw era. Like screw into Paul Jones. Yeah. Okay. That

everything that led up to that moment.

Oh, interesting. Okay. Very cool. Anyway, thank you so much quick. This was this was the last 15 minutes or so have been one of the more chaotic that we've ever had. We had Kathy Wood on talking about a variety of of thesis she has on on markets. Uh the our chat, we have some sound effects. Our chat just kept telling us to spam the sound effects and I couldn't couldn't keep it together. But uh we're super excited to have you on here. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Yesterday was uh was kind of a funny experience. Somebody sent somebody sent me the video that you posted uh with the rugby and there we only made like a hundred of those. We gave out we gave them out to friends. We would have happily sent you one if if we knew you were uh in the market. But of course,

I was tapped in. I was tapped in. You were tapped in. You found it. You were tapped in. You found it online.

Um so I'm glad I even though it was bootleg, I'm glad that it looked great. It looked great in the video. Great. Yeah.

There it is. There it is. Well, we have sent out a an official TBP in the mail. It should be arriving any day.

And what did it smell like when it arrived from Canada?

Okay. So, can I please can I be candid with you guys? I feel like we can be candy.

Of course,

when this package arrived in my package room in my building, it looked like it had been assembled by a small child. She was

It was packed into like a mailer, like a like a regular mailer

that was tattered at the edges.

It had a label from Canada

and there was a full retinue of packing tape layers, like four or [laughter] five layers on top of the mailing label. I opened the package. I had ordered one. I got two.

You got two. Okay. [laughter]

I got two. So, there's a bonus one if you guys.

Thank you.

Do a swap.

Smelled like cigarettes.

Smelled like [laughter] cigarettes.

Wait. So, you think a child was smoking cigarettes like cigarettes. Child is [laughter] is selling boot.

Non fumar. Um.

Yeah. And but I will say as a as a clothing connoisseur, when I saw the images that you guys had posted of your polo, I was like, incredibly high quality material. I could see it in the photos, I knew that the embroidery would be like robust to the touch. I knew

I got this.

Yeah.

Oh,

this looks like it was made from uh you know, you get like a 10 pack of terry cloths on Amazon basics.

No, not good.

Yeah. See, this was an issue. A lot of people when I f I posted that that we had uh that that there was bootleg merch floating around and a lot of people were like, "Oh, what's the issue?" Like,

you guys are a podcast. It's not your core business. We don't make merch to make money, right? Uh but the issue was like I knew people would buy it and they'd get it and they'd be like, "This is low quality course and we care a lot about quality."

I was like, "But on the on the flip side, you guys are popping and you're getting bootlegged." So, MV, congratulations.

Yeah, it's a good interview. Thank you.

Anyway, sorry. uh for your first time on the show, please introduce yourself for everyone who might not be familiar.

Sure. Uh my name is John Karam Monica. I am a pop music critic at the New York Times. I am the co-host of Popcast, which is our popculture talk show. Yeah.

Check us out, YouTube.comcast.

Yeah.

Sticker.

Yeah. And then and then and then the the the real that started this whole thing on Instagram. Uh

break down the thesis. And then uh and then uh just to clarify uh none of the footage in that is AI generated. Correct.

No.

Okay.

Just

but the look like that.

I mean no no is something about like the camera movement and your dancing was like a little bit like whoa there's a lot going on. Okay. Well

movie magic baby.

Movie magic. Movie magic.

But what was the Yeah. So every week we do a song of the week. It's not necessarily pure endorsement. It's usually a song that's reflective of a bigger idea in pop music. Obviously, we've been talking a lot about AI and pop in recent months. We had a big episode on that before the holidays. I listened to the Bruno Mar song that just came out, and I was like,

if you had told me that this is just some guy trained on the pop charts of 1972 and made this, I would have totally believed it.

So, typically, we film in my car. My car, unfortunately, is in the shop, so we went up to the South Bronx and filmed a dance video uh in my mechanic's garage.

That's awesome. I mean, it's a beautiful set. I don't know what you shot that on, but it is is like it's a beautiful like piece of media.

Did you go?

Did you go to the Bruno Mars concert in the steal a brain rot game in Roblox?

What?

Did you not [laughter] hear about this?

I know. What are you talking about? I know about this, but I don't know.

So, Bruno Mars played a concert in the game Steal a Brain Rot in Roblox, which by itself, just reading that sentence, it kind of feels like it would give you brain rot. So, I guess it is kind of stealing a brain rot. Exactly.

Okay. Well, let's zoom out and talk about AI music. Um, we were talking about it earlier and and I've always been on this this train where the AI tools are incredible. The it's, you know, it's hard to tell the difference, but they're always whenever I see a viral piece of AI media like Harry Potter Balenciaga, I return to the fact that AI didn't come up with the concept. AI was used to instantiate the idea that was created from a human. And in fact, after Harry Potter Balenciaga, I went to I think ChachiBT and I said, "Here's the here's this thing that's going viral. They're mashing up a kids classic with a iconic fashion brand. It's this high low uh create a new viral video concept that will absolutely take over the internet." And it just was like like, you know, like Star Wars Louis Vuitton. And it was like that's not actually going to break through in the way that Harry Potter Balenciaga did because it's not innovative. It's not the first time it's had something happen. And and I'm wondering like how much do you think we are, you know, you're seeing music that's like purely just the AI did it or it's more of a tool like how are you processing the AI music boom right now?

Sure. One note on the Harry Potter Balenciaga thing. You know that there is an actual Balenciaga Fortnite collaboration. Are you aware of that?

No, I'm not. Wow. So when Dem Demna, who until recently was the creative director of Balenciaga, had a really, I would say, a robust sense of humor and irony about the types of clothing that he made.

And a lot of times he did some unlikely garment collaborations. And he there's a sanctioned Balenciaga, Fortnite, I think it's a hoodie, maybe a shirt, two or three pieces. So they were the troll out trolled the AI.

Yeah. There you go. There you go. Um, as far as AI as a music tool, you know, one of the things I think is causing a lot of people anxiety right now

is you look at some of these artists who are cut from whole cloth, right? Solomon Ray purports to be a soul musician, but really it's just a guy running a bunch of Anthony Hamilton songs through a program and coming out with a new one, probably allegedly. Yeah. Now, that doesn't scare me because eventually Spotify, Apple are going to say there's going to be some banner, some badge that's like this is not a real person to the extent that that matters.

Here's what I think is interesting

or or it's not fair use and we need to shuffle the revenue over there and so you're effective.

That's going to happen in the same way that sampling y had many years shadows

and then everything kind of came into formality. That's going to happen with AI and frankly it's going to happen much faster.

I agree. What I think is interesting is if you go into any songwriter, producer studio in Los Angeles right now, which is where all the sort of hits are written typically,

the the hierarchy of that room is typically famous person,

famous person's guy, you know, like songwriter, helper, melody person,

a name producer who you probably maybe would have heard of,

one or two songwriters, and then one or two kind of studio hands who were sort of like moving the knobs. I would bet anything that in every single one of those sessions, one of those low-level folks is already deploying AI in unexpected ways.

There's an interview with Teddy Swims, who's like a moderately successful pop star a couple of months ago, and he said, "Oh, yeah, AI. Yeah, I use that to multitrack my vocals. I use that to try out what if I change the key, what's it going to sound like?"

Sure. I would bet anything that in the same way that autotune was quietly used for a long time and then became completely accepted, these AI tools are going to get used and deployed in these not totally discernible to the earways. But in terms of workflow and process, I bet they're already there in everything we're listening to on especially on pop radio. I heard an interesting story [clears throat] uh from a friend uh from a friend about a friend of theirs who was a like a backup like studio singer whose work went to basically zero because right they were working on tracks that were just meant to be demos so that a songwriter could share it with different labels or artists or whatever and then suddenly it's like you don't need somebody to go into the studio to like sing your song you just like prompt it and and so yeah I think

what uh you're obviously a student of history. We talked about the book the books behind you. Um what uh I've

read them all.

Uh what anecdotes can you share about previous technologies rolling out in music? Backlash to electronic drum machines, backlash to electronic music. Give me some more like what are you drawing on to for its core?

Okay. So I mean the the the story that I think becomes really it looms large in a lot of people mind. Dylan going electric, right? This is an era of folk music where everybody's like, "You know what's authentic is me. I don't smell great. I'm strumming on an acoustic guitar. I perform at four cafes a night in the village. We all hang out and write together and have sex with each other." And that's that's the scene.

And then Dylan sees what's happening with technology and sees what's happening especially with the guitar. And the electric guitar has become a creative tool for an entire legion of rock musicians. And Dylan brings it to the Newport Folk F to the Newport Folk Festival and says, "I'm I'm plugging in. I don't care what you guys think."

And of course, people call him Judas uh and and say that he's doing heresy. And the fact is he's just following. He was a follower at that point.

I also mentioned Autotune earlier. You may remember Jay-Z put out a song called DOA, Death of Autotune. This is at the peak of Tay. T Pay is dominating radio with essentially computer music that sounds a lot like Zap and Roger from the late '7s into the early 80s. That kind of like synthetic funk music that was really popular after like the Earthwind and Fires of the world.

Tay comes along, formalizes it, becomes a go-to songwriter, producer, and collaborator. And all of a sudden, everything on the radio sounds like a computer. Jay-Z comes along with Death of Autotune and says, "Actually, stop all that." and that people were like, "That's nice, old man." Like, "Let's keep it pushing." And autotune is now widely accepted uh in every genre. You hear it in country music, you hear it in pop, you hear it in reggae, you hear it in hip-hop. Those these questions that were sort of like anxious critical m uh anxious critical discourses when they emerged,

nobody really gives two thoughts to anymore.

I think that's probably what's going to happen

12 to 24 months from now with AI.

Yeah. I I I I want to go so much deeper and and have you back to spend way more time with all this. I'm interested in your thoughts on um on the the downstream implications of AI music because I I I could imagine that if you're a particular artist that can create one of those like shelling points where there's a specific tour that everyone's talking about, you got to go see the eras tour or this particular tour at the sphere was something that so many people took Instagram reels of and posted that everyone just knows it's real. that creates this proof of authenticity. I'm wondering what other downstream effects might are you thinking about as artists react to competition from some anonymous person with AI that can create music that's maybe indistinguishable. So, they got to specialize.

Here's the thing. Here's the anxiety that it brings up for me,

and I think it's an anxiety that I've long felt

before AI posed itself as a problem. I'm a very intense listener. It's my job. But also, just even before it was my job, I was always an intense listener. You guys may or may not be intense. I don't know.

Sure.

What I can tell you is that for every person like me, there's 50 people who are casual listeners, which is to say, they press play on a Spotify playlist and walk away

and don't think too hard about what the second song is or the fifth song is. They're notify. They're not studying. And they're not preoccupied. They're not every song that comes on, they don't do a gut check with themselves and say, "Do I like this? Am I curious about this? Is this an artist I respect?" They just kind of let it go in the background. Everything is dentist office music. It's moving in that direction. There are plenty of real life artists who are making music like that

and those are the people who have been shutting out some of the bigger and more creative people. AI accelerates that process, but AI didn't start that process. And I think what it's also going to accelerate is more and more people as consumers are going to get trained to try to not pay too close attention

to the specifics of what they're listening to.

Mhm. Okay. Uh I have 50 more questions, but we do have to move on. But thank you so much for hopping on short.

Do you want me to burn this? [laughter]

No. No, keep it. It has lore now. We've we've discussed it on the show. It lives on forever in the Instagram reel. It's great. I love it. One thing I'll say before I go is that many of my favorite rap shirts from the '9s are all bootlegs. This may be this may turn out to be the thousand shirt 20 years from now.

Maybe it has lore now. It's been discussed on the show.

Let's like actually schedule your next appearance today. We'd love to have you back on so much.

You guys are killing it. Congratulations.

Thank you so much. You too. We'll talk to you soon. Great to hang.

Goodbye. Talk to you soon.

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