KUT’s Miles Bloxson and Elizabeth McQueen discover how Austin musicians are adapting to AI and the altering music business.
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Austin, Texas is called the stay music capital of the world. And the podcast Pause/Play from member station KUT explores the town’s stay music scene. Its newest season appears at Austin’s music future and the way musicians are adapting to our altering world. The pod’s hosts, Miles Bloxson and Elizabeth McQueen, are with me in the present day. Hello, to each of you.
MILES BLOXSON, BYLINE: Hello there.
ELIZABETH MCQUEEN, BYLINE: Hey, thanks for having us.
PFEIFFER: You launched your podcast in 2020, when COVID was nonetheless wreaking havoc on stay occasions. Now that we’re previous that shutdown stage, what sort of future points are you taking a look at?
BLOXSON: Effectively, proper now, nobody actually is aware of what the long run holds. A lot is altering so quick, and superior musicians are going through uncertainty round AI and frustration with streaming platforms. And these are points which can be related to musicians all over the place.
MCQUEEN: Yeah, I imply, proper now, there are music technology platforms like Suno and Udio the place you may create songs utilizing written prompts. And Udio – they signed a cope with Common Music Group to launch an AI music technology and streaming platform. So now an AI music firm is partnering with the biggest report label on this planet.
BLOXSON: And we wished to understand how Austin musicians have been feeling in regards to the rise of AI. Have been they for it or in opposition to it?
MCQUEEN: I imply, most individuals are within the center, like Zeale. He is an Austin-based musician and an interdisciplinary artist.
ZEALE: I actually wished to have a transparent understanding of what’s this doing? What’s it impacting? How are artists utilizing this of their workflows to, you understand, get from level A to level B? And I try this as a result of I need to perceive my – I do not need to say enemy, however I need to perceive this new, very impactful know-how as a lot as potential.
BLOXSON: Despite the fact that he makes use of it, he is aware of, like, it additionally poses a risk to musicians within the artistic sector. And Zeale has this idea about why that’s.
ZEALE: We have already been taken benefit of traditionally, from dangerous distribution offers, publishing offers, report offers, et cetera. And that simply leans extra into that theme of all proper, properly, let’s discover a solution to monetize on this in the identical format that labels did up to now.
PFEIFFER: Miles and Elizabeth, you’ve got touched on this, however are you able to discuss a bit of extra about ways in which AI is being utilized by musicians?
MCQUEEN: Effectively, proper now, there are AI bands and artists. So one instance that individuals may need heard of is The Velvet Sunset. They’ve over 750,000 month-to-month listeners on Spotify.
BLOXSON: They usually’re not the one ones. Simply final week, Xania Monet grew to become the primary AI artist to land on the Billboard charts.
MCQUEEN: Yeah, I imply, it was already arduous sufficient for musicians to earn money on streaming platforms earlier than AI artists entered the fray. Like, most individuals solely make a 3rd of a penny per stream.
PFEIFFER: So return a second. I need to make clear. Whenever you speak about Xania Monet and Velvet Sunset being AI artists, you imply not actual human beings, not actual bands, however music and musicians generated by AI know-how.
MCQUEEN: Sure, precisely.
BLOXSON: That is precisely what we’re speaking about.
PFEIFFER: All proper, so that you talked about streaming, and as I used to be taking a look at your pod in latest episodes, I noticed that there is one about an artist in Austin who needs to construct a substitute for Spotify, which actually dominates that area now.
BLOXSON: Yeah, her identify is Lauren Bruno. And he or she needs to construct an artist-centered streaming platform. She needs artists to receives a commission higher charges, and she or he additionally needs them to have higher management over their knowledge.
LAUREN BRUNO: When an artist uploads their music to a platform like Spotify, you understand, Spotify – what they use that knowledge for, in easy phrases – the granule uncooked knowledge is to incur extra income by way of sponsorship and advert placement. And that granular knowledge holds loads of energy as a result of that is all about your viewers as an artist.
PFEIFFER: You already know, it is all the time been arduous for musicians to earn money, most of them, and it looks as if streaming and AI are probably not serving to with that. Are there every other survival methods being developed for the music scene?
BLOXSON: Yeah, completely. In Austin, our metropolis authorities is attempting to assist Austin musicians by giving them cash to place in the direction of their careers. We have now a grant program referred to as The Dwell Music Fund, and this yr, musicians can apply for grants of $5,000 and even $20,000. They usually can use that cash on all the things from selling exhibits to creating data.
PFEIFFER: Sort of a subsidy method – how frequent is that within the music world?
MCQUEEN: It is really not that frequent. We are the first metropolis to do it within the U.S. We is perhaps one of many first on this planet. However it’s a plan that is working, and it is one thing that additionally different cities might reproduce.
PFEIFFER: That is Elizabeth McQueen and Miles Bloxson, hosts of the podcast Pause/Play from KUT and KUTX Studios. Because of each of you.
BLOXSON: Thanks.
MCQUEEN: Thanks.
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