The Suno debate continues

The Suno debate continues, and likely will for a while.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling like I should reiterate here that we are absolutely not attempting to pass ourselves off as performers of this music. (The idea is absurd, honestly, and not just because our style range is so broad.) Our purpose is to write excellent lyrics and house them in the most flattering musical environment for each piece, with the ultimate goal of shopping as many songs as possible to real, live artists who are looking for great songs to record and perform.

We are not button-pushers. We actually work hard to get it right. We feed a lot of detailed information to Suno, and we reject roughly 75-85% of what it offers us. Knowing when the song is in the right place is a skill in itself.

A machine can’t do that for you. You have to have the ears for it.

I recently saw a post on X that I somewhat agree with, from saxophonist/producer  @VividFeverDrms; he said: “It’s always okay to automate up until the point ‘you’ personally are uncomfortable with it. Then suddenly you are committing a crime against art.”

As I acknowledged before, I absolutely understand why the use of this technology really gets under some people’s skin. There are absolute producing geniuses whose success is purely because of their own human vision and talent…and it bothers a lot of people that average musicians can make a good product now without their involvement. (And I won’t say it never bothered me. I still turn this over in my mind with some frequency; I am way too much in awe of the Quincy Jones/David Fosters of this world to not consider the ethical arguments to be made here.)

But I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anyone who hasn’t employed some sort of technology. This is just the next frontier. Nobody has to step into it if they prefer not to.

So this, by @VividFeverDrms, resonated with me: “The tool existing doesn’t destroy your existing tools.”

Thea