James Blunt has opened up about the impact of AI on music, admitting that he was “humiliated” and “mortified” when experimenting with AI in the style of his lyrics.
Blunt’s comments follow Nick Cave’s response to an AI song based on his style from last year, which he called “bullshit” and criticised it as being a “grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”.
Appearing on the I Never Thought It Would Happen podcast with Squeeze singer-songwriter Chris Difford, Blunt began, “Every single one of us must have, having heard of [AI], typed in and then written ‘Give me a verse based on this, in the style of, in my case, a James Blunt lyric’”.
The You’re Beautiful singer wasn’t impressed with the result—from AI and perhaps even his own songwriting, as he quipped, “The truth is, either AI comes up with something very, very generic or my lyrics are just absolutely mundane. So, AI has totally humiliated me whenever I’ve asked it to impersonate myself.
“It’s taught me, if anything, not to use AI, and [I] must do better.”
Like Cave’s critiques of AI’s failure to grasp the human aspects of songwriting, Blunt shared that AI hasn’t yet captured the “flaws” and “character” of songs written by people.
He continued, “The thing about songwriting and music generally is, it is your flaws and your failings and your mistakes which make it have character.
“Character is something that is not formulaic or generic… some of those things I would make by mistake, and I don’t think AI can do that yet. I don’t think it can bring in true character flaws and mistakes at this stage.”
You can listen to the podcast episode below.
James Blunt will return to Australia this November, playing at Brisbane’s Riverstage, Sydney’s Super Aware Theatre, Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, and Perth’s Red Hill Auditorium. The tour is in promotion of Blunt’s seventh album, Who We Used To Be, released in October.
In September, Blunt slammed his time on the Australian version of The X-Factor, revealing that he “didn’t enjoy” the experience.
