Thoughts on AI use on the new album?

[TheHoveringSojourn808]

Hey folks, figured it was time for another discussion around the new album

This time, I was wondering how folks would feel about the potential/theoretical chance that DT employs AI (in any capacity) in their new album cycle?

Now, of course, I am not suggesting they will use AI to write anything at all, lyrics or music. When I say AI, I am thinking things like:
- Album art/booklet art
- Promotional materials
- Lyric videos
- Samples generated with AI used in background of song/as a clip
- Some kind of modulator for a synth which JR uses which employs AI


I was wondering how folks would react if the band went this route. I put together a little poll to gauge people's reactions. For me, I am in the "Please, no AI" camp, but I don't think I would go as far as to refuse to engage/listen to the album if the band did employ it. I think, however, it may be likely that Huge Sign uses some AI techniques in any of the artwork he makes for the band (whether it be the album cover or some less prominent art elsewhere)

[Adami]

I am perfectly fine with DT using AI to not only do all of their art and videos, but for writing their entire album both musically and lyrically.


However....the last thing you mentioned....JR using AI to help create some kind of modulator for a synth....that's just going too far and I will boycott DT if they do that.

[hefdaddy42]

They don't create their own album art or promotional materials (which are based on the album art).  They hire Hugh Syme for that, and he doesn't use AI.  He uses stock photos.

I would prefer they just stay away from it.  They don't need it, and I can't think of a way it would improve them.

[WilliamMunny]

They are free to do what they wish, but there are a million albums out there I have yet to hear crafted and created by humans, so I'll be damned if I'm going to spend any of the precious time I have left on this planet listening to some AI-generated musical content.

I'm sure it's the wave of the future, but it's not MY future, and if DT (or any band) comes out saying "we used AI to generate chord progressions" or "we used AI to help us track those perfect sounding drums," I'm out.

Edited to say, I realize the OP wasn't asking about the music, but that's all I really care about in these scenarios. And, honestly, I'd be shocked if major-label bands aren't using AI in the studio already.

[PMSummer]

They don't create their own album art or promotional materials (which are based on the album art).  They hire Hugh Syme for that, and he doesn't use AI.  He uses stock photos.

I would prefer they just stay away from it.  They don't need it, and I can't think of a way it would improve them.

That Europe tour poster really looks like it had some AI used for at least parts of it (check the weird artifacts around the X's)

[Metro]

That Europe tour poster really looks like it had some AI used for at least parts of it (check the weird artifacts around the X's)

Definitely. It looks like there’s extra legs from other X’s in the background.

[HOF]

What if they don’t use any AI, but they do name the album “Artificial Inteligence”?

[WilliamMunny]

What if they don’t use any AI, but they do name the album “Artificial Inteligence”?

Lol...now that's a pickle

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

They should use AI to write all their lyrics.

[TheHoveringSojourn808]

lol I just realized I wrote "Huge Sign" but I meant Hugh Syme. Damned autocorrect

[The Letter M]

What if they don’t use any AI, but they do name the album “Artificial Inteligence”?

If they name it that, they should take the L and put it back in "Intelligence".

-Marc.

[Lonk]

If they name it that, they should take the L and put it back in "Intelligence".

-Marc.

But what if the misspelling is on purpose to prove it's not AI?

[pg1067]

Now, of course, I am not suggesting they will use AI to write anything at all, lyrics or music. When I say AI, I am thinking things like:
- Album art/booklet art
- Promotional materials
- Lyric videos
- Samples generated with AI used in background of song/as a clip
- Some kind of modulator for a synth which JR uses which employs AI

I voted no because I've yet to see or hear any AI-generated "art" that I thought wasn't shit.  That said, I really don't care all that much about the first three of the categories above.  Category 4 would be a HARD no, unless it's some one-off 5-second effect (a la the shaman noise in BitS).  I don't really understand category 5, so I'll reserve judgment.

[HOF]

But what if the misspelling is on purpose to prove it's not AI?

You know, it's like how all the AI pictures are just off ever so slightly.

[HOF]

More likely they would name the album something like "Artifacts of Intellect" or something pretentious like that that gives us the AI acronym.

[TheHoveringSojourn808]

I don't really understand category 5, so I'll reserve judgment.

For this part, I was just thinking of how JR likes to use new technology on DT albums. The immediate example that comes to mind is the Bebot thing he did the solo with on Rite of Passage (IIRC?). I could see a world where we have technology creating new synth sounds, perhaps even live as the artist is playing, using AI.

[Setlist Scotty]

You know, it's like how all the AI pictures are just off ever so slightly.

What could you possibly be talking about?!

[hefdaddy42]

 

[HOF]

What could you possibly be talking about?!

I like how he is apparently left handed.

[TheBarstoolWarrior]

I would not be surprised if there is a song whose lyrics reference AI. I don't mind that. In terms of the music, I can't imagine how that would sound. I am all for artists using studio magic to create the most idealized version of something, so if it really makes the music better, go for it.

[TheHoveringSojourn808]

I would not be surprised if there is a song whose lyrics reference AI. I don't mind that. In terms of the music, I can't imagine how that would sound. I am all for artists using studio magic to create the most idealized version of something, so if it really makes the music better, go for it.

I wouldn't mind a song with lyrics about AI either. In fact, it seems likely that it will be a topic to my mind

[MirrorMask]

They posted on FB a bunch of lame AI images after the "chocolate dinosaur" comment by JP calling them "epic fan art", so I'm not that sure they would write lyrics about AI 

[MoraWintersoul]

I kind of hate this trend of bands using AI for cover art and videos. By all means make a mockup of the art you want using AI, and then pay an artist to do it. The only reason why they can get away with this is because they borrowed a few phrases about how futuristic and forward-thinking it is and how everyone is going to be using it so we might as well, but it still looks ugly as sin. And we all know you're doing it because you want to save yourself a couple hundred dollars and three conversations with a human artist online, which is the cheapest price in the history of metal that anyone ever had to pay to get album art. If you want ugly, even cheaper art even faster, might as well go on Fiverr and hire someone to do it who won't give humans extra fingers.

Besides, I'm not so sure bands like Pestilence will like it so much anymore when I am able to use a music AI service to generate myself endless new Pestilence albums faster than they could make them

[Pebsie]

I simply can't comprehend an artist of any discipline thinking AI art is acceptable. I will not buy the album if there is any AI art on the cover. I'll stream it, but I won't buy it. This goes for anyone, no matter the size. Why should I pay for your art if you don't think artists are worthy of being paid? It's ridiculous. A snake eating its own tail.

[BlackInk]

- Album art/booklet art
- Promotional materials
- Lyric videos
- Samples generated with AI used in background of song/as a clip
- Some kind of modulator for a synth which JR uses which employs AI

I would be completely fine with using AI for all of the things listed here. It's easy to make something with AI, but it's not so easy to make something good or fresh with AI that doesn't immediately have that generic generative look to it. Using AI really well is almost an artform in its own right. So if they hire someone who knows what they're doing, and if they are guided by some sort of artistic vision, there's no reason AI artwork can't be as cool as anything else. DT album covers have a pretty low quality standard anyway, so even a descent AI cover would likely be an improvement in my book.

I would not be okay with the music itself being written by AI of course. That's the product I'm here for, Dream Theater's music. Not an amalgamated immitation of Dream Theater's music.

I simply can't comprehend an artist of any discipline thinking AI art is acceptable. I will not buy the album if there is any AI art on the cover. I'll stream it, but I won't buy it. This goes for anyone, no matter the size. Why should I pay for your art if you don't think artists are worthy of being paid? It's ridiculous. A snake eating its own tail.

I understand this comment to some degree but also disagree in specific cases. As I said above, doing really good AI art isn't as simple as people may think, and if you don't spend some time on it, it's going to have that generic look. But beside that, I'd say it comes down to what an artist does or what their budget is for production. For example, I am not a graphic designer or a visual artist of any sort, but I make a lot of music. I don't really feel like I have the budget in my at-home productions to pay artists all the time to do artwork to go along with my stuff. AI has given me and people like me the chance to generate original artwork to accompany our work without hiring artists. It still takes time, and is definetely a creative process unless you just type "cool metal album cover" and just go with the first result you get. But again, that cover is going to look hella-generic.

A lot of people will react negatively to "without hiring artists," which is understandable. But my point is that, without AI, it's not like I would be hiring artists anyway. I would probably just search google for a generic non-copywrite image that fits good enough and use that. AI enables people who previously would not create any visual art at all to at least have something. And if you really work a lot with it, it can become pretty cool.

Dream Theater are obviously not in that situation. They can easily afford to pay an artist to hand craft their visual companion art. But I'm just saying that it's not as black and white in my mind.

[MirrorMask]

I too generate AI images for fun, and I've learnt how to carefully construct prompts. It's not something I sell or use in any form, it's just for my own entertainment or amusement; I would never be able to paint or draw, so as a harmless hobby I generate AI images, but that's it. I don't consider myself an "artist" just because I've learnt how to write a prompt. Yes, it takes a little bit of skill to do that, but it's still a computer doing all the artistic work. I didn't try but I guess I could come up with a clever prompt to make a nice cover art on the "A View from the Top of the World" theme. It wouldn't make me an artist and it definitively wouldn't make me better than Hugh Syme, for all the criticisms the guy gets, I could never, ever be able to do anything he does 'cause it's just not my field. Syme can create cover arts, I can't.

[TheHoveringSojourn808]

I asked AI to generate an image of Hugh Syme making the new Dream Theater album art while listening to the new album preview

[MirrorMask]

That's a good picture actually. Still, to get that you had to write a prompt. You would never be able (unless you're actually a graphic artist) to draw it, paint it or use whatever tecnique artists or digital artists use.

[TheHoveringSojourn808]

I don't actually know what Huge Sign looks like, but I sort of doubt he looks like a member of Dream Theater from behind

[BlackInk]

Lol. Yeah there's some AI-ness to that image, but it's already at least on par with anything DT have done for the past 15 years. This could totally be an album cover for a DT knock-off band from the early 2000s.

I too generate AI images for fun, and I've learnt how to carefully construct prompts. It's not something I sell or use in any form, it's just for my own entertainment or amusement; I would never be able to paint or draw, so as a harmless hobby I generate AI images, but that's it. I don't consider myself an "artist" just because I've learnt how to write a prompt. Yes, it takes a little bit of skill to do that, but it's still a computer doing all the artistic work. I didn't try but I guess I could come up with a clever prompt to make a nice cover art on the "A View from the Top of the World" theme. It wouldn't make me an artist and it definitively wouldn't make me better than Hugh Syme, for all the criticisms the guy gets, I could never, ever be able to do anything he does 'cause it's just not my field. Syme can create cover arts, I can't.

I suppose it depends on how in-depth you go. Yeah I guess there's only so far you can go with pure prompting of DALL-E or something. But there's an iceberg submerged under that bit of bobbling ice. One can spend weeks training your own models, or training the AI on a specific style, maybe even your own (and suddenly you need an artist to even get started). Yeah it may begin to resemble engineering rather than artistry at some point, but it's far from soulless if you use it this deeply, and can be a deeply creative process.

[BlackInk]

Also, if you don't want to use AI to completely generate your art from scratch, you can incorporate it as a tool like any other. There was a time between the emergence of AI generated art and when they figured out how to remove flickering that came from applying AI interpretation to videos. This created that really flickery warbling style that we associate with AI video now. This style has been used as a type of filter with some really cool results, in my opinion, like Periphery's music video for Atropos, or Meshuggah's video for They Move Below. Those videos are heavily art directed and full of artistry and cool human ideas, not to mention the emergence of a completely new visual style that hasn't even existed before, which I think is pretty cool.

[MoraWintersoul]

Yeah there's some AI-ness to that image, but it's already at least on par with anything DT have done for the past 15 years. This could totally be an album cover for a DT knock-off band from the early 2000s.

It's really not. The more you get into the details, the more nonsensical things you see. Starting from his hands, the fact that nothing around the canvas represents any known object except "artistic futuristic spaceship-ey detail", those cables that don't really lead anywhere or do anything, the legs of the chair don't follow regular chair logic, that whole "structure" ahead of him is just detail filling empty spaces with forms that repeat here and there, that ball next to his feet and the bottle that's supposed to be a holder for something but you don't recognize what it's holding. Almost nothing makes sense here except the human if you don't go into details (is he wearing Uggs ) and the album artwork he's painting looks passable as AI-generated Tool artwork.

If a new prog metal band came out with this artwork, I'd know they had no artistic intention for their artwork except to pay exactly 0 dollars for it. But if you got this as a result during your AI generation concept quest and you really liked the color scheme and the composition, you could hire a human artist to replace the stuff around the canvas (with maybe a Photoshop-esque spaceship control board where he could select elements for his painting), maybe fill out the space with some cables going into his headphones, make the background a hallway into a gallery of his paintings, and replace the artwork he's painting with something that actually looks like DT art.

[BlackInk]

Fair enough. Yeah there's definetely some AI jank to that one. But as a jokingly made first take first try, it's alright. I would never use this particular image as actual artwork, but if you're into this type of style, it would be a good starting point. I agree that if you like this specific composition, you can bring it into photoshop and start working on it there. Maybe combine it with elements from other generated images, perhaps even generate versions of each component of this image by itself in a way that makes more sense and then bring it together with the rest, if you actually want that style and want to keep it within the AI realm.

I'm not advocating for lazy use of AI. I'm just saying that there are both good and bad ways to utilize AI as a tool in the creative process, just like any other tool. I personally think stock photo composition is even more lazy when done poorly, where all the elements are just pre-made images for anyone to use. Maybe it's in comparison to that I see AI so favorably in the context of this discussion.

I think a hand painted actual painting would be even cooler than both these options. But maybe that wouldn't fit DT's style.

[jammindude]

I have a question along these lines. Recently a metal band was highly criticized for using AI artwork, and they were accused of being part of a movement to take money away from artists who create artwork for albums.

But my question is, back in the 80s, many of the early bands that we love so much were praised for taking a DIY approach to their album artwork. They didn’t have any money so they often saved money by doing the artwork themselves and thus having to pay zero money for it.  So if a band does not have much money and puts a lot of effort into creating the parameters and possibly even spending hours working on the model until they get exactly what they want, how much different is that than the old-fashioned DIY approach?

[efx]

I have a question along these lines. Recently a metal band was highly criticized for using AI artwork, and they were accused of being part of a movement to take money away from artists who create artwork for albums.

But my question is, back in the 80s, many of the early bands that we love so much were praised for taking a DIY approach to their album artwork. They didn’t have any money so they often saved money by doing the artwork themselves and thus having to pay zero money for it.  So if a band does not have much money and puts a lot of effort into creating the parameters and possibly even spending hours working on the model until they get exactly what they want, how much different is that than the old-fashioned DIY approach?

Honestly, then they should do it themselves. Using an generative AI process whose dataset is based on existing art that no one had the option of opting in on is not comparable at all I feel.