Today, we look at Colin Meloy’s clever experiment to see if an A.I. can write a Decemberists song.
Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of pop culture history that interests me that doesn’t quite fit into the other features.
Colin Meloy, the lead singer and songwriter for the hit indie rock band, The Decemberists, has a Substack that is a really nice source of interesting information if you’re a fan of the band (my wife subscribes to it, for instance). In any event, recently, he revealed a fascinating experiment he underwent to see if an A.I. could actually write a Decemberists song.
He first asked ChatGPT to write a song “that Colin Meloy of the Decemberists might have written,” and it obliged with a song about the sea. Meloy then asked for the chords to go with the song, and it obliged.
He then constructed a melody and using the chords and the lyrics (which didn’t quite fit, but he felt he had to follow their instructions), he came up with their song and it is hilarious in the fact that it is not a BAD song, per se, but nor is it a good one, and it definitely doesn’t sound like a Decemberists song except for the fact that Meloy is the guy singing it.
Here‘s his whole experience, along with the audio file of the song.
Feel free to e-mail me at my all-new, much shorter e-mail address, brian@poprefs.com, for suggestions for shows for us to do in future installments!
I think AI could imitate some of The Decemberists’ musical ingredients, but capturing their storytelling and strange little details would be much harder. Tools like https://aivideosummarizer.net/ are useful for quickly breaking down long videos when you’re researching lyrics, interviews, or musical influences. Still, a convincing song needs more than clever rhymes and historical references; it needs a distinct personality behind the words. AI might get surprisingly close stylistically, but I’d probably recognize the difference once the song starts feeling emotionally too polished or predictable.