Pirate's Cove

It’s wild how all the “we’re all going to die!” articles about AI have mostly dried up within a month, and now we get

Spotify Has Removed 50 Million AI Slop Tracks From Recommendations This Year

Spotify‘s quest to curb the chaos AI-generated music has brought onto the platform has prompted it to remove 50 million AI slop tracks from users’ recommendations this year, a new figure shared Tuesday as part of the company’s public insights into how it’s navigating the AI era.

The disclosure came in a post on its “For the Record” blog, where Spotify laid out the efforts it’s taken since it promised to push back against various forms of AI slop and spam that have proliferated across the streaming service.

The 50 million tracks the streamer removed from recommendations were in addition to more than 75 million tracks Spotify pulled completely after being flagged as spam, though tracks that comprise the 50 million figure have not been removed from the platform. According to Spotify, the 50 million AI-generated tracks are still available but a user would have to actively seek them out to find them (since they aren’t recommended algorithmically or editorially).

“Earlier this year, we looked closely at the tracks listeners were skipping, ignoring, or telling us they didn’t want to hear,” the platform shared in the post. “A clear pattern emerged: these tracks were consistently ones identified as slop or spam. Over the past six months, we’ve made numerous updates to our recommendation system to remove slop and spam, and surface more music made by authentic, human artists. Our editors hold the same standard and don’t program content identified as slop or spam. Since we made these changes, we’ve seen a marked decrease in listener concerns about this content showing up in recommendations.”

So, were the songs any good? I have no idea, because I’m sure they are in the “Today’s Hit Music” category. All that pop, hip-hop, rap, etc category, not metal. All the various types of rock other than metal I listen to (Rush, Jimmy Buffett, yacht rock, Eagles, etc) aren’t making much these days, so, not affected. But, are any of these AI songs better than the current today’s hit music! “songs”?

Really, when does Spotify remove all the over-produced garbage that uses a ton of autotune and computers to generate the limited amount of music? Heck, I bet a ton of the newer songs were generated using AI. Which can generate interesting lyrics, but, there’s no soul to them, because they are not based on experiences. There are no real stories attached.

Can AI produce Life In The Fast Lane? A song that started because of a warm-up lick by Joe Walsh? Do 3 guitars, drums, bass? Have them play something besides the equivalent of a metronome? Lyrics that tell a story? Or Aja by Steely Dan, a masterpiece which people would use to adjust the equalizer on their stereos for perfect sound? Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix? Until it can do stuff like that, it is basically the same as all the slop you hear on today’s hit music stations. Maybe the people listening to it should try something different.

Everyone is squeeing about this at the moment

This might as well be AI slop. What’s the difference? AI could make this easily. Also, it’s hilarious that Tate, like so many of the women in this THM! slop, is saying she doesn’t need men but wears clothes and dances like she’s at a strip club (she has nor real rhythm, though, it’s not fluid) to attract men. Do males listen to this crap? They don’t go to “concerts” like this.

Anyway, I’m not worried about AI making music because there’s not much difference between it and Today’s Hit Music. I’ll worry when it can do actual songs. When it can make metal songs and do guitars, when it can do more than a basic metronome with the drums and bass guitar.