Music, composed with Artificial Intelligence. No, it’s not something, that was sent from aliens, it is a part of our future. French collective SKYGGE (meaning “shadow” in Danish) is releasing Hello World – the first multi-artist music album, composed with AI.
The debut single “Hello Shadow” featuring Kiesza and Stromae is out now with the music video, directed by Olivier Bayu Gandrille.
SKYGGE is led by a composer, author and producer Benoit Carré in collaboration with Flow Machines – a research project by the Sony Computer Science Laboratory (Sony CSL) in Paris. Its director François Pachet has recently been hired by Spotify, because of his incredible inventions in music technology.
There are quite a few softwares that let to create a “programmed” music, but most of them focuses on classical genre. The idea behind the SKYGGE project was to make computers write catchy pop hits, which, as it was said by François Pachet, is a much more difficult task.
So, how does this work? How can a computer write a song? One of the first songs, composed entirely by AI, was “Daddy’s Car“. Using the same Flow Machines system, Sony CSL scientists got a computer to analyze a huge database of pop songs, learn music styles and create a song in the style of The Beatles. Basically, the researchers created the algorithms which are able to examine and reproduce any kind of music style.
However, a good music still requires human’s input. AI is not (yet) able to write honest and meaningful lyrics, that come from an idea. That’s why SKYGGE is working with different artists to make computer’s music more vivid and real. “Hello Shadow” features vocals of Canadian singer Kiesza and composition of Belgium artist Stromae.
The Hello World album is meant to be a “landmark in the history of technology and music creation“. Maybe it won’t become the greatest ever written hits, but understanding how it was made is just mind-blowing.
Listen to “Hello Shadow” and watch the video here:
Check out “Daddy’s Car”, a song in the style of The Beatles, created entirely by AI:
#Peace.Love.Skygge
