“AI has totally humiliated me whenever I’ve gone and asked it to impersonate myself”: James Blunt says he won’t be using AI to write lyrics in the future
“Either AI comes up with something very generic or my lyrics are absolutely mundane.”
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Like many artists, James Blunt has asked AI to create lyrics in the style of his own writing out of sheer curiosity. It seems though, the results he got back have taught him “not to use” the tech again, and also that he “must do better” as a lyricist, according to the pop artist.
Outside of his music, Blunt is certainly not one to take himself too seriously, so it’s not surprising that he’s of course experimented with the likes of AI tools for a bit of a laugh. With that said, the Goodbye My Lover singer has some interesting observations on the current limits of its role in music.
Appearing on the I Never Thought It Would Happen podcast, he says, “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 truth is, either AI comes up with something very, very generic or my lyrics are just absolutely mundane,” he laughs. “So AI has totally humiliated me whenever I’ve gone and asked it to impersonate myself. It’s taught me, if anything, not to use AI and [that I] must do better.”
On a more analytical note, Blunt goes on to add: “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 and even if I have written something before and I say ‘Let me write it in the style of me again,’ it will be boring to myself, I need to go out and test myself and push myself to do something different. And 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 full episode below:
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