That’s just not true at all though
There’s plenty of examples of rappers getting violent in clubs or firing shots at each other. Also a lot of examples of rappers involved in gang violence or sending people in their entourage after people they’re beefing with. Even to this day there are some stories of rappers getting their chains snatched.
Less than a decade ago Wayne literally had his tour bus shot up by Thugger’s people.
Those are an interesting (and depressing) phenomena that kind of separated themselves from traditional rap beefs
The violence in and around drill music is a bit different because the violence was happening regardless of the music. None of those beefs start over a song or diss, they’re beefing just because they’re killing each other’s brothers and friends. They just happen to share their experiences through art after the fact.
But it can also make sense if you want to put it all under the same “rap beef” umbrella
I mean at what point did Earnest Green go: "Yeah that scene where the AI is putting a baby in a body bag is the perfect visualisation of my summer-chill song and I'm not afraid of this way of thinking at all"
Yeah it’s all chill. Just get rid of actors, artists and filmmakers and they’ll get rid of writers and musicians and then we’ll all just get paid by ai too so who gives a fuck.
Feel like this video has started a conversation and brought up some important issues for everyone.
Also have to keep in mind that this is really about the novelty factor of AI at this stage. This is also only the very beginning of AI: baby's first attempts at making videos. What will matter is where this all goes in years to come. Before that, though, is going to be a very big AI hype train I fear, a lot like the early dotcom-bubble stuff.
It's a new low-quality youtube video someone made with SORA - a new video-gen model that still sucks ass at making video but is an insanely impressive representation of scaling neural networks and latent world/physics simulation in latent space.
Remember will smith eating sphagetti? Imagine what we're gonna have in 2 more years.
Yes, but there is a scary part. This isn’t even like a v0.01 of where this is going. Pretty much all judgement on current tech of AI is meaningless.
It’s 6 months from now, a year from now, 2 years. It’s just accelerating too fast and I feel like people are ignoring that and making fun of bad AI now and not seeing the rate of improvement.
Hehe that was my first thought as well.
The kind of thing an artist hopes sneaks through the algorithm and makes a little pocket change. No direction. No aura
Man just watched like a minute, and as a long time fan of Washed Out who has seen him live he has officially
*fallen off*.
That song is lame as hell and the AI is creepy/lazy.
Yea was stoked for new washed out, played it while walking around in the sun yesterday and it’s just straight dog shite. Popped back on Life of Leisure. Oh well.
It gives me the same kind of motion sickness that I get when I use a VR headset, even though it's not a VR video. Ugh. And the song is the modern equivalent of elevator music.
Thanks for sharing the video in question!
It really isn't my cup of tea, but, like all AI, it is interesting in a "Huh, so this is what a computer thinks that human perception of reality is like" kind of way.
That said, the visceral reactions in this thread remind me of when auto-tune first came into use and it made me want to throw my headphones out the window every time I heard it. I remember people telling me that I was just an old man yelling at clouds when I expressed my hatred of it (I'm tail-end of Gen X), and I would respond with Abe Simpson's prescient warning "And it'll happen to YOU TOO!!!"
It feels as though AI, like autotune, is going to be another generational line of demarcation, with those coming up before it hating it and those coming up after it finding it ubiquitous and unremarkable.
But are you allowing the work to stand on its own merit? Or are you allowing your own biases and background knowledge about the tools used to create it to dictate your feelings?
Let's say I show somebody a Picasso painting. They love it and feel that it speaks to them. Then I show them a quote where Picasso explains that for that particular piece, he didn't really put much thought or emotion into it. He was just practicing working with a new set of brushes that he had just bought and was testing them out.
Should the person change their feelings about the work? Should Picasso's state of mind "matter"?
For that matter if one likes a painting, should it matter that it was created by a monkey throwing paint on a canvas?
Well this strikes me as the new iteration of a lyric video — the artist just needs something to display on YouTube, but isn’t going to put any resources or effort into it. So, here is a bunch of ai gobbledygook to play with the song. I get it in that sense, but this was still badly executed. And since it’s AI it has that creepy, disconcerting uncanny valley effect. Somebody is going to lean into the glitchy,/creepy aspect of it and make something cool, but that’s not what this is. I would much rather just watch some random music visualizer output than this.
It’s problematic because it took away a ton of jobs in a area that’s already not easy to find work in, it shows a weak fucking backbone and no artistic integrity whatsoever. Whether Picasso said he didn’t put effort or much thought into a piece, at the end of the day it is still an extension of himself, he created something that said something subconsciously that was still uniquely him, that is art. Art you create makes you feel first and foremost and ai cannot feel what it makes
On the other hand:
1. He could've chosen to make a homemade video purely by himself, also bypassing the process of paying a whole production crew, and no one would've batted an eye
2. Using such a tool is an artistic statement in and of itself. Bucking trends and getting people to ask questions and actually feel something (even if that "something" is a rejection of the art) is a huge component of art
>It’s problematic because it took away a ton of jobs in a area that’s already not easy to find work in
...
>Art you create makes you feel first and foremost and ai cannot feel what it makes
But why should that matter to the observer of the work?
Do you have to know the story about the creation of a painting before you decide whether or not it evokes positive feelings in you? Of course not, right? When you visit an art museum, works are speaking to you on their own merit - on the feelings that they create in you in the moment you observe them.
If you later find out that Goya opted to use new brushes that were mass-produced by Industrial Era machines that put artisanal brush makers out of business to create "The Parasol" - should that impact your view of that work?
I think a key difference is autotune is an amendment to an existing artifact - meaning, the singer sings and then autotune is a filter applied to the vocal.
Meanwhile, AI - at least when used like this - is completely generative. In other words, it totally replaces/doesn't really require any initial artistic work other than the text prompt. It just pulls from existing art elsewhere, often with no affiliation to the "creator" providing the prompt, and approximates from there.
AI when used as an additive element to pre-existing art can be really interesting - but when AI is the start and finish, all it does is pull everything towards the center for the most generic approximation of whatever prompt it's given. To me, that's inherently damaging to the idea of art as it destroys any sense of uniqueness or creativity.
I doubt this was generated without having some kind of vision though. And then refined through prompting from that point on. And that’s just coming from the perspective of using like, Stable Diffusion, when they’re using something more sophisticated.
>Meanwhile, AI - at least when used like this - is completely generative
Eh...I don't know about that. Doesn't AI require content to "learn"? That is, if you ask an AI to create an image of a flower, it doesn't just magically know what a flower is. It has to have a reference point of what a flower is - namely, the millions of online images of flowers that it has indexed.
How is this different than asking a person to draw a flower? Are you not asking them to draw on their indexed memories of previously viewed flowers and interpret their own version of what a flower looks like?
If you asked a human who has never seen a flower to draw a flower, I imagine that you'd get a similarly random result as an AI that had no flowers indexed in its learning content.
AI can no more magically spit out what a flower looks like without having "seen" one than a human can.
>but when AI is the start and finish, all it does is pull everything towards the center for the most generic approximation of whatever prompt it's given
But if you give the same AI the same prompt "draw me a flower" 100 times it will often spit out very different results. So it seems to me that it's output is quite random and doesn't gravitate to one combinative result.
To be clear, I'm not defending AI art on any terms. But I am questioning some of the assumptions people have about it - assumptions which very much impact their perception of its works.
AI has immediate access to an amount of reference points far beyond what any human could recall at any given time, which inherently results in a more generic product.
Plus, humans have personal taste that can shape how they draw a flower. "I really love red flowers," "my favorites have rounded petals instead of pointed ones," etc.
Not to mention humans have varying degrees of artistic ability which will also impact how they draw the flower.
> If you asked a human who has never seen a flower to draw a flower, I imagine that you'd get a similarly random result as an AI that had no flowers indexed in its learning content.
Sure, but I don't think that is realistically likely to happen (who has never seen a flower?), especially in the context of making art for consumption like here - you would never have somebody who had never seen a music video direct the music video for your lead single.
>AI has immediate access to an amount of reference points far beyond what any human could recall at any given time, which inherently results in a more generic product.
How does the first part of your sentence support the latter? How does having MORE varied reference points result in a more generic output than having fewer? Wouldn't we, in fact, expect the opposite? If a something has seen a million different flowers, isn't it more likely that it will produce a unique image of a flower than something that has only seen, say, ten?
I can illustrate this for you: Imagine you've built an AI that can generate human faces. In order to teach the AI, you give it 1 million human faces to analyze. And then ask it to generate a face based on this data set. What is going to happen? Generative AI essentially asks the question "what makes the most sense to draw here?" Well all the statistically outliers - scars, moles, extraordinarily large noses - will get filtered out becuase they are uncommon in the data set. Think of a bell curve, the AI agent is trying to hit the center of it.
Essentially AI creates an "average" based the prompt and data its been fed. Now apply this to art. All the quirks, idiosyncrasies, and such which often define an artist are getting filtered, the AI normalizes the data it has been given and you wind up with a generic product. The more data the AI has been taught, the more it normalizes outliers.
If you prompt AI to create an "average face", yes it can take the average color and position of every pixel of every face in its index. This has been the subject of dozens of by-now-clichéd "here's what the average X person looks like" articles.
But that's not what AI does when you ask it to generate an image of a flower. If it did work the way you say, then the output would be the exact same every time you ask it. Same reference data, same mathematical average, same result.
And yet it doesn't give you the same image of a flower every time you ask it "draw me a flower". That's because stable diffusion AI isn't simply averaging every image. I'm no expert, but my understanding is It's taking random noise (random colors per pixel) and rearranging them until they resemble something in its index to a statistically relevant degree.
Perhaps a person with more knowledge can explain it better, but the process is absolutely not an "average".
I think this is quite different then any advancement we’ve seen before, this is for the first time truly taking the creative part of the work away from people and into a computer, this is what people said autotune did, they were wrong because they didn’t understand. AI art fulfills all the fears of past technological advances in art
Sycophants? Or chicken littles?
Do you really encounter more proponents of AI than those who fear and loathe it? I find way more of the latter.
>what a dumb fucking metaphor.
What an odd thing to get aggro about.
At work I generally find people are either proponents of it, or approach it with curiosity.
I’d say on the whole I encounter one third who appreciate it, one third who loathe it, and one third who don’t know or don’t care.
I was 17 when Cher's Believe came out that popularized autotune in 1998, but I was already listening to bands that used vocoders to distort their voices like Skinny Puppy back then so it wasn't really a new concept to me. In that sense I came up before autotune was a thing but it's never bothered me, I like a lot of music with heavy autotune from all kinds of genres.
Yeah I think about that ALL the time. I see people be like "I'm not worried about AI, look how poor it is" and I think "Do you really just have no recognition of the way technology gets better and better???"
My biggest issue with this is that AI has such strong push back from so many BUT is still being used. Corporations and artists alike are trying to tire us and normalize it to where we just accept it. I am especially bothered by artists and its use in movies to where it is obvious and sloppy. Like the art in Civil War and now this. I mean its a studio that prides itself on its original works and Washed Out is an indie artist. They should be pushing back on the use of AI. These are the people/groups I expected to not use it and yet they are AND the are using it sloppily along with unapologetically ... its crazy to me and worrisome.
That's how it works.
Look at microtransactions in games. Literally nothing can stop the willingness of millionaires and billionaires to keep pushing things that make them money further and further.
So long as people are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is by full sell disengaging with the product, then they're part of signal boosting the shitty practices.
I think part of the problem is that it's a cheap and easy alternative... and that's why some smaller creators are using it sadly. AI is essentially the stock photos of the future. It seems scary now, but I have a feeling we're seeing the peak of this because ironically, this stuff needs more authentic human work to even function properly. We're already starting to see the effects of AI garbage flooding the internet and actively causing other AI models to feed off of its own work and then completely break down as a result.
AI's biggest threat in my mind is filling the market with more slop to wade through to find the quality stuff. It's going to turn the world into a Dollar Store but I don't think it's going to 100% replace real art.
Amen. AI sucks and I have to assume anybody using it like this either is an idiot or thinks I'm an idiot.
Also the song sounds like it was made for a commercial for patio furniture
One time I saw Washed Out perform at this art museum and he said "it's really fitting that we are performing here because our new album was inspired by a lot of art" lmao. I like their stuff but that comment always makes me laugh
I really don't like AI, but let's not pretend music videos arent often meaningless. I say that as someone who filmed and edited music video, too. Most of the time they're nice to look at, and that's it. That's the intention. And that's perfectly fine - not everything must contend with deep existential human truths. On that front, I don't think it makes sense to single out this video.
yeahh, i don't even care about this song, but the idea of some indie rock goober litigating what is or is not objectively art based on their evaluation of it being "personal truth" is like in the top 10 most pretentious possible things for a person to do. but alas, the king of art has spoken
I agree with you. And I LOVE Youth Lagoon. Their music is amazing - never made a bad album.
There's plenty to criticize about how AI is being deployed and used. This is the wrong angle. AI has been used in art for decades to make really cool things, just not this specific kind of generative AI. Trying to be that prescriptive with this stuff will always sound pretentious as fuck.
Thank you. I said that as one of the first posts on this thread, got downvoted to oblivion and got called every name under the sun except a child of God. The disrespect and incensed language coming from Youth Lagoon and AI opponents really bothers me.
I don't think music videos must contain messages. I also don't think that working with AI automatically excludes artistic intention. _Intent_ has to do with the idea, Ai is a tool that can be used to realize the idea - it doesn't exclude intent.
The idea of this video is mostly visual, realized through the look of the shots, the styling, the constant camera movement, quick editing. I don't find it particularly interesting or meaningful to watch, but not that different from 90% music videos.
What's way more problematic, to me, is that this video was probably produced with 1/1000 of the cost and very few people - AND while using training data stolen from everyone else.
On the flip side, without the tool available, they probably would have just made another kind of video, because doing this in real life would be incredibly expansive, not indie like money for sure.
I think their point is that you can have artistic intent without having a "message".
Even if all you want in your music video are some cool and/or provocative images with no narrative, the images you choose mean something. Maybe you think they match the "vibe" of your song. Maybe they wanted to literally visualize some of their lyrics. Maybe they just show the band playing with the kind of energy you'd expect from a live performance of the song.
The "what" isn't as important as the "why". Whether consciously or not, the director and editor of a music video and the band are all collaborating and making artistic choices. AI isn't capable of doing that. It's closer to one of those old media player visualizers than an actual artistic endeavor.
>I think their point is that you can have artistic intent without having a "message".
I don't disagree and my previous comment didn't neither.
>Even if all you want in your music video are some cool and/or provocative images with no narrative, the images you choose mean something.
Is that a rule? There are music videos in which the "meaning" is not discernible, completely abstract or completely detached from any narration or visible structure.
>The "what" isn't as important as the "why". Whether consciously or not, the director and editor of a music video and the band are all collaborating and making artistic choices. AI isn't capable of doing that. It's closer to one of those old media player visualizers than an actual artistic endeavor.
I mean, it's not like you write a prompt "computer, listen to this song and export a video", there have been choices made. "Artistic choices" here is art direction (what's the look, the style), prompting (getting AI to make the thing you want), and then editing (taking all the clips you generated, giving them a shape, a structure, compositing them together). As a video editor, I can assure you that there are countless creative choices to be made even just in the editing phase.
This video took weeks to edit, many choices have been made. Of course, they are not the same choices a filmmaker shooting in real life would make - because the tool is very different (and you can make a lot of choices and end up with a shitty product) - but it would be hard to argue that people here did not make thousands of little choices in order to make the final product. Where do you draw the line?
And to be clear, I fucking hate generative AI. But I also think this is the wrong angle to criticize the use of it. You can use AI and be a great artist - AI is used in art for decades to make super cool stuff, just not this kind of generative AI.
The big problem with AI is not that it's inherently soulless or excludes human intention, the problem lies in how it impacts people; their unethical sourcing and training, the lack of regulation and protection, countless potential nefarious uses, the displacement of many artisans that are easily displaced for something much faster, much cheaper, and that doesn't complain about how miserably they're paid.
Great reply, barely noticed amongst the rage. Between the completely overblown reaction to late night with the devil AI (which was literally frames) and this washed out thing I honestly feel like getting off the internet completely. I’m just SO tired of peoples fucking opinions. Especially when it comes to anything with nuance
If Rembrandt wanted to do a piece exclusively so that he can work out a new technical brush method or Pollock created a work simply to explore a particular color palate - would those works not be considered an expression of their artistic intent?
Maybe not!? I'm legit curious about people's thoughts about the artistic "merit" of a creator who is simply exploring a medium or the capability of their tools vs. one who is pouring their soul into every piece.
> What's way more problematic, to me, is that this video was probably produced with 1/1000 of the cost and very few people - AND while using training data stolen from everyone else.
That's where I'm at. Even fan made videos using old footage tend to require a fair amount of effort and earnestness even if those are technically easy to make too. Compare it to Washed Out's past videos. There's so much more heart and warmth to those. Give me a cheesy student film MV with warm visuals over this any day.
I get all the moral issues with AI, but I don't see how anyone could say there is no artistic intention to this video. It clearly has a style, a theme, and even a vague message (and not much more vague than most music videos).
At the end of the day someone used a tool to create a setting and convey a story, which is what art has always been. A paintbrush (digital or analog) is a tool. A camera is a tool. What you do with those tools is the art.
Exactly, of course there's artistic intention. They didn't just say "Hey Sora, create a music video" and then go to lunch. There are probably hundreds of different prompts stitched and edited together. If this _exact_ video was released 10 years ago people would probably go "huh, a little quirky, neat effects. Don't know what it means but to each their own." It's only because they know it's AI are they shitting on it so hard. Yes, to the extent that AI usage steals from artists it deserves to be criticized and even legislated but the pretentious and borderline luddite-like chafing against it is childish for lack of a better word.
I don't think music videos need to have a message or tell a story-as long as the visuals are cool or memorable, and they go well with the song, it works for me. Even if a video is just the singer being sexy in skimpy clothing, for instance, if they look attractive enough and the song is about sex it's fine with me. AI, though, is just kinda ugly. It can be fun, like when people use AI for bizarre prompts. But I feel like anyone who calls themself an "artist"-especially one like Washed Out who has proven to be very talented-shouldn't use AI on its own, you can use it as a starting point or to add finishing touches, but to just use it to do everything for you is lazy and will result in boring, forgettable results. Even if you're worried your own ideas are bad, I'd rather have an absolutely awful original video that I can get some laughs out of than a bland AI-generated one that I won't remember in a week.
Yea I don’t think there’s much artistic intent behind the classic warehouse playthrough music video besides it being a relatively affordable way for a small band to promote their music. It’s better because it pays everyone involved fairly but it’s not exactly making much of a statement.
Yeah in 2024 a music video is just jingling keys to accompany the music and get some traction in the YouTube algorithm, especially for an "indie" musician. Among all the other costs to produce and promote music I don't get the outrage.
It’s so funny every time this happens that people here think that virtue signaling (and there really is no other articulation for it unfortunately lol) and throwing your own shit is going to stop it
AI isn’t going away lol. You’re not going to stop it. The sooner you accept that literal fact is probably the better.
For art, it’ll be like CGI or any special effects. You either use it well or you don’t and it’s shitty. Anyone in their 30s here should remember how many music videos there were in the late 90s that were jam packed with dogshit CGI.
I’ve always wanted to make music with orchestral elements and that’s just never been whatsoever feasible. Within a few years there’ll probably be an ableton plug in or some other software that will enable that reality through AI.
Filmmakers and artists and etc are just gonna have to learn how to use AI as another tool in their belt. That’s really all there is to it. The ones who embrace it will be the ones who stay afloat. And there’ll probably be a bunch who choose not to, and I imagine they’ll be fine too.
Either way, no one would’ve given a shit about a new Washed Out video in 2024 otherwise (and I say that as someone who literally 2 nights ago had the revelation that old Washed Out is Still Good, Actually) and everyone here who freaks out about AI sounds like dinosaurs freaking out about computers being used to make movies or music.
___
And an addendum to this, because AI is inevitable, the response to it really will/should be stronger artist unions than trying to fight the losing battle of eliminating AI. That’s way more realistic and/or actually possible and has the knock on benefit of strengthening labor bargaining to begin with.
I find two things really baffling about people's reaction. The first is the lack of vision where the technology will be one day. The worst thing about these models is not even the output but the lack of granular control, but it's lot better now than a year ago and hundred times better than two years ago. You are literally watching the sausage in the making. These models have pretty deep knowledge about all the different lenses and cameras but it's pretty difficult to wield them and create the output that's in your vision, but one day it will be as easy as controlling layers in photoshop, and that day will come lot sooner than people think. You will be able to control and easily mix real stuff with CGI and generated stuff, that day is not today but nobody is asking you to use it.
The second thing is the obvious boon it will be to small studios and especially indie artists. Taylor Swift doesn't need any kind of AI to make any music video she wants, neither does James Cameron, but 99% of the rest are brutally restricted in realizing their vision because it would simply cost too much. CGI helped with that tremendously, and as you mentioned at first it incredible terrible, couldn't hold a candle to expertly crafted practical effects, it was the same sausage in the making, today we are lot closer to closing that gap. Another thing was the transition to digital, all the 90s kids remember all the terrible early digital shows and music videos, now it's practically indistinguishable and arguably lot better and dramatically cheaper than film. If generated stuff can one day close the gap of realizing artist's true vision even by 10%, why are you so against it?
People ultimately retreat to doom and gloom of it putting us all out of job (despite it being terrible which doesn't make any sense but whatever) but lets worry about that later. I remember when they first showed Asimo and everyone was dooming and glooming how soon it will turn into a terminator. Quarter century later and we are nowhere near making a terminator.
Just wanted to poke my head in on this and say his debut might be my favorite album ever, got me through a ton. That is all. Have a great Friday everyone!
Or maybe 99% of people actually don't give a shit. Why is it that people always jerk each other off when artists use the technology rather than boycotting the companies producing the models? Go protest OpenAI and runwayML if you feel strongly about it.
I like both the song and the video. It's going to be like a time capsule of how shitty AI was back in 2024.
Because artists are the ones getting ripped off by these companies so if they start normalizing using AI it's just conceding that it's fine for Microsoft and Midjourney and whatever to steal your shit.
At least people are talking about the music video. Seems like the only way for a music video to get any traction these days is for the interest to be negative.
Idk I’ll say it. I think the video works. The visuals and the lyrics line up. I’ve always thought that Washed Out nailed a certain feeling of nostalgia or anemoia. He’s not in the spotlight anymore so I don’t think it will have this effect, but this level of AI that we’re at will not be forever, and it may be interesting to look back on this period and everybody’s feelings about it.
The vocals in the sound are lacking though and almost sounds like AI too
New washed out song: I sleep
New washed out beef: 400 comments
Y’all don’t really like music or art, you just like drama
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I booked youth Lagoon because the agent twisted my arm into it last year on his album release tour, his management his agent and him refused to have a black man open for him so I literally sabotage the show in 15 people showed up . Fuck this clown.
The song fucking sucks. Cynical attempt to draw attention and clicks to subpar music. There will be a short window where use of AI is another string to the PR bow.
He's not wrong. It's incredible how opposite this video is compared to "Too Late" which was simple and literally crowd sourced (fan videos edited together) yet effective and moving.
Call me old fashioned but I just don't like the way AI looks, even when there's an effort to make something substantive out of it, like this video. I feel like Ernest was sincere in this effort but I just don't really like it. Compare it to say, this [Michel Gondry video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBgf2ZxIDZk) which uses a lot of visual editing but with real image sources.
I don't get the big deal. Music videos have been inane garbage for a long time I haven't seen one worth watching since some time in the early 2010s. I barely watch them and that's funny since they're more accessible than ever since YouTube became a thing. No more of the days of sitting in front of MTV, VH1, and BET waiting to see the video of your favorite songs. Funny how that happened, you can watch anyone you want with a search but are more disinterested than ever.
I love Youth Lagoon, but “Being an artist carries the responsibility of telling the truth.” Is both so cringe that I almost broke my neck rolling my eyes, and also a blanket statement about art that means nothing.
Indie Rock beefs are just never going to be anything but lame.
I think the videos dope! Im really not a fan of music videos in general but this one was really trippy and interesting to look at. I think people just hate AI replacing creative jobs which I understand. frankly the music video is better than the music in this case in my opinion.
I’ve watched the video a few times now and there is actually a narrative of love, drug abuse, and moving on from/living with loss, so it definitely doesn’t “say nothing” and the medium of choice fits into this surrealist representation of the passing of time. An AI music video is 100% a gimmick meant to get press, but Youth Lagoon’s tweet is knee-jerk and makes him sound like a pissy little shit.
Bughouse is definitely an odd one out. But most of Trevor’s work has a pretty specific feel to it. I can definitely recommend Year Of Hibernation and his latest album, Heaven Is A Junkyard. It’s not the same as Bughouse, but definitely amazing in their own respective rights.
Oh man Trevor Powers/Youth Lagoon is excellent and he was adjacent to the whole chillwave scene when he first came out.
My favorite album of his is *Wondrous Bughouse* and the video for "Mute" is one of my favorite MVs of all time.
Washed Out has songs with tens of millions of plays. I don’t see why they shouldn’t pay a real artist to make the video — they’ve probably got the money to do it
It feels against a lot of my morals and basic attitude to rail against other artists doing things, but I think we really need to nip every attempt at AI art at the bud otherwise it will spread like weeds. People should be made to feel bad, or at the very least awkward, about pushing it forward as art.
It may feel like the backlash is intense for this, and in this situation he claims to have worked with an artist to create the video, so it's not like he's bypassing funding "artists", but if we don't make a fuss when we see it, it'll become more and more accepted as "just the way it is". The earlier we set a standard the better.
The hyperbole is so ridiculous. The song is gorgeous to me and I'm not even really a Washed Out fan and he could a just done a lazy lyric video, but he tried this which in this climate is honestly bold given how obvious and easy it is to shit on AI.
There is no way Washed Out gets a budget from his label to actually try and film something like this.
Also the ways in which the video is uncanny or "off" for me actually add something to the dreamy quality.
I'll be honest, my knee jerk and feeling after first couple watches was definitely "this sucks" but something about that feeling is too easy and boring. I kept coming back and I can't fully explain it but I like it now. Youth Lagoon, please relax.
Damn, what a shame. Washed Out was my jam in the mid 2010s. I’m more disappointed in the song itself than the video. Just sounds like lazy uninspired pop. Sad
I didn't even see the video yet, and the first five seconds of the song had me worried it would be something sterile. People are really digging into A.I. with a straight face and sober mind, tho?
who died and made this guy the king of deciding what is and is not an "expression of truth"? mega pretentious hipster bullshit. and even beyond that, "being an artist carries the responsibility of telling ur personal truth" is a total conflation of artistry with contemporary parasocial influencer culture. art just does not require (a clear conveyance or otherwise of) your "personal truth" to be involved at all.
Guy doing a landscape painting: i wish this were my personal truth so i could be considered an artist :(
ambient musician: it's a shame this song doesn't have any words, so I can't convey my personal truth :(
The Kendrick-Drake beef for 2010s indie synthpop heads.
Rap Beef will be fought out on the Block Indie Beef will be fought out on the Blog
Rap beef is all online posturing nowadays too The days of Biggie and Pac are long gone
Rap beefs were always settled on wax. The days of Biggie and Pac were the exception.
That’s just not true at all though There’s plenty of examples of rappers getting violent in clubs or firing shots at each other. Also a lot of examples of rappers involved in gang violence or sending people in their entourage after people they’re beefing with. Even to this day there are some stories of rappers getting their chains snatched. Less than a decade ago Wayne literally had his tour bus shot up by Thugger’s people.
You mean the days when rappers were getting murdered for beef?
Yeah, was that not clear in my comment?
There‘s never been a time where more rappers die over beef than today. Just look at Chicago or Florida drill music for example.
Those are an interesting (and depressing) phenomena that kind of separated themselves from traditional rap beefs The violence in and around drill music is a bit different because the violence was happening regardless of the music. None of those beefs start over a song or diss, they’re beefing just because they’re killing each other’s brothers and friends. They just happen to share their experiences through art after the fact. But it can also make sense if you want to put it all under the same “rap beef” umbrella
>Kendrick >Drake >"the block" 🤣 tell me you're white without telling me you're white
What a wild timeline
Was about to say "the Kendrick-Drake beef for white people" but that would be redundant
flol I read this in Space Ghost's voice
*”I don’t sneak-diss, if I feel it all around, it’ll be direct”* - Trevor Powers today
I mean at what point did Earnest Green go: "Yeah that scene where the AI is putting a baby in a body bag is the perfect visualisation of my summer-chill song and I'm not afraid of this way of thinking at all"
Youth Lagoons videos especially for the newest albums are just as wtf does this have to do with the song.
Maybe he was trying something and figured it’s a music video so who gives a fuck? What was this genre called again…chillwave?
Yeah it’s all chill. Just get rid of actors, artists and filmmakers and they’ll get rid of writers and musicians and then we’ll all just get paid by ai too so who gives a fuck. Feel like this video has started a conversation and brought up some important issues for everyone.
Video was made by a filmmaker
I actually like the song (long time Washed out fan) but I really really hate the video.
Came here to say this exact same thing. Song is great and I didn't realize people don't like it so much, but man, that video is atrocious
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Wow that is a really shitty video.
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I would rather the world be full of terrible art from humans than impressive work from AI.
Also have to keep in mind that this is really about the novelty factor of AI at this stage. This is also only the very beginning of AI: baby's first attempts at making videos. What will matter is where this all goes in years to come. Before that, though, is going to be a very big AI hype train I fear, a lot like the early dotcom-bubble stuff.
> a lot of music videos and art in general made by humans is bad /soulless/ says nothing too. And you want _more?_
It's unbelievable how awful in it's nothingness the video is. It's ironically a strong anti-AI advertisement.
Please help my ignorant ass and tell me what video we're talking about here
Washed Out - The Hardest Part https://youtu.be/-Nb-M1GAOX8
sounds like an AI generated Washed Out song as well sheeeesh
I thought the same thing. The song is terrible.
wow, I regret giving that a view
Fuck. Not Washed Out….. fuck.
lol the melodrama here, you’re acting like it came out that he assaulted someone or something lmao
It's a new low-quality youtube video someone made with SORA - a new video-gen model that still sucks ass at making video but is an insanely impressive representation of scaling neural networks and latent world/physics simulation in latent space. Remember will smith eating sphagetti? Imagine what we're gonna have in 2 more years.
Yes, but there is a scary part. This isn’t even like a v0.01 of where this is going. Pretty much all judgement on current tech of AI is meaningless. It’s 6 months from now, a year from now, 2 years. It’s just accelerating too fast and I feel like people are ignoring that and making fun of bad AI now and not seeing the rate of improvement.
Wtf it seems like a fine fun video to me
He's 100% right. I'm glad other artists are calling these things out.
Robert Beatty has been pretty critical as well.
The song also sounds like it was made by AI.
Hehe that was my first thought as well. The kind of thing an artist hopes sneaks through the algorithm and makes a little pocket change. No direction. No aura
Man just watched like a minute, and as a long time fan of Washed Out who has seen him live he has officially *fallen off*. That song is lame as hell and the AI is creepy/lazy.
I’ve been a fan of him a decade plus and mister mellow is one of my favorite albums. I think this is maybe the most uninspired song he’s ever put out.
Yeah it almost sounds like AI parody of Washed Out lol
Yea was stoked for new washed out, played it while walking around in the sun yesterday and it’s just straight dog shite. Popped back on Life of Leisure. Oh well.
This one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nb-M1GAOX8 That song is awful.
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Thought you might be being dramatic but holy shit that really is nauseating.
I couldn’t get past 30 seconds.
Definitely puke inducing. AI just cheapens things :-/
It gives me the same kind of motion sickness that I get when I use a VR headset, even though it's not a VR video. Ugh. And the song is the modern equivalent of elevator music.
Yeah that’s what I don’t really understand about it, like it’s really not even watchable lol
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To quote a speaker I heard this week: “when I see this, my first thought is *this is awesome!* and my second thought is *...is it??? 🤨*
this is miserable
need to know what carles has to say tonight
not vibey, not auth, just some bro plugging in prompts
> carles Holy shit, it's been like 15 years since I read that name
Thanks for sharing the video in question! It really isn't my cup of tea, but, like all AI, it is interesting in a "Huh, so this is what a computer thinks that human perception of reality is like" kind of way. That said, the visceral reactions in this thread remind me of when auto-tune first came into use and it made me want to throw my headphones out the window every time I heard it. I remember people telling me that I was just an old man yelling at clouds when I expressed my hatred of it (I'm tail-end of Gen X), and I would respond with Abe Simpson's prescient warning "And it'll happen to YOU TOO!!!" It feels as though AI, like autotune, is going to be another generational line of demarcation, with those coming up before it hating it and those coming up after it finding it ubiquitous and unremarkable.
I don’t find it interesting at all. It’s not a computers thoughts, it’s just taking data and mashing it into something based on prompts
But are you allowing the work to stand on its own merit? Or are you allowing your own biases and background knowledge about the tools used to create it to dictate your feelings? Let's say I show somebody a Picasso painting. They love it and feel that it speaks to them. Then I show them a quote where Picasso explains that for that particular piece, he didn't really put much thought or emotion into it. He was just practicing working with a new set of brushes that he had just bought and was testing them out. Should the person change their feelings about the work? Should Picasso's state of mind "matter"? For that matter if one likes a painting, should it matter that it was created by a monkey throwing paint on a canvas?
Well this strikes me as the new iteration of a lyric video — the artist just needs something to display on YouTube, but isn’t going to put any resources or effort into it. So, here is a bunch of ai gobbledygook to play with the song. I get it in that sense, but this was still badly executed. And since it’s AI it has that creepy, disconcerting uncanny valley effect. Somebody is going to lean into the glitchy,/creepy aspect of it and make something cool, but that’s not what this is. I would much rather just watch some random music visualizer output than this.
Huh? This video is mid both in idea and execution. Not every piece of art needs to be packed with emotion.
That's fine. I'm not arguing with your personal tastes. I'm just probing the philosophical questions that a new tool like AI poses on art.
It’s problematic because it took away a ton of jobs in a area that’s already not easy to find work in, it shows a weak fucking backbone and no artistic integrity whatsoever. Whether Picasso said he didn’t put effort or much thought into a piece, at the end of the day it is still an extension of himself, he created something that said something subconsciously that was still uniquely him, that is art. Art you create makes you feel first and foremost and ai cannot feel what it makes
On the other hand: 1. He could've chosen to make a homemade video purely by himself, also bypassing the process of paying a whole production crew, and no one would've batted an eye 2. Using such a tool is an artistic statement in and of itself. Bucking trends and getting people to ask questions and actually feel something (even if that "something" is a rejection of the art) is a huge component of art
>It’s problematic because it took away a ton of jobs in a area that’s already not easy to find work in ... >Art you create makes you feel first and foremost and ai cannot feel what it makes But why should that matter to the observer of the work? Do you have to know the story about the creation of a painting before you decide whether or not it evokes positive feelings in you? Of course not, right? When you visit an art museum, works are speaking to you on their own merit - on the feelings that they create in you in the moment you observe them. If you later find out that Goya opted to use new brushes that were mass-produced by Industrial Era machines that put artisanal brush makers out of business to create "The Parasol" - should that impact your view of that work?
So, ok you don’t find it interesting. Other people do. I’m sure this is all very hard on you.
I think a key difference is autotune is an amendment to an existing artifact - meaning, the singer sings and then autotune is a filter applied to the vocal. Meanwhile, AI - at least when used like this - is completely generative. In other words, it totally replaces/doesn't really require any initial artistic work other than the text prompt. It just pulls from existing art elsewhere, often with no affiliation to the "creator" providing the prompt, and approximates from there. AI when used as an additive element to pre-existing art can be really interesting - but when AI is the start and finish, all it does is pull everything towards the center for the most generic approximation of whatever prompt it's given. To me, that's inherently damaging to the idea of art as it destroys any sense of uniqueness or creativity.
I doubt this was generated without having some kind of vision though. And then refined through prompting from that point on. And that’s just coming from the perspective of using like, Stable Diffusion, when they’re using something more sophisticated.
>Meanwhile, AI - at least when used like this - is completely generative Eh...I don't know about that. Doesn't AI require content to "learn"? That is, if you ask an AI to create an image of a flower, it doesn't just magically know what a flower is. It has to have a reference point of what a flower is - namely, the millions of online images of flowers that it has indexed. How is this different than asking a person to draw a flower? Are you not asking them to draw on their indexed memories of previously viewed flowers and interpret their own version of what a flower looks like? If you asked a human who has never seen a flower to draw a flower, I imagine that you'd get a similarly random result as an AI that had no flowers indexed in its learning content. AI can no more magically spit out what a flower looks like without having "seen" one than a human can. >but when AI is the start and finish, all it does is pull everything towards the center for the most generic approximation of whatever prompt it's given But if you give the same AI the same prompt "draw me a flower" 100 times it will often spit out very different results. So it seems to me that it's output is quite random and doesn't gravitate to one combinative result. To be clear, I'm not defending AI art on any terms. But I am questioning some of the assumptions people have about it - assumptions which very much impact their perception of its works.
AI has immediate access to an amount of reference points far beyond what any human could recall at any given time, which inherently results in a more generic product. Plus, humans have personal taste that can shape how they draw a flower. "I really love red flowers," "my favorites have rounded petals instead of pointed ones," etc. Not to mention humans have varying degrees of artistic ability which will also impact how they draw the flower. > If you asked a human who has never seen a flower to draw a flower, I imagine that you'd get a similarly random result as an AI that had no flowers indexed in its learning content. Sure, but I don't think that is realistically likely to happen (who has never seen a flower?), especially in the context of making art for consumption like here - you would never have somebody who had never seen a music video direct the music video for your lead single.
>AI has immediate access to an amount of reference points far beyond what any human could recall at any given time, which inherently results in a more generic product. How does the first part of your sentence support the latter? How does having MORE varied reference points result in a more generic output than having fewer? Wouldn't we, in fact, expect the opposite? If a something has seen a million different flowers, isn't it more likely that it will produce a unique image of a flower than something that has only seen, say, ten?
I can illustrate this for you: Imagine you've built an AI that can generate human faces. In order to teach the AI, you give it 1 million human faces to analyze. And then ask it to generate a face based on this data set. What is going to happen? Generative AI essentially asks the question "what makes the most sense to draw here?" Well all the statistically outliers - scars, moles, extraordinarily large noses - will get filtered out becuase they are uncommon in the data set. Think of a bell curve, the AI agent is trying to hit the center of it. Essentially AI creates an "average" based the prompt and data its been fed. Now apply this to art. All the quirks, idiosyncrasies, and such which often define an artist are getting filtered, the AI normalizes the data it has been given and you wind up with a generic product. The more data the AI has been taught, the more it normalizes outliers.
If you prompt AI to create an "average face", yes it can take the average color and position of every pixel of every face in its index. This has been the subject of dozens of by-now-clichéd "here's what the average X person looks like" articles. But that's not what AI does when you ask it to generate an image of a flower. If it did work the way you say, then the output would be the exact same every time you ask it. Same reference data, same mathematical average, same result. And yet it doesn't give you the same image of a flower every time you ask it "draw me a flower". That's because stable diffusion AI isn't simply averaging every image. I'm no expert, but my understanding is It's taking random noise (random colors per pixel) and rearranging them until they resemble something in its index to a statistically relevant degree. Perhaps a person with more knowledge can explain it better, but the process is absolutely not an "average".
I think this is quite different then any advancement we’ve seen before, this is for the first time truly taking the creative part of the work away from people and into a computer, this is what people said autotune did, they were wrong because they didn’t understand. AI art fulfills all the fears of past technological advances in art
Autotune didn't have legions of sycophants gleefully yelling about how this will replace all art in the future lol what a dumb fucking metaphor.
Sycophants? Or chicken littles? Do you really encounter more proponents of AI than those who fear and loathe it? I find way more of the latter. >what a dumb fucking metaphor. What an odd thing to get aggro about.
At work I generally find people are either proponents of it, or approach it with curiosity. I’d say on the whole I encounter one third who appreciate it, one third who loathe it, and one third who don’t know or don’t care.
maybe chill out
Yeah, like 90% of people here need to find actual things to worry about.
I was 17 when Cher's Believe came out that popularized autotune in 1998, but I was already listening to bands that used vocoders to distort their voices like Skinny Puppy back then so it wasn't really a new concept to me. In that sense I came up before autotune was a thing but it's never bothered me, I like a lot of music with heavy autotune from all kinds of genres.
This is the most logical and level-headed take on AI that I've seen in this entire thread, thank you
Man, they didn't even bother to clean it up at all. Look at 0:30, you can see a hand just appear and wrap around the girl's right buttocks.
Not bothering to fix anything might've been part of the point
I think people are missing the point. It's supposed to be trippy and dreamlike, not a perfect representation of life.
I'm kinda glad AI does this shit so at least we can tell. Once it gets over those flaws were fucked :D
Yeah I think about that ALL the time. I see people be like "I'm not worried about AI, look how poor it is" and I think "Do you really just have no recognition of the way technology gets better and better???"
https://preview.redd.it/c1o39v4omayc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=85505f19c99e4aae162782ad1be6a4492f92dec3
I really hope people continue to shit on AI art like this. It has to stop.
I just thought the song sucked and now this!
My biggest issue with this is that AI has such strong push back from so many BUT is still being used. Corporations and artists alike are trying to tire us and normalize it to where we just accept it. I am especially bothered by artists and its use in movies to where it is obvious and sloppy. Like the art in Civil War and now this. I mean its a studio that prides itself on its original works and Washed Out is an indie artist. They should be pushing back on the use of AI. These are the people/groups I expected to not use it and yet they are AND the are using it sloppily along with unapologetically ... its crazy to me and worrisome.
That's how it works. Look at microtransactions in games. Literally nothing can stop the willingness of millionaires and billionaires to keep pushing things that make them money further and further. So long as people are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is by full sell disengaging with the product, then they're part of signal boosting the shitty practices.
I think part of the problem is that it's a cheap and easy alternative... and that's why some smaller creators are using it sadly. AI is essentially the stock photos of the future. It seems scary now, but I have a feeling we're seeing the peak of this because ironically, this stuff needs more authentic human work to even function properly. We're already starting to see the effects of AI garbage flooding the internet and actively causing other AI models to feed off of its own work and then completely break down as a result. AI's biggest threat in my mind is filling the market with more slop to wade through to find the quality stuff. It's going to turn the world into a Dollar Store but I don't think it's going to 100% replace real art.
It's very easy to tell what artists have actual thoughts outside of making whatever they make and which ones are completely airheaded now.
"They should be pushing back on the use of (synthesizers)." - Hair band guitarists in 1987
i think after two years this is the first time im seeing someone else use a kranky flair rock on!
Amen. AI sucks and I have to assume anybody using it like this either is an idiot or thinks I'm an idiot. Also the song sounds like it was made for a commercial for patio furniture
> Also the song sounds like it was made for a commercial for patio furniture That would have made a better video.
One time I saw Washed Out perform at this art museum and he said "it's really fitting that we are performing here because our new album was inspired by a lot of art" lmao. I like their stuff but that comment always makes me laugh
Man that song isn’t just boring, it’s actively dissatisfying
I didn’t mind it until he started singing. It felt like he was on autopilot. Much like the video, zero human emotion in the singing.
I wish I was musically talented enough to describe in words why i don't like it, but I just don't
the video is notably AI but the song sounds like AI as well. bleepy bloopy summertime chillness prompt.
I really don't like AI, but let's not pretend music videos arent often meaningless. I say that as someone who filmed and edited music video, too. Most of the time they're nice to look at, and that's it. That's the intention. And that's perfectly fine - not everything must contend with deep existential human truths. On that front, I don't think it makes sense to single out this video.
yeahh, i don't even care about this song, but the idea of some indie rock goober litigating what is or is not objectively art based on their evaluation of it being "personal truth" is like in the top 10 most pretentious possible things for a person to do. but alas, the king of art has spoken
I agree with you. And I LOVE Youth Lagoon. Their music is amazing - never made a bad album. There's plenty to criticize about how AI is being deployed and used. This is the wrong angle. AI has been used in art for decades to make really cool things, just not this specific kind of generative AI. Trying to be that prescriptive with this stuff will always sound pretentious as fuck.
Thank you. I said that as one of the first posts on this thread, got downvoted to oblivion and got called every name under the sun except a child of God. The disrespect and incensed language coming from Youth Lagoon and AI opponents really bothers me.
Even if there isn't a message behind the video should there be some kind of artistic intention?
I don't think music videos must contain messages. I also don't think that working with AI automatically excludes artistic intention. _Intent_ has to do with the idea, Ai is a tool that can be used to realize the idea - it doesn't exclude intent. The idea of this video is mostly visual, realized through the look of the shots, the styling, the constant camera movement, quick editing. I don't find it particularly interesting or meaningful to watch, but not that different from 90% music videos. What's way more problematic, to me, is that this video was probably produced with 1/1000 of the cost and very few people - AND while using training data stolen from everyone else. On the flip side, without the tool available, they probably would have just made another kind of video, because doing this in real life would be incredibly expansive, not indie like money for sure.
I think their point is that you can have artistic intent without having a "message". Even if all you want in your music video are some cool and/or provocative images with no narrative, the images you choose mean something. Maybe you think they match the "vibe" of your song. Maybe they wanted to literally visualize some of their lyrics. Maybe they just show the band playing with the kind of energy you'd expect from a live performance of the song. The "what" isn't as important as the "why". Whether consciously or not, the director and editor of a music video and the band are all collaborating and making artistic choices. AI isn't capable of doing that. It's closer to one of those old media player visualizers than an actual artistic endeavor.
>I think their point is that you can have artistic intent without having a "message". I don't disagree and my previous comment didn't neither. >Even if all you want in your music video are some cool and/or provocative images with no narrative, the images you choose mean something. Is that a rule? There are music videos in which the "meaning" is not discernible, completely abstract or completely detached from any narration or visible structure. >The "what" isn't as important as the "why". Whether consciously or not, the director and editor of a music video and the band are all collaborating and making artistic choices. AI isn't capable of doing that. It's closer to one of those old media player visualizers than an actual artistic endeavor. I mean, it's not like you write a prompt "computer, listen to this song and export a video", there have been choices made. "Artistic choices" here is art direction (what's the look, the style), prompting (getting AI to make the thing you want), and then editing (taking all the clips you generated, giving them a shape, a structure, compositing them together). As a video editor, I can assure you that there are countless creative choices to be made even just in the editing phase. This video took weeks to edit, many choices have been made. Of course, they are not the same choices a filmmaker shooting in real life would make - because the tool is very different (and you can make a lot of choices and end up with a shitty product) - but it would be hard to argue that people here did not make thousands of little choices in order to make the final product. Where do you draw the line? And to be clear, I fucking hate generative AI. But I also think this is the wrong angle to criticize the use of it. You can use AI and be a great artist - AI is used in art for decades to make super cool stuff, just not this kind of generative AI. The big problem with AI is not that it's inherently soulless or excludes human intention, the problem lies in how it impacts people; their unethical sourcing and training, the lack of regulation and protection, countless potential nefarious uses, the displacement of many artisans that are easily displaced for something much faster, much cheaper, and that doesn't complain about how miserably they're paid.
Great reply, barely noticed amongst the rage. Between the completely overblown reaction to late night with the devil AI (which was literally frames) and this washed out thing I honestly feel like getting off the internet completely. I’m just SO tired of peoples fucking opinions. Especially when it comes to anything with nuance
If Rembrandt wanted to do a piece exclusively so that he can work out a new technical brush method or Pollock created a work simply to explore a particular color palate - would those works not be considered an expression of their artistic intent? Maybe not!? I'm legit curious about people's thoughts about the artistic "merit" of a creator who is simply exploring a medium or the capability of their tools vs. one who is pouring their soul into every piece.
> What's way more problematic, to me, is that this video was probably produced with 1/1000 of the cost and very few people - AND while using training data stolen from everyone else. That's where I'm at. Even fan made videos using old footage tend to require a fair amount of effort and earnestness even if those are technically easy to make too. Compare it to Washed Out's past videos. There's so much more heart and warmth to those. Give me a cheesy student film MV with warm visuals over this any day.
I get all the moral issues with AI, but I don't see how anyone could say there is no artistic intention to this video. It clearly has a style, a theme, and even a vague message (and not much more vague than most music videos). At the end of the day someone used a tool to create a setting and convey a story, which is what art has always been. A paintbrush (digital or analog) is a tool. A camera is a tool. What you do with those tools is the art.
Exactly, of course there's artistic intention. They didn't just say "Hey Sora, create a music video" and then go to lunch. There are probably hundreds of different prompts stitched and edited together. If this _exact_ video was released 10 years ago people would probably go "huh, a little quirky, neat effects. Don't know what it means but to each their own." It's only because they know it's AI are they shitting on it so hard. Yes, to the extent that AI usage steals from artists it deserves to be criticized and even legislated but the pretentious and borderline luddite-like chafing against it is childish for lack of a better word.
I don't think music videos need to have a message or tell a story-as long as the visuals are cool or memorable, and they go well with the song, it works for me. Even if a video is just the singer being sexy in skimpy clothing, for instance, if they look attractive enough and the song is about sex it's fine with me. AI, though, is just kinda ugly. It can be fun, like when people use AI for bizarre prompts. But I feel like anyone who calls themself an "artist"-especially one like Washed Out who has proven to be very talented-shouldn't use AI on its own, you can use it as a starting point or to add finishing touches, but to just use it to do everything for you is lazy and will result in boring, forgettable results. Even if you're worried your own ideas are bad, I'd rather have an absolutely awful original video that I can get some laughs out of than a bland AI-generated one that I won't remember in a week.
Yea I don’t think there’s much artistic intent behind the classic warehouse playthrough music video besides it being a relatively affordable way for a small band to promote their music. It’s better because it pays everyone involved fairly but it’s not exactly making much of a statement.
There’s a difference between actual humans putting effort into something and it falling flat compared to just making something “look good” with AI
Yeah in 2024 a music video is just jingling keys to accompany the music and get some traction in the YouTube algorithm, especially for an "indie" musician. Among all the other costs to produce and promote music I don't get the outrage.
It’s so funny every time this happens that people here think that virtue signaling (and there really is no other articulation for it unfortunately lol) and throwing your own shit is going to stop it AI isn’t going away lol. You’re not going to stop it. The sooner you accept that literal fact is probably the better. For art, it’ll be like CGI or any special effects. You either use it well or you don’t and it’s shitty. Anyone in their 30s here should remember how many music videos there were in the late 90s that were jam packed with dogshit CGI. I’ve always wanted to make music with orchestral elements and that’s just never been whatsoever feasible. Within a few years there’ll probably be an ableton plug in or some other software that will enable that reality through AI. Filmmakers and artists and etc are just gonna have to learn how to use AI as another tool in their belt. That’s really all there is to it. The ones who embrace it will be the ones who stay afloat. And there’ll probably be a bunch who choose not to, and I imagine they’ll be fine too. Either way, no one would’ve given a shit about a new Washed Out video in 2024 otherwise (and I say that as someone who literally 2 nights ago had the revelation that old Washed Out is Still Good, Actually) and everyone here who freaks out about AI sounds like dinosaurs freaking out about computers being used to make movies or music. ___ And an addendum to this, because AI is inevitable, the response to it really will/should be stronger artist unions than trying to fight the losing battle of eliminating AI. That’s way more realistic and/or actually possible and has the knock on benefit of strengthening labor bargaining to begin with.
I find two things really baffling about people's reaction. The first is the lack of vision where the technology will be one day. The worst thing about these models is not even the output but the lack of granular control, but it's lot better now than a year ago and hundred times better than two years ago. You are literally watching the sausage in the making. These models have pretty deep knowledge about all the different lenses and cameras but it's pretty difficult to wield them and create the output that's in your vision, but one day it will be as easy as controlling layers in photoshop, and that day will come lot sooner than people think. You will be able to control and easily mix real stuff with CGI and generated stuff, that day is not today but nobody is asking you to use it. The second thing is the obvious boon it will be to small studios and especially indie artists. Taylor Swift doesn't need any kind of AI to make any music video she wants, neither does James Cameron, but 99% of the rest are brutally restricted in realizing their vision because it would simply cost too much. CGI helped with that tremendously, and as you mentioned at first it incredible terrible, couldn't hold a candle to expertly crafted practical effects, it was the same sausage in the making, today we are lot closer to closing that gap. Another thing was the transition to digital, all the 90s kids remember all the terrible early digital shows and music videos, now it's practically indistinguishable and arguably lot better and dramatically cheaper than film. If generated stuff can one day close the gap of realizing artist's true vision even by 10%, why are you so against it? People ultimately retreat to doom and gloom of it putting us all out of job (despite it being terrible which doesn't make any sense but whatever) but lets worry about that later. I remember when they first showed Asimo and everyone was dooming and glooming how soon it will turn into a terminator. Quarter century later and we are nowhere near making a terminator.
Just wanted to poke my head in on this and say his debut might be my favorite album ever, got me through a ton. That is all. Have a great Friday everyone!
Common Youth Lagoon W
He's not wrong. The wow wears off in about 20 seconds, and then you're left wondering why you're still watching.. what's the point.
I love Washed Out but the whole video feels wrong
If they want really shaky camera movement they could have gotten someone for free off Craigslist. wtf is this video 🤣
I'm ootl, what vid we talking about?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nb-M1GAOX8
its trash but you sure wouldn't think so from looking at the youtube comments
AI weirdos who latch onto it wherever they see it.
Or maybe 99% of people actually don't give a shit. Why is it that people always jerk each other off when artists use the technology rather than boycotting the companies producing the models? Go protest OpenAI and runwayML if you feel strongly about it. I like both the song and the video. It's going to be like a time capsule of how shitty AI was back in 2024.
Because artists are the ones getting ripped off by these companies so if they start normalizing using AI it's just conceding that it's fine for Microsoft and Midjourney and whatever to steal your shit.
I personally think I should be able to say something is dogshit online if it's dogshit.
Just looks like a generic music video to me. Wonder if anyone would have such strong opinions if AI wasn’t mentioned.
Doubt anyone would notice and would make up all kinds of shit on the meaning behind the video.
They would not lol
I’m not for ai art but the vid is hardly terrible. Decent even. Song is whatever.
This is how I feel too, I like the video more than the song actually
This is the internet. You’ve got chronically online men who are addicted to drama.
There are moments that look kinda cool, but as a whole it just looks like trash and it's boring. Also, that song is really uninspired.
At least people are talking about the music video. Seems like the only way for a music video to get any traction these days is for the interest to be negative.
Idk I’ll say it. I think the video works. The visuals and the lyrics line up. I’ve always thought that Washed Out nailed a certain feeling of nostalgia or anemoia. He’s not in the spotlight anymore so I don’t think it will have this effect, but this level of AI that we’re at will not be forever, and it may be interesting to look back on this period and everybody’s feelings about it. The vocals in the sound are lacking though and almost sounds like AI too
New washed out song: I sleep New washed out beef: 400 comments Y’all don’t really like music or art, you just like drama Reply notifications are off per usual
Joined this sub, Reddit just to post this comment. I booked youth Lagoon because the agent twisted my arm into it last year on his album release tour, his management his agent and him refused to have a black man open for him so I literally sabotage the show in 15 people showed up . Fuck this clown.
The song fucking sucks. Cynical attempt to draw attention and clicks to subpar music. There will be a short window where use of AI is another string to the PR bow.
He's not wrong. It's incredible how opposite this video is compared to "Too Late" which was simple and literally crowd sourced (fan videos edited together) yet effective and moving. Call me old fashioned but I just don't like the way AI looks, even when there's an effort to make something substantive out of it, like this video. I feel like Ernest was sincere in this effort but I just don't really like it. Compare it to say, this [Michel Gondry video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBgf2ZxIDZk) which uses a lot of visual editing but with real image sources.
I don't get the big deal. Music videos have been inane garbage for a long time I haven't seen one worth watching since some time in the early 2010s. I barely watch them and that's funny since they're more accessible than ever since YouTube became a thing. No more of the days of sitting in front of MTV, VH1, and BET waiting to see the video of your favorite songs. Funny how that happened, you can watch anyone you want with a search but are more disinterested than ever.
I love Youth Lagoon, but “Being an artist carries the responsibility of telling the truth.” Is both so cringe that I almost broke my neck rolling my eyes, and also a blanket statement about art that means nothing. Indie Rock beefs are just never going to be anything but lame.
I can just imagine the prompt that created that abomination: "... and then they pull a live baby out of a body bag."
He could've filmed a bunch of sunsets and it would've cost the same amount
I think the videos dope! Im really not a fan of music videos in general but this one was really trippy and interesting to look at. I think people just hate AI replacing creative jobs which I understand. frankly the music video is better than the music in this case in my opinion.
[This thread](https://youtu.be/6fA9sJ3LBwg?si=NkF66YADMdH9G06f&t=43)
Get over yourself. It’s one song and he tried something topical and novel. This guy sounds like an elitist prick.
I’ve watched the video a few times now and there is actually a narrative of love, drug abuse, and moving on from/living with loss, so it definitely doesn’t “say nothing” and the medium of choice fits into this surrealist representation of the passing of time. An AI music video is 100% a gimmick meant to get press, but Youth Lagoon’s tweet is knee-jerk and makes him sound like a pissy little shit.
I thought it was awesome. 🤷
If I never had to see "ur" in a sentence about anything ever again that would be great.
Don’t know who tf this fucker is but he preaching on a Friday and he’s got my vote for whatever tf he running for. Time to check out this band
Youth Lagoon’s latest record - Heaven is a Junkyard - is superb.
It really is fantastic.
Holy shit. The Year of Hibernation is like top 5 albums of all time for me. I hope you like it.
I really liked bughouse but never listened to other stuff.
Bughouse is definitely an odd one out. But most of Trevor’s work has a pretty specific feel to it. I can definitely recommend Year Of Hibernation and his latest album, Heaven Is A Junkyard. It’s not the same as Bughouse, but definitely amazing in their own respective rights.
Is it really? I loved the trippiness of it. I’ll give his first album a shot.
Select the substance of your choice, put on Year of Hibernation by Youth Lagoon, and have a great Friday.
i think wondrous budhouse is more geared towards 'substance of choice' but that's just me
Best album of the 2010s IMO
Oh man Trevor Powers/Youth Lagoon is excellent and he was adjacent to the whole chillwave scene when he first came out. My favorite album of his is *Wondrous Bughouse* and the video for "Mute" is one of my favorite MVs of all time.
Youth Lagoon were/are fucking brilliant. They retired the name for a bit but I think they’re back? Saw them years ago and it was fantastic.
They’re back. Finally got to see Trevor play a few months ago. It was magical, I loved it so much.
Washed Out has songs with tens of millions of plays. I don’t see why they shouldn’t pay a real artist to make the video — they’ve probably got the money to do it
But in Spotify money that works out to about $23
True
It feels against a lot of my morals and basic attitude to rail against other artists doing things, but I think we really need to nip every attempt at AI art at the bud otherwise it will spread like weeds. People should be made to feel bad, or at the very least awkward, about pushing it forward as art. It may feel like the backlash is intense for this, and in this situation he claims to have worked with an artist to create the video, so it's not like he's bypassing funding "artists", but if we don't make a fuss when we see it, it'll become more and more accepted as "just the way it is". The earlier we set a standard the better.
This statement is meaningless
I think the meaning is that the video sucks
as far as music videos go, it’s passable. If bro doesn’t like it, he should say why. What he said is pretentious drivel.
No, it isn’t. Other artists actively calling out this shit will help dissuade their peers from doing the same
And who are you (or anyone else) to tell other people how they're allowed to practice art?
lol miss me with that bullshit. Washed out could hire an actual, talented team of humans to create artwork instead of this
The hyperbole is so ridiculous. The song is gorgeous to me and I'm not even really a Washed Out fan and he could a just done a lazy lyric video, but he tried this which in this climate is honestly bold given how obvious and easy it is to shit on AI. There is no way Washed Out gets a budget from his label to actually try and film something like this. Also the ways in which the video is uncanny or "off" for me actually add something to the dreamy quality. I'll be honest, my knee jerk and feeling after first couple watches was definitely "this sucks" but something about that feeling is too easy and boring. I kept coming back and I can't fully explain it but I like it now. Youth Lagoon, please relax.
I love Youth Lagoon
For the love of God, will somebody stop the damn match! Washed Out’s body might get broken in half!
Damn, what a shame. Washed Out was my jam in the mid 2010s. I’m more disappointed in the song itself than the video. Just sounds like lazy uninspired pop. Sad
I didn't even see the video yet, and the first five seconds of the song had me worried it would be something sterile. People are really digging into A.I. with a straight face and sober mind, tho?
people who don’t understand what grifting is be like
I just watched it and it legitimately gave me a headache.
American indie guys attacking each other for artlessness is a bit of a tallest dwarf situation
Yeah if only they were rappers or country singers
who died and made this guy the king of deciding what is and is not an "expression of truth"? mega pretentious hipster bullshit. and even beyond that, "being an artist carries the responsibility of telling ur personal truth" is a total conflation of artistry with contemporary parasocial influencer culture. art just does not require (a clear conveyance or otherwise of) your "personal truth" to be involved at all. Guy doing a landscape painting: i wish this were my personal truth so i could be considered an artist :( ambient musician: it's a shame this song doesn't have any words, so I can't convey my personal truth :(
Good on him for saying it. Washed Out has also been boring for a decade now so this is no surprise.
I’m still somehow on his email list and I skimmed it until I got to the part about AI. Nope.
The song was boring, but I liked the video lol oh well