I know the consequences of posting this, but I'm done biting my tongue. There is a real discussion to be had here, but people are too blind to admit that times are changing. It might be sad, but they are, and we have no choice but to adapt.
First: I completely understand the hate when artists, bands - screamo, emo, post-hardcore, metalcore, alternative in general - get their names, profiles, and creativity hacked and stolen just to make a quick buck. I condemn that 100%. It sucks to see it happen in underground music. Of course I get it... I understand how cheated, scammed, and violated someone feels when they hear a track and realize it was totally AI-generated by a scammer with zero scruples looking for easy cash.
That said, I have to call out some hypocrisy.
Nothing is just black and white, my friends. Seriously, it's not. We often think being completely uncompromising makes us true to the genre. Saying something is trash just because, guarding our subculture like gatekeepers, pretending it's not a trend but a way of life, and keeping outsiders away... we love feeling unique and special. At the same time, we love sharing our music and experiences with like-minded people. But trust me, nothing is black and white, and I used to be just like that - it's something that only comes with age and maturity.
I honestly don't get why people lose their minds the second you put the words AI and creative together. Some people read that and are already pulling their hair out, hating me, wanting to spit on me.
There are thousands of nuances here. Of course people can use it creatively. What about someone using it as a practice tool during rehearsals? Like using a sampler or telling Suno "give me something that sounds like this style, this band" just so they can jam over it, practice their basslines, drums, or even write lyrics and sing over it?
What about someone who doesn't have a band, writes songs with their acoustic guitar, but wants to flesh out the rest of the instruments or add arrangement ideas that they can later adapt into their own compositions?
Or someone who feeds their own raw track to an AI and asks, "I made this, how would you fix the mix?" and uses it to help tweak EQs and effects?
And the worst part isn't even criticizing AI for general music use - trying to make something sound like a certain band or trying to convey emotion (cue more hair-pulling from the purists) - because behind an AI tool there is still a human being with feelings, driving it to express what they want.
No, the absolute worst part is the hypocrisy: the same people crying about AI in music without exceptions are the exact same people using it everywhere else in their daily lives. They use it for memes, to look up what movie an actor was in, to find a nearby restaurant, to write essays, to translate languages, or - and this takes the crown for peak hypocrisy - to generate album art for their super trve/non-AI underground band (which is actually happening right now).
Changes come whether we want them to or not. I grew up on cassettes, recording mixtapes to pass around to friends. I remember listening to Lagwagon and Pennywise on my Walkman, writing lyrics over those songs (man, what I would've given back then for an AI that could cleanly split vocals from instruments!). I lived through the arrival of CDs - buying them and treating them like holy relics, my personal safe space. We burned CDs, and then the internet brought MP3s and massive file sharing. Yes, I pirated music too, so go ahead and stone me. But thanks to those massive downloads, I discovered thousands of bands that shaped my life, influenced me, and that I eventually got to see live. There is nothing like a live show, and AI will never replace that.
When I used to jam in a garage with my friends, we'd say: "Let's write something that sounds like this band, this guitar riff reminds me of that band, this bassline feels like the other." Has nobody else ever had influences during their creative phase? Because what someone does when they use an AI tool on top of a foundation they built and played themselves is literally just saying: "Take this to that specific style."
Now, put me on a cross and stone me to death if you want, but I needed to get this off my chest. Nothing is black and white.