Artificial Intelligence revives Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, and others with the Club of 27 project. Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse… all were great singers, all died of excesses at the age of 27 and, now, all were “revived” thanks to Artificial Intelligence.
The Lost Tapes of The 27 Club project uses Artificial Intelligence to create an album of music inspired by those singing and songwriting legends. According to Over the Bridge, the nonprofit organization behind the album, the goal is to garner support for mental health.
“As long as there has been pop music, musicians and bands have struggled with mental health at a much higher rate than the general adult population,” Over The Bridge notes on the project’s website. “This problem has not only been ignored, but it has also been romanticized.”
“To show the world what has been lost to the crisis in mental health, we used Artificial Intelligence to create the album that these members of the 27 Club never had the chance to make,” he stresses.
“With this album, we encourage more music industry experts to get the mental health support they need, so they can keep making the music we all love for years to come.”
According to the organization, 71% of people in the music industry experienced anxiety or panic attacks. Meanwhile, 68% suffered from depression. And, most seriously, suicide attempts are double those of the general population.
This is how songs were created from the previous songs of Kurt Cobain, Morrison, and the others
The songs were made with the voices of other singers, but using the theme of groups such as Nirvana and The Doors, as well as Hendrix and Winehouse.
Thus we have:
- The Roads are Alive, inspired by The Doors, the group led by Jim Morrison.
- You’re Gonna Kill Me, made with Jimi Hendrix’s catalog.
- Man I Know, the version inspired by Amy Winehouse.
- Drowned in the Sun, with the rhythm of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain’s band.
Google’s Magenta Artificial Intelligence program added original songs by the deceased artists. After taking recurring components, completely new tracks were developed.
Between 20 and 30 songs were taken from each artist. The program analyzed everything from lyrics and vocal melodies to note choices and guitar licks.
Google launched Magenta in 2016 using TensorFlow, the company’s open-source software library for deep learning apps. The goal was to train machines to create music and art.
Over The Bridge’s vision for the album born of Artificial Intelligence
According to Over The Bridge member Sean O’Connor, the style is very similar to the artists. Focusing on Cobain and Nirvana, Drowned in the Sun “feels like a song by the band, but it’s not so accurate as to be sued.”
O’Connor chatted with Rolling Stone about the album.
“If you look at the last Nirvana release, You Know You’re Right, it has the same kind of vibe. Kurt would write whatever he wanted to write. And if he liked it, then that was a Nirvana song,” he analyzes.
“I can hear certain things in the AI arrangement, with slight resemblances to In Utero or Nevermind, but it’s not the same,” O’Connor noted.
The Daily Mail recalls other AI-made tracks based on real artists, such as Daddy’s Car (inspired by The Beatles). They also created music inspired by Bob Dylan (the computer Bot Dylan) and the musical Hamilton (with the machine learning model Calamity AI).
