Ozzy Osbourne is “Open For Anything” Regarding AI in Music
Artificial intelligence may be comin’ to take our jobs and making musicians obsolete pretty soon, but that’s not a big deal to one of metal’s biggest icons, Ozzy Osbourne. During a recent conversation on the revitalized The Osbournes podcast, the “Prince of Darkness” had a sort of fatalist approach to the whole “AI” conversation.
Ozzy’s stance came to light during a Q&A episode of the podcast, in which fans sent questions for the Osbournes to answer. One such question was whether Ozzy would be willing to use the technology to create a new song with a digital version of Randy Rhoads or some other deceased musician.
“Well, you know what? I’m open for anything, if it was good quality. ‘Cause, let’s face it, that Beatles thing, ‘Now And Then’, wasn’t a Beatles song; it was a John Lennon song.
“The thing with AI, you can go, ‘Make me a new album.’ … But that’s the future. The music scene’s gonna be completely different.”
A lot of the conversation stemmed from the fact that the Beatles had only recently released a new song titled “Now And Then” in which all four members — alive and dead — performed. This was possible because surviving members Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney finished an old demo tape left by John Lennon.
Whether Ozzy would be able to do the same with any old Rhoads recordings, however, would apparently be impossible, according to Sharon Osbourne.
“There’s nothing left that was properly recorded. There’s just like a couple of silly cassettes floating around that [people] go, ‘This is wonderful stuff.’ A cassette from 40 years ago is not gonna be great, taken from a rehearsal room.”
And while Ozzy may be alright with the fact that AI in music is here to stay, Sharon said she was significantly more worried about its incorporation into the process.
“Of course, but it’s, like, look, now everything, a lot, you can say half, well, a quarter of the music industry is done on computers anyway, not even in studios. … So it’s just gone from one computer to another. But I don’t like the idea of it at all.”
While “the cat’s out of the bag,” as Ozzy said, AI is something that musicians will have to face in the coming years. Having already created a working-class revolt in the film industry, it’s only a matter of time before this shitstorm boils over in music.
What do you think about AI in music? Let us know in the comments below.
