Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. It's time to once again talk about the growing nightmare that is AI-generated music and the fact that it continues to be forced upon us by individuals who should know better and, frankly, have way too much power and influence in the music industry.

Of course, we are talking about legendary superproducer Timbaland, whose work I am very familiar with because I came of age when he was generating a lot of his biggest and best and most influential hits, honing the talents of a lot of bright, young, up-and-coming artists who made some incredible stuff. But these days, Timbaland isn't really on that trajectory anymore. In fact, it's been a while since he's generated a real, genuine hit with a new, young, exciting artist who's actually making waves.

I mean, if you're a producer with the talent and the history and the experience and connections of a Timbaland, the ground is currently fertile with ideas and artists willing to do whatever they can to make the biggest song of their career. The options and opportunities are there. You just have to go out there and grab them. No, instead of doing that, he is trying to forge a new pathway for himself by cutting corners and selling music fans short by giving us a bunch of AI-generated slop.

And he's been quite egotistical about it in the past as well. We've actually covered AI in relation to Timbaland on this channel before in terms of this little obsession he had for a moment with bringing Biggie Smalls back, or at least bringing his vocals back with the power of AI and using that to create the opportunity for him to work with Biggie.

"It's a lot of talk about AI. We know how to feel in violating certain things. But let me tell you something, I got to share something I've been working on because I always wanted to do this, and I never got a chance to. I always wanted to work with Biggie, and I never got a chance to. Until today, it came out right." - Timbaland

I really am happy about the public outcry around that because I do think we dodged a bullet there. But sadly, this has not stopped Timbaland from trying to forge forward with this whole AI thing.

I actually think recently, some of the stuff he's been doing with AI has been flying a little under the radar. I didn't see much coverage about this, but not too long ago, he came out with this Timbaland progression album. Yes, Timbo Progression is the title of it. It dropped just this year. And the whole thing is this weird throwback '70s, Afrobeat, Afrofunk type of record. The songs on this LP are way shorter than you would usually expect music in this genre to be.

On top of that, the Grooves and the drums and the bass and the horns are just super looped and repetitive. There's no real organic natural groove or flow to it at all. It sounds very tight, very synced, very cleanly produced for music in this style, but it still has the nostalgic sheen to it, which does lead me to believe that these tracks may be AI generated on some level.

I mean, when exactly is Timbaland hitting the studio studio with a full band of old-school African funk musicians and having them sing "Timbo?" If he did actually put the personal time and resources into doing such a thing, you would think he would actually spend a bit more time promoting the album, and it would be a bit more of a to-do, but instead this thing was dropped out of the blue. And again, I think a lot of people haven't really taken notice, and I think he's used this as an opportunity to see if he can sneak a project like this out without people giving him crap for it.

However, people are seemingly giving him crap for this new AI-based venture he's involved in, which is this new pop artist here you can see on your screen named Tata, who, yes, is AI-generated and looks like a composite of a dozen different K-pop artists.

AI-generated images and music are gross enough on their own. What makes this even worse is, again, it's being engaged with by a man who has the time and has the talent and has the resources to actually be working with real interesting, exciting young artists, but instead he's doing this crap and not out of love of creativity or anything like that.

No, it's all being done because obviously, if you can, for the audience, fake the vision of an actual artist through images and sound and then actually generate a hit or two that way. That saves you the pesky trouble of having to pay them and split royalties with them or compromise creatively with them in some way.

Now, once again, like with the Biggie thing, Timbaland has gotten pushback for this as well. He's also trying to funnel all of this into this entertainment company that's going to be AI-based named Stage Zero, which just goes to show you how greedy his ambitions are here. But in the wake of the backlash, Timbaland has gone on social media to defend this decision with a few cringeworthy posts on Instagram. The first one I will read here.

"I know I'm trolling, but let's have a real conversation. I love my independent artists." - Timbaland

Okay, first off, you're starting a goddamn company around this shit, and you've tried to do this stuff before. You've released music recently that is presumably AI. You are not fucking trolling. And if you love your independent artist so much, where are they? Where are they? Where are the independent artists? Where's the new production and entertainment company for all of your independent artists?

"This doesn't mean I'm not working with real artists anymore, and nah, I don't train AI off y'all music." - Timbaland

Okay, well, I'm going to presume it means you're going to be working with a lot fewer real artists, honestly. Maybe you're not swearing off real artists entirely, but this whole process says to me that if the opportunity arises where working with a fake artist will make you more money, you're going to do that. And you're going to try to drum up as many use cases as possible in the process because all of this is just driven by your pockets.

"And again, no, I don't train AI off of your music." - Timbaland

I mean, it's being trained off of something. What programs and platforms are you using? You're certainly not training the AI purely off of your own music. I forgot about the massive Timbaland Afrobeat back catalog that he must have trained this Timbo Progression album on. This just means more creativity for creators, which honestly just sounds like some tech bullshit that CEOs and entrepreneurs use to get people investing in crap like this.

Now, in addition to this, Timbaland also posted a video featuring music executive Ray Daniels, where he's just talking into his phone in the car and making the case for this whole AI thing. And of course, it comes across even more out of touch than the Timberland black and white text post.

"Yo, in today's news of artists are never satisfied. Artists are never happy. This is why executives, producers, stuff of that nature, don't work with artists." - Ray Daniels

What a shit-headed thing to say, just off the bat. Executives and producers don't want to work with artists anymore because artists are annoying and they have opinions and they want things to be paid. Why don't artists all want to work for free? Why can't they just all shut the fuck up and do what we tell them to all the time? Why can't the thing that they give us that makes this industry run just come for free and we take it and make money off of it and they just go away and fuck off? Why can't that just happen?

"Timbaland, who has superproducer, who has, I see, helping as many artists as he can decides he's going to play in the AI world, which why the fuck wouldn't you? Let me tell you what the AI thing is. Let me tell you what an AI character is. Mickey Mouse is an AI character. Donald Duck is an AI character. Bugs Bunny is an AI character." - Ray Daniels

Three times. It's impressive. Three times in a row? Wrong. Bugs Bunny is not an AI character. Mickey Mouse is not an AI character, whatever the hell else, also not an AI character. Not only are those characters not artificial intelligence, they're also not AI generated because they were generated by human beings. They were generated by artists. The people who earlier you were saying are never satisfied. "That's why nobody wants to work with them anymore." No, those are the works of artists, the very group of people who you are crapping on and disrespecting.

"You guys are looking at it wrong. He's going to make a character that he can have sing songs and things of that nature, sell products. That's all these cartoonists and all these young kids' TV shows are doing anyway, so why are you mad at him?" - Ray Daniels

Okay, again, I'm not begrudging Timbaland if he wants the freedom to generate a character and then have that character represent the art that he and maybe other creatives are creating themselves. If Timbaland wants to have his whole little weird Gorillaz era, he's certainly entitled to that.

Yeah, he can work with a cartoonist or a CGI a sky artist or something and then have them create the character and make it up. Or he could even hire some models to dress in an outfit to represent the character. Or he can put on a mask. I don't know. Just do it in a way that involves human He even's fucking doing it. Just do it in a way that is human and personal and isn't just generated off of the creativity of others with no credit or depth or anything.

Plus, on top of it, he goes into, again, the real motivation behind all of this. Do you know how hard it is to push an artist? Artists have opinions and want to do things their own way when we, the executives and the producers, just want them to be quiet and do whatever we tell them to.

"Do you know how hard it is to push an artist? They're going to tell you, I don't want to do that. Jimmy Iovine famously told me one day, 'Get you something that don't talk back.' What is better than the AI artist that don't talk back?" - Ray Daniels

He said it. He said the thing. He literally said that. He's not even hiding it. There's no mask on it. The mask is off. Here it is for all to see with no filter whatsoever. This is what every AI-based executive will not say outright because this is the actual appeal for AI, for fuckers like this. AI is being pitched as like, 'Hey, it's supposed to be this new way forward for creativity and the future of art and music and so on and so forth.'

No, dumbasses like this are only interested in it because it doesn't talk back. They're only interested in it because it saves them money, it cuts corners, it's one less person to have to split royalties with, split streaming revenue with. This is something that can be controlled and used purely for the benefit of the executives, the 1%, the rich, the powerful. That's it.

All artists watching this, especially artists who are big, are influential, are on a label, have some deal. If you're sitting there and trying to be as quiet and as dumb and as marketable and as boring as you possibly can in hopes that it's going to extend your career and lead to your continued success, these people are looking at you purely like a commodity and will replace you instantly the moment that they have the opportunity to. These people are sick, disgusting parasites, and they will replace you at a moment's notice.

They don't give a I don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about creativity. They don't give a fuck about art. So it's time to say something and be aggressive and be angry about it because shutting up and being quiet and not saying anything is not going to save you.

This guy's a moron. Timbaland's a moron. They're both hacks. They're both greedy freaks. And after this, I don't want to hear not one single person in my comments or in my mentions on social media trying to blow a smoke up my ass about how AI is the future, and it's so great for creativity when right now, currently, we are so far from a point where we're actually enacting legislation that pays artists whose music is getting trained on this crap.

And now, with posts and announcements like these, we are actually seeing thrown in our faces the real motivation behind why all these executives and producers are embracing AI. All they want to do is make more money and fuck over artists. So, yeah, that's it. This is evil.

In fact, I don't think you can characterize it in any other way. This is just evil. This is callousness. This is soullessness personified. And I look forward one day to this sickness going away. I'm going to leave it there. Let me know what you think in the comments. I'm sure you will.

Anthony Fantano. Forever.