If you know anything about the recording industry from the last century, it was prime time. Creative lyricists and songwriters matched up with a producer, bands, and orchestras, taking it to the next level. I love the songwriting from that time.

I think we hit a brick wall in the late ’90s and 2000s. Bands started disappearing. Studio costs stayed high while budgets dried up, and big studios began shutting down. The industry got weird — Napster, lawsuits, streaming fights — and legal complexities put everyone in a funk. At least that’s how I felt.

Meanwhile, home recording gear got cheaper, software got better, and social media let us rediscover the joy of just making and sharing music.

My Home Studio (1997)

Things are changing again, and I’m exploring this exciting new era of generative music — especially with the quality it’s able to create. To take your own lyrics and ideas into a trained tool like Suno or Udio and build out a production-quality recording in minutes is mind-boggling. And just like anything in the generative realm, garbage in equals garbage out.

There’s plenty of fart and cheeseburger songwriters out there (doing exceptionally well on the Suno boards, I might add). In my mind, this tool was meant for so much more. I did step in that pool while I was learning the ropes… Santa’s Playlist should find its place on YouTube next holiday season, possibly.

Leveraging a tool like generative music to create thematic or genre-specific songs opens up possibilities for creativity that are hard to imagine — including allowing us to bring full-length albums back. You just don’t see that much anymore. I suddenly started having wilder ideas about songs and concept albums, covering these songs live, remixing them in the studio, on and on. I’m still coming up with new ways to be creative with it.

Is it for everyone? I think that’s like asking a visual artist if they prefer to work in acrylic, marker, or pencil. It depends what they’re going for in any given creative piece. And like that artist, I don’t define my art based on the tools I use. If I use Studio One or Pro Tools as my DAW, should it matter? Or if I’m playing a Martin, Taylor, or Eastman guitar? Not really.

I still lust for some raw studio time — microphones, not-quite-perfect takes, and slightly pitchy vocals, and hours pouring over the perfect mix. Maybe some disjointed, over-reverberated vocal tracks on top of a synth groove (hear that a lot in today’s alternative — is it just me?!). I’m inspired to make a single like that — fun to do between projects.