Is AI Really Fooling People? Mailbag
This month we dive into questions about Bob Marley, fade outs, and solo stars
Today’s newsletter is another mailbag edition of Can’t Get Much Higher, or the newsletter where I answer reader questions. Here are shortened versions of today’s questions:
Is AI music actually fooling people?
How often do hit songs not contain their title in the lyrics?
Why do people stop discovering music as they age?
How many one-hit wonders topped the charts?
How often do number one hits have samples?
Who’s the biggest solo artist that started in a successful group?
What was the first song with a fade out?
Are there any genres other than reggae where the biggest artist is much more well known than anyone else?
If you enjoy this newsletter, consider ordering a copy of my debut book, Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves. It’s a data-driven history of popular music covering 1958 to 2025.
Have you seen the gospel soul AI versions of “Thong Song” by Sisqo or “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees? They were all over my TikTok and while I do think it’s fun to listen to, I can’t help but think of the consequences. Sienna Rose is a completely AI neo-soul singer and claims to have 3.3M monthly listeners. How many “listeners” are bots and how many people actually believe she’s real? - Abby
Earlier this week, a friend sent me a video of an older gentleman playing an emotional song on America’s Got Talent. The judges, including Simon Cowell, were crying during the performance. Tears were also flowing in the audience. And it looks like the same thing is happening in the comment section of the video. Scores of people are recounting broken relationships with their parents and children. The problem? The video and song are AI generated.
If people are moved by this, I don’t really have an issue with it. My biggest problem with AI, as I’ve outlined previously, is when it is used to deceive. If you want to use AI to make a powerful piece of art, I don’t think I have grounds to complain. But if you are using AI to flood streaming services with songs to hopefully siphon off royalties from other artists, then I will condemn you until end of time.
I can’t be sure whether all of Sienna Rose’s listeners are real. But I can tell you with certainty that many people probably think she’s real and that many of these AI-generated artists are being played by bots. Just last week, a man pled guilty to multi-million dollar fraud powered by AI-generated music and bots.
Can you tell me a bit about songs whose titles don’t appear in the lyrics? - Huck
Someone asked me about this a few months ago. That person mentioned the Buffalo Springfield song “For What It’s Worth” in their question. I’ll repost my answer below:
This is one of those questions that is shockingly hard to get a firm answer on. The reason is that the data is a mess. For example, in my dataset of hit song lyrics, Blue Swede’s classic is listed as “Hooked on a Feeling,” but the lyrics always read “hooked on a feelin’.” That slight difference causes tremendous issues in an exercise like this.
But even with these issues, it seems like well over 90% of hit song lyrics contain the title. That rate has also been pretty consistent over the last six decades. In other words, “For What It’s Worth” is an outlier in the pop world.
Why does everyone think that music was better when they were growing up? - Alex
