In a world where we tend to own very little, subscribe to a lot, and have a generalized estrangement from the tangible world, a few bastions of physical media keep us tethered to a simpler time. Take vinyl, for example, which, despite the digitization of music and the onset of streaming, has somehow remained completely and utterly unadulterated by the crushing weight of—just kidding, we’re putting AI slop on vinyl now.
Suno, the AI slop factory for music, is behind efforts to slopify vinyl, which I can only describe as sad at best. With a new service, Suno is gearing up to press AI-created songs onto real vinyl and ship said pressing to your door, all for the low, low price of $45, plus shipping. You hear that, kids? For less than the cost of one disc-less video game, you could desecrate one of the few remaining icons of ownership we still have left by stuffing it with automated noise made possible by the covert theft of real art.
To be clear, the service hasn’t launched yet, but Suno appears dead serious about the whole thing. On Suno Vinyl’s landing page, the company writes, “Vinyl isn’t live yet, but it’s coming. We’re finishing the details, and the first pressing run goes to the waitlist.” Suno says slopholics will be able to press up to 46 minutes of audio onto a record and also use their own art. Naturally, you’ll be able to generate sleeve art as well, because why do anything when a robot can just do it for you?
While you’re wasting clean water by making music slop, you will also be wasting other resources by making what Suno describes as 12-inch black, environmentally friendly PETG—the only vinyl option for this grotesque experiment in physical media.
I’m not really sure what else to say about the whole thing beyond what I’ve relayed here. Clearly, nothing is sacred, but I can’t say I’m entirely surprised by the tone deafness of it all coming from a company whose CEO thinks that “it’s not really enjoyable to make music now,” because it “takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software.”
So, if you’re the type of person who views making music as a box to check off some AI-optimized to-do list, then have it. I’ll be at home playing my unenjoyable guitar and utilizing my tedious human vocal cords to make music the old-fashioned way.
English (US) ·