Fire in the Radio – Prarie
Listen, all I’m suggesting is that you listen to AI music once. You won’t need to seek it out a second time, and, if we’re being honest, you’re going to spend the next few years trying to filter the damn thing out anyway.
But you’ll learn something from paying attention to it just once, and you may even feel brave again. I want you to pay special attention to the singing on any of the AI tracks. Do you hear that? That perfectly-pitched singing, a composite of the voices of 1000 singers, doesn’t sound like the voice of someone who ever got their heart broken, ever heard their parents screaming at each other, or ever had the perfect slice of Pizza on a spring evening.
Upon that realization the only thing left to ask is what that says about people who could listen to this kind of music and mistake it for the real thing. And, now, that you’ve hit upon the ugly truth, dial the whole thing back as far as it will go. Fix it to a band like Fire in the Radio. Look for some emotion behind the singing! Forget about perfect pitch and corporate-approved singing shows.
The first thing that you notice about Fire in the Radio’s “Prarie,” is just how regal it all sounds. That’s the voice of some head of state, nearly, but not quite breaking down over news that they’ll have to send their sons to the war.
And, next, notice how much of a surprise it is, at the moment, to hear someone doing their best to reveal themselves in this way.
Besides, if emotion is not your thing, you’ll be happy to know that “Prairie” is very well-structured and produced, qualities that beg for it to be replayed often.
Oh Dang – OKC
A great melody! That’s all it takes! It’s the thing that can still change the life of both the person who thinks of one and the person who’s lucky enough to hear it. And, quite frankly, that’s the invisible contract between music groups and audiences.
Yeah, it’s the reason we hang around. It’s why those who have had the good fortune of being touched by enough of these earworms look upon people who spend their ears studying guitar solos or the art of assembling beats with a mixture of sadness and contempt.
It’s a good thing that so many of the songs being released every day are terrible! It’s a wonderful thing that so much of today’s music is drowned in instant AI slop! If that wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t be able to appreciate Oh Dang’s music quite this way.
Oh Dang’s “OKC” is powered by a few really simple ideas that, simply, cannot be replicated for mass production. At the heart of it, the song is just a really great melody pushed forward by two vocals that lock in, and that feel that, at each moment, they’re going to run out of breath, out of steam, out of whatever it is that powers them.
“OKC” is a fantastic song because it feels like an idea that nearly ran away from the band before they were able to track it down and force it down on tape.
