Weekly wrap-up
This Week in AI Music: Suno Talks, Labels Pay In, and a Chart for the Robots
Six stories from the week. One of them we'd already tested.
Suno Speech is open to everyone
On Oct 1, Suno opened its Speech beta to anyone with an account, on web, iOS, and Android. Speech generates a spoken voice and a music bed together, as one track, from a short description or a full script. Tracks run up to about eight minutes, the music can be switched off, and it uses your existing credits with no new pricing yet. Suno itself warns that accents drift and pauses run long (WebProNews).
In our blind test, the voice gender setting held when the tone description was plain and slipped when it was descriptive. Read our Suno Speech review.
Sean Parker rebuilds Stability AI around music
Napster co-founder Sean Parker told The Information he's playing by the rules this time. Stability AI, the image company he helped rescue two years ago, wants to be the AI toolmaker for music professionals. In late August it raised $76 million from investors including Sony, Warner, and Universal, which also licensed their catalogs for training. Stability has since released three audio models and music-editing software, and Parker says an update will let you hum a melody or beatbox a beat to steer it (TechCrunch).
Indie publishers put a price on the song
On Sept 30, two independent publishing groups, IMPF and IMPEL, published seven principles for licensing music to AI companies. The one they call non-negotiable: AI deals should value the song (the lyrics and melody) at least equally with the recording. That's a shot at streaming, where UK figures from 2021 gave recordings 53% of revenue and songs 15%. The principles aren't binding. They're a marker for every deal still being negotiated (AI Musicpreneur).
Universal hires the man behind Spotify's AI DJ
On Sept 28, Universal Music Group named Òscar Celma its senior vice president of applied AI and machine learning. At Spotify, he helped lead AI DJ, Jam, and Daylist. It's the latest in a run of AI moves for Universal, including its Sept 10 licensing deal with ElevenLabs for a fan music-creation platform (Music Business Worldwide).
AI labels now reach 60% of paid listeners
When Qobuz added an in-app AI tag on Sept 24, services covering about 60% of the world's paid music subscribers had some kind of AI labeling, by the AI-music newsletter Zinstrel's count. The policies don't agree on much. Apple Music and Spotify rely on labels and distributors to declare AI use, while Deezer and Qobuz scan uploads themselves. One study Zinstrel cited found songs tagged as AI drew less engagement even when humans made them (RYM Magazine). If you release AI-assisted music, the same track can carry a label on one app and none on the next.
Kelly Clarkson wants a separate chart
On the Las Culturistas podcast, Kelly Clarkson said, "It's controversial, I don't care… I love AI." Her line is competition: "When you see AI artists competing on a chart with humans, I have an issue. I think there should be a separate chart" (Far Out).
Coming Tuesday
Our Suno v6 review: 16 blind takes, a fair rerun, and one instruction v6 still won't follow.