Musical collaboration between Stromae and artificial intelligence, a world first
"Hello World" is the title of an album produced by the independent record label Flow Records. What is so special about it? It is a collaboration between humans and…artificial intelligence. In effect, it is a project which is both artistic and scientific, whose aim is to push the boundaries of music creation using artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence, "in the same way that the synthesizer revolutionised music in the 1980s, is the next step in the evolution of assisted music creation," claims the creator of the project François Pachet, who joined the Spotify streaming platform after having been in charge of Sony's Computer Science Laboratory (CSL).
Following on from "In the House of Poetry", which is already streamed on Spotify, the second track from the album is: "Hello Shadow". This song is performed by the Canadian artist Kiesza, and was composed by our compatriot Stromae, in collaboration with artificial intelligence.
While it is true that tracks have been produced in the past using computers, nothing apart from experimental tracks has ever been produced up until now. "Hello World" is a major first, offering more mainstream songs, encompassing pop, jazz and electro, for the very first time.
In order to make it happen, the artists collaborating on the album selected musical fragments, for example a small excerpt from the Beatles, which the artificial intelligence used to transform into other melodies, sounds, or vocals. Once the process was complete, the new segment could be either incorporated as it was, or modified once again, depending on the artist's inspiration and creativity.
According to François Pachet, this is the role that artificial intelligence could play in creating music: serving as a tool to create new and different sounds, and, who knows, perhaps even revolutionising the world of music.
Click here to listen to "Hello Shadow" on Spotify.