Thousands of new MJ songs - made by us fans and AI?

[mind&magic]

We'd all love to hear new original MJ content, but unfortunately the next posthumous release of unheard music is still a matter of wishful thinking and speculation.

So how about creating our own new MJ songs using AI?

I think most of you are probably familiar with Jukebox AI https://jukebox.openai.com/. This AI analyzes published songs by an artist (instrumental and vocal together) and creates new songs in the artist's style. Even if the style of the music sometimes sounds like MJ, the songs are not really enjoyable because the voice sounds weird.

But what if you took it a step further by having an AI analyze the instrumental and the voice separately? It would also be possible to analyze only the acapella and reproduce MJ's vocal. This is not science fiction, YAMAHA has done something like this with Hibari Misora, a (dead) Japanese singer in 2019:

"Yamaha Corporation announces that it has succeeded in reproducing the vocals of the late Hibari Misora, a legendary Japanese singer, using its proprietary VOCALOID:AI vocal synthesis technology, in technical collaboration with a NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) television broadcast*1 that aired in Japan on September 29, marking both the public debut and the first real-world implementation of VOCALOID:AI."

You can listen to it here:

Read more: https://www.vocaloid.com/en/news/vocaloid_ai_news_release/


In my world, it would be creepy and like christmas at the same time to use this technology to create thousands of "new MJ" fan songs. What do you think?

 

[Robbsaber01]

I recently was thinking of testing this actually. I have seen several weird tests on YT but none by doing the vocal and instruments separately. I wonder what the results would be.

 

[dam2040]

Hate the idea. As bad as the hologram. Enjoy what he left us. DonÂ’t try and puppet a dead man.

 

[SmoothCriminal1995]

I'm not really a fan of this idea, I've got to he honest.
You may be able to replicate Michael's vocals, but they'll never be able to reproduce the passion and soul in his voice

 

[Hess]

MJ was magic - the magic was in his head and soul.

Noone else can/could/should try to replicate MJ's voice to make new (fake) MJ songs.

It would not be MJ - he was a genius - he could hear what should be there, what should not be there etc.

 

[SoCav]

Personally, I don't mind if this is something fans play around with. It can be interesting to hear the results and see what is technologically possible. But I definitely would not want this to be done in any official capacity, as Yamaha apparently did with Hibari Misora. That feels disrespectful and downright creepy (I felt the same way about the Earnest Valentino-hologram).

Moreover, even if you would take that out of the equation, there is still so much to explore about Michael's work. The Estate has barely scratched the surface of what could still be released in terms of books, audio, and video. If only they'd care...

 

[mind&magic]

I did a new research regarding AI singing - and came across https://uberduck.ai/.

The AI voices sound very real to my perception when they speak, especially with rappers, as can be heard for example here with Playboi Carti:

However, when using the "singing function" (and not the speaking function), the voice still sounds very robotic. But yeeeeeey, at least here's our hoped "The Weeknd x MJ" song:

Inspired by this, I tried it once myself with Uberduck.AI and produced a "new" MJ AI song snippet. To avoid the robot sound and to sound as natural as possible, I used the speech function and used Melodyne for pitch correction. You can listen to the result here:

I would be happy about a feedback, I have heard the snippet so many times that I can't judge anymore if it sounds good only in my head.

 

[Robbsaber01]

I did a new research regarding AI singing - and came across https://uberduck.ai/.

The AI voices sound very real to my perception when they speak, especially with rappers, as can be heard for example here with Playboi Carti:

However, when using the "singing function" (and not the speaking function), the voice still sounds very robotic. But yeeeeeey, at least here's our hoped "The Weeknd x MJ" song:

Inspired by this, I tried it once myself with Uberduck.AI and produced a "new" MJ AI song snippet. To avoid the robot sound and to sound as natural as possible, I used the speech function and used Melodyne for pitch correction. You can listen to the result here:

I would be happy about a feedback, I have heard the snippet so many times that I can't judge anymore if it sounds good only in my head.

I was wondering how this would sound with MJ. Jay Z recently had to take legal action because someone used this to clone his voice. This tech is developing really fast. Interesting tests though.

 

[mind&magic]

Nice MJ AI-generated text-to-speech algorithm song made by James Sismanes. The singing still sounds robotic, but i find it is enjoyable.

 

[mind&magic]

Another fanmade (probably) MJ AI-generated text-to-speech algorithm song made by LabyFlan:

He is claiming "The following vocals were NOT sung by Michael Jackson (apart from some ad-libs)." and in one of the comments he is writing that he is using "Melodyne and Logic Pro's default flex pitch correction for the vocals".

Especially this new lq snippet sounds close "like real MJ" to my ears:

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

I've postulated this discussion before: the Short Answer for me is, maybe.

The longer answer:

I would not be averse to it, if it's done as tastefully as possible. Obviously I would prefer to hear complete music as much as and whenever possible, so don't literally make songs out of AI, but in the case of a song like Hollywood Tonight, where it needs a few vocal sections, I would just love to have that song completed. Or maybe more extremely, Ghost of Another Lover, where the everything is ready, down to the vocal melody, but the lyrics aren't there. If it were possible to do that, I would take it, as a counterpoint to the original authentic demo.

I can't imagine the estate even doing this, but it's better to debate it now while things are going hypothetically, then in the potential future where they're doing it and we can't go back on it.

 

[DangerousGal91]

Jinriki isn't a new thing, and actually long predates AI (the description on the page is rather old, for one, but it can absolutely involve AI nowadays).

It's a risky business and I'm not a fan of passing off fake songs as real (*LOUD COUGH*). There's more to what makes a Michael Jackson song than just a voice that somewhat sounds like him. I'm also 100% biased but I'm not a big fan of jinriki in general, since it's always done without the permission of either the artist involved, or their relatives/descendants. Even in related communities they're very controversial. And I also know the estate or Michael's family would never sign off to an official version of this, most extremely famous people wouldn't (with a few exceptions, but even they are nowhere near the fame level of Michael Jackson).

IDK, I'll pass. And I actually know how this sorta thing works.

 

[Beano Wild]

I've postulated this discussion before: the Short Answer for me is, maybe.

The longer answer:

I would not be averse to it, if it's done as tastefully as possible. Obviously I would prefer to hear complete music as much as and whenever possible, so don't literally make songs out of AI, but in the case of a song like Hollywood Tonight, where it needs a few vocal sections, I would just love to have that song completed. Or maybe more extremely, Ghost of Another Lover, where the everything is ready, down to the vocal melody, but the lyrics aren't there. If it were possible to do that, I would take it, as a counterpoint to the original authentic demo.

I can't imagine the estate even doing this, but it's better to debate it now while things are going hypothetically, then in the potential future where they're doing it and we can't go back on it.

this 100 percent. if they brought in writers mj worked with in the past to write lyrics for songs like Ghost of Another Lover to write the verses, and the estate were 100 PERCENT TRANSPARENT with it, and it sounded right, i think it would be amazing to see.

 

[SmoothGangsta]

Hate the idea. As bad as the hologram. Enjoy what he left us. DonÂ’t try and puppet a dead man.

This. Awful idea.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

this 100 percent. if they brought in writers mj worked with in the past to write lyrics for songs like Ghost of Another Lover to write the verses, and the estate were 100 PERCENT TRANSPARENT with it, and it sounded right, i think it would be amazing to see.

That's a bit eccentric, no offense. Don't create songs, and don't write new lyrics to MJ songs. That's basically the 2010 album all over again.

We should only worry about whatever there currently is, not what could be.

 

[Beano Wild]

That's a bit eccentric, no offense. Don't create songs, and don't write new lyrics to MJ songs. That's basically the 2010 album all over again.

We should only worry about whatever there currently is, not what could be.

but how is what im saying any different to getting in another artist to do finish it, similar to what drake did (although, maybe a tad bit more tasteful then what he did)

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

but how is what im saying any different to getting in another artist to do finish it, similar to what drake did (although, maybe a tad bit more tasteful then what he did)

It's not that different. We just don't like that much. I personally got a lot of hype out of that and the results was okay, to me. But otherwise

I don't consider it the "finished" version or Don't Matter to Me. The real version just hasn't been heard yet. This was more, like sampling a song we hadn't heard before.

 

[mind&magic]

A new fanmade MJ AI song made by LabyFlan:

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

A new fanmade MJ AI song made by LabyFlan: