Wait – maybe that’s the worst mash-ups. They’re so bad they’re good, though. Microsoft Research Songsmith, a 2009 automatic accompaniment software that worked with monophonic vocal input, was best known for its viral, cringeworthy promo video. But long before generative AI came on the scene, Songsmith also gave us these. Queen – I’m sorry. Rewind/flashback time…
While intended to be a futuristic research project making music more accessible (blah, blah), Songsmith was strangely anachronistic. Preset style choices are reminiscent of the controls on an early Casio keyboard (or organ, even). The harmonic interpretation — this is presumably based on a strict set of heuristic rules, not anything smarter — sounds like it’s based on second-year undergrad harmonic theory. (It sounds a lot like Band-in-a-Box, the best-known auto-accompaniment tool, which is old enough that I had to compete with it in my high school jazz class in the mid-90s.) Microsoft didn’t publish the research on this, just the software, which is still available in a version below. But we can guess. (The intro video explains how it works, produced by someone who did not understand ground loops.)
All of this made the promo video the stuff of mockery and parody. I won’t embed it again. But what is kind of amazing are the surreal re-accompaniment remix work made with Songsmith, at their best when vocals seem to push Songsmith’s harmonic rules to the breaking point.
Lil Mama “Lip Gloss” is a work of accidental genius:
Nirvana clashes in … a compelling way. Songsmith really is a bit like a theory student; it overdoes the harmonic rhythm. At moments “In Bloom” and its chromaticism almost sounds like it ran across late 60s Paul McCartney.
This is completely blasphemous. I also can’t stop playing it – unexpected chord changes against that pedal-point lead and odd jazzy dissonance versus the square salsa patterning.
But you didn’t come here just to kinda weirdly like songs. You came here to rage. Let the hate flow through you. Songsmith will make it boil.
And you came here to make Will Smith into Will Songsmith, sillier than even Will could ever be. Bright? Suicide Squad? Will, let Microsoft bring you to the lowest of lows ever:
What would Metallica sound like after you made a beer bong with Mountain Dew? Welp:
At other moments, it sounds like we’ve trapped recording artists in a fourth-string pirate karaoke machine, and Tron-style, it’s up to them to escape:
We have to finish with Metallica, because of course we do:
There are more; I won’t link them here because I don’t want to be liable for damage to people’s physical or mental well-being. I think I’ve done enough harm already.
You have to admit, though. Think of the 2009 Songsmith ad as an unintentional Black Mirror episode, predicting the nightmarish future of generic machine-generated cheese and slop in ChatGPT song structures and lyrics. Who’s laughing now?
God only knows how we’ll live through AI….
Despite broken links to Songsmith, Microsoft Research does have a new page up. They warn you that this is for classroom use only. But, like man, the whole world is my classroom; aren’t we all students and educators of life?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/songsmith-2/