Thinksmart

It is also on the Outta Sight The Northern Soul of VJ CD if anyone wants to hear or obtain it that way.

Dylan still wrote those songs. I'm not against adding to music. I've experimented with music technologies, but it was ultimately me doing it. I've released dance and ambient music, I know the value of the technology. I've also been bored in a studio trying to record a band who cannot get it together. I made ambient music using various AI incarnations with such as Koan and others and while it is 'fine', it lacks. Nobody listens to it. It's hard to put a finger on. "You can get plenty of human connection in other ways than from records" - But I already get it from music and all that comes with it. "Nope - it was about young black Americans having fun making music and trying to make a buck, and (in our case) mostly young white Brits dancing to it and collecting the records. " - but it also expressed those things and so much more, even if it was out for a buck. Shoestring labels paid orchestral sections for the love of getting the music perfect as they heard it. "I love the McKinney Magnetics. They didn't make very many records. If AI can hypothesise as to what else they might have made if they'd had the direction I'm all in. As long as I know it's AI, who loses?" - it might be interesting as novelty, but will you keep listening to it? Who knows, it is inevitable. New albums by the Beatles ...or Darrell Banks? Less than a decade away technically to be any good, it will be interesting to see at what point the public doesn't care about the roots. Artifice and pretend is one thing, artificial is another. Somehow there's a difference to me in Juan Atkins making a futuristic track on basic machinery called Techno Music in 1985 in his bedroom and inspiring a genre along with others and an algorithm needing no interaction to churn out replicant techno endlessly. Will this also cause music to plateau in terms of its evolution? Eventually, who or what pushes it onwards? Anyway, as I envisaged, it seems it is just me and others are comfortable with it. I cannot quite articulate the sense of loss I have impending. It feels odd feeling somehow curious for defending the wonder of what we already have. Surely nobody can think of the artificial copies as equal in quality, but perhaps that doesn't matter to others. I'm not making a judgement, I'm just somewhat surprised at how readily people are in on AI music. Enjoy it I suppose. I'll leave the topic again now, I just wanted to say that not everyone feels the same. I can see it now.... "All AI songs must on original vinyl only" Best wishes all

Frankly this thread has me pretty down, but to add another view point I'll give a contrary range of thoughts. If you're comfortable with AI and Soul music or see it as inevitable, then feel free to scroll past this message entirely. There is loads of new Soul music released that most people at the forum ignore, yet for the articifical clone of the sixty year old sound - AI is starting to be accepted. It seems that so long as it sounds Northern Soul to some, well that's enough. It's not for me. I use AI in my work, I understand it well as a tool. But when we get to the point mentioned above, of AI replicating old Soul and it being good enough to accept, or dance to - well, then I will be completely out. Wasn't Soul music about us as humans finding connection with each other and the music as one? Was it ever really about SOUL for many people, or just stuff to dance to? What's the point of listening to purely AI music? How does it enrich your life or provide comfort? Human connection is the deepest thing we have and at the end, all we were left with. AI techno for dancing, sure - there's a logic there. But music where the warmth of humans writing, playing, creating, orchestrating and producing together is what made it, then for me, AI has no purpose. So what if it sounds like a Roy Hamilton song? It simply isn't. There are musicians and singers all over waiting to engage, to perform. But as is often the case, it will be the easiest route that will lead to an intangible but profound loss we only see later on. It's a machine, it's not just a slippery slope, it's far more. Soon that stuff will become part of the reference engine it is creating from. It'll give you what you want, but be careful what you ask for. Too much (musicial) sugar will rot the teeth. I wouldn't bother too much with the Poll results, people like me just will not engage with it. It's all gone a bit quick towards acceptance for me. Sorry if I sound a curmudgeon, but Soul music is a respite from artificiality and yet here it is in the forum and the thread. The 'it's here, so we need to accept it' line is heinous, of course we don't. We don't accept other things about technology and the online world just because they are inevitably possible. "Good Music will always be the winner, wether it’s humans or Robots who make it" Not for me. What's being ignored here is feel, passion, sweat, groove, connection, talent, craft, skill, care, fury, loss, regret, interaction, synchonicity, dedication, ambition, love - those are feelings and states we need to prize and remember that matter. That are embedded into the music. Think forward, where does this take Northern / Modern Soul or indeed any music like this in ten years time? 'ChatGPT create me a song about society today using The Impressions 'Keep On Pushing'... coming soon What I think doesn't matter, it is going to happen anyway, but it just won't be for me.

I think a little bit of interest is talked up continually way beyond its actual size. If they are happy, that's great but it often feels like hype in the way others report it.

As I have grown older and my Soul music reach has expanded along with other genres, I've come to appreciate Quincy Jones increasingly. Sad to see his passing, but it looks to of been as good as they ever can be.

That is quite an extensive article, which was nice to see.

Excellent to hear the stories first hand. David Nathan has done a huge amount for Soul Music and still continues now. Thanks everyone. I look forward to more episodes.

Of course it could be an AI thing..... you can now literally put in a few parameters and it will generate a song.

You picked a good one - I just couldn't. Would it be a stomper or a beat ballad, Northern or Modern, happy or sad? It changes continually.

Far Out Magazine is notorious for shallow semi-AI-produced clickbait, often derived from earlier music content. It's best ignored.

Excellent reading and listening, thank you

Well it's 1968 era Sunshine white pop with a psych-middle. Close to David & The Giants or Spiral Starecase with the urgency of Steve Karmen Big Band's 'Breakaway' or Human Beinz later on. I don't know it and it's not for me these days. I'd of enjoyed it a lot at their age in the video I bet. There have been a fair few 'Sunshine Pop' compilations in recent years of this type of music, so may be findable via them if not already known.

The Castle In The Sky theme reminds me of the song of that title by Gerri Grainger - but I don't think it has that specific lyric. Can you share the link and point in the video?

I have the utmost admiration and enjoyment of Terry Caller's music, his albums and singles are in constant rotation. Beyond his Northern & Modern Soul spins his albums take him into the same realms as Gil Scott-Heron, Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway, Bill Withers etc. I didn't connect to the later UK made albums at the time, but will go back and try them.

Hi Richard, welcome. What areas of Soul do you enjoy?