Surf

If you love The Kung Fu Monkeys, you’ll get a kick out of Mellow Spiders and their The Curse of The Cursed Monkey. Before I say more, I’d actually suggest listening first — it might change how you feel about what comes next.

Heard it? Super catchy, right? These 60-second songs sound like unpolished cartoon theme tunes — pure, sugary pop-punk fun.

But here’s the twist: parts of this record were created using A.I. Not entirely, though. Behind the project is Leander Grasse, who writes lyrics and rough demos before feeding them — along with reference tracks (Kung Fu Monkeys!) — into an A.I. system to flesh out the sound. (See also his Kooky Kats project, which spawned hits like this one).

I mention this because we’re increasingly stumbling across releases where A.I. seems to play a role — and it’s getting harder to tell. Chances are, we’ve already featured a few on the site without realizing, one where we were in the know and left it up to our readers to decide, and one where we only found out later. It’s a strange feeling when your excitement about new music comes with a flicker of doubt, not unlike how Video Assisted Refereeing (VAR) dulls the instant joy of a goal scored by your favorite team.

Maybe it doesn’t matter — maybe a good song is a good song, even if a machine helped build it. But it does raise questions about where the line is, and what it means for real musicians. A.I. isn’t inherently bad, but a little transparency would go a long way. The uncertainty takes some of the joy out of discovery.

Weird times indeed — and The Curse of The Cursed Monkey is undeniably catchy. Still, I can’t help thinking I’d love it more if it were 100% human.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp