Has AI ushered within the Songwriting 2.0 period?

MBW Views is a sequence of unique op/eds from eminent music business individuals… with one thing to say. The next op/ed comes from Ran Geffen Levy the Founding father of OG.studio, a platform that claims to be “bridging music business evolution, technological innovation, and capital funding”. He’s additionally the CEO of Amusica Music Administration.

At this 12 months’s Ivor Novello Awards, Charli XCX accepted ‘Songwriter of the Yr’ with out as soon as mentioning synthetic intelligence. But her message: “dare to suck” may be the clearest steerage we’ve got for thriving within the AI period.

She reminded the room that conviction issues greater than perfection; that id, viewpoint, and cultural context elevate a track past technical high quality. Her recommendation was easy: make what you need to hear, not what an A&R asks for; write for the area of interest, not the lots; embrace your personal language, nevertheless odd or imperfect, comply with your vibe. In brief: decide to the bit.

That is exactly what the creators behind The Velvet Sunset and Aventhis have completed. They took an concept – whether or not it was constructing a totally artificial “provocation” (The Velvet Sunset) or pairing AI-generated vocals with human-written lyrics (Aventhis) – and turned it into music with a definite id. They weren’t chasing business approval; they had been chasing an concept that felt value making.

Their conviction, not their conformity, made these tasks stand out. And that results in the query on the coronary heart of this second:

Who Will get to Be Referred to as a Songwriter?

After I was a toddler, I visited my uncle Dov on a kibbutz. He was an novice photographer who developed movie in a darkroom he’d arrange in an previous bomb shelter. I watched him transfer prints from bathtub to bathtub, hanging them to dry. It felt sacred. It wasn’t the chemical compounds or method that made it artwork; it was his intent. I wished to be like him, however I lacked the instruments, the coaching, the attention. Nonetheless, the will stayed.

Years later, pictures went digital. The darkroom grew to become an app. I grew to become an novice photographer. Songwriting is experiencing the identical transformation.

At this time’s songwriters don’t at all times learn music or play conventional devices. They hum into voice memos, write lyrics on telephones, and collaborate with AI. When need is current, technique turns into secondary.

The Ex-Puritan’s exceptional sequence Afterthoughts on a Month of Songwriting Critique, edited by Daniel Kincade Renton, affords important considering for this second. The contributors body songwriting not as a synthesis of poetry and music, however because the simultaneity of voice, type, feeling, and intent taking place without delay. If the craft itself resists clear definition, why can we insist on defining who qualifies?

Renton known as for an “overpopulation” of our crucial frameworks: extra analogies, extra disciplines, extra voices. I agree. The time period songwriter ought to stretch. It ought to embrace not simply the skilled, but additionally the instinctive, the experimental, the self-taught.

So who will get to be known as a songwriter? For my part the one requirement to be a songwriter is the will to write down songs.

This democratisation isn’t theoretical, it’s already taking place. Simply as vibe coding allows single-person unicorns in tech, the place one developer can construct what as soon as required complete groups, the identical transformation is coming to songwriting. Name it ‘Vibe Songwriting’.

What Is Vibe Songwriting?

Harlan Howard stated nation music is “three chords and the reality.” The purpose wasn’t minimalism for its personal sake; it was conviction. Vibe Songwriting takes that spirit into the current: begin with the sensation, then use no matter instruments it’s worthwhile to make these chords (literal or metaphorical) really feel true. Dare to suck.

In apply, a spark, a temper, a fraction, a texture comes first. You form it into one thing recognisable and memorable utilizing immediately’s accessible instruments. Expertise doesn’t exchange style; it removes friction so style can lead.

Rick Rubin’s challenge The Method of Code, a collaboration with Anthropic, is a meditation on vibe coding, drawing on Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, and is designed to make coding intuitive and expressive. Rubin describes vibe coding because the “punk rock of software program,” a way that begins with instinct quite than guidelines. In his phrases: ” the pc is one other instrument. It’s like a guitar or a sampler; it’s one other instrument within the artist’s arsenal. The rationale we go to the artists we go to, or the writers we go to, or the filmmakers we go to, is for his or her viewpoint.”

His strategy of trusting instinct over method, prioritising genuine expression over market calls for, interprets completely to songwriting. As he defined in a16z’s The Ben & Marc Present,  “you’re making your favorite factor, you’re in love with it, after which different individuals who just like the belongings you like will prefer it.”

This isn’t about changing human creativity however eradicating technical limitations. A poet can now create songs with out studying piano. A storyteller can craft soundscapes with out understanding mixing boards. The instruments have developed to serve the will, not constrain it.

Which brings us to the enterprise mannequin that makes this sustainable.

What Is Cluster Creation?

4 months in the past, I wrote about Cluster Creation, a industrial mannequin for songwriters within the AI period. The premise was easy: as a substitute of sprawling writing camps the place a dozen names get a sliver of possession, we type tight, complementary clusters that transfer quicker, maintain extra of the pie, and adapt fluidly to new instruments.

The Velvet Sunset and Aventhis are only the start. These formations are about to mushroom. The business dismisses them as curiosities, facet experiments outdoors the “actual” enterprise. I see them in another way: home windows into what comes subsequent. They show that artistic management now not wants a label’s infrastructure or perhaps a co-writer within the room.

However to really seize this chance, clusters should personal extra than simply the track.

Personal the Stack

Tomorrow’s songwriter can grow to be a Renaissance creator: both constructing multi-disciplinary groups or creating the whole lot themselves with AI help. Simply as one individual can construct a tech unicorn, one songwriter can create commercially viable property throughout all codecs.

Timbaland understood this when he launched Stage Zero and launched TaTa, his first AI artist. He’s not simply licensing his beats to AI platforms; he’s constructing his infrastructure, controlling all the artistic pipeline from manufacturing information to distribution. TaTa isn’t merely an AI experiment; it’s Timbaland proudly owning the entire stack: the coaching knowledge (his a long time of manufacturing experience), the artist id, the output, and crucially, the whole lot from streaming to merchandise. Sure, merchandise: the realm historically furthest from a songwriter’s attain.

That is the shift from passive licensing to lively possession. A Cluster is a project-centred formation that evolves based mostly on artistic wants: fluid, purpose-driven, and adaptable. Every creator brings specialised experience, enhanced by AI instruments they management. Collectively, they personal the whole lot, not simply the track, however all the artistic output.

As a substitute of splitting diminishing streaming pennies amongst six writers, three creators in a Cluster personal a number of income streams completely: composition rights, grasp exploitation, visible IP, artificial voice licensing, AI coaching knowledge, and rising codecs we will’t but think about. Whereas conventional songwriters battle for his or her sliver of 1 income stream, well-structured Clusters seize worth throughout each format and platform.

The know-how enabling this transformation exists immediately. The query is who will use it first: the platforms extracting worth from creators, or the creators themselves?

Historical past supplies the reply. From piano rolls in 1908 to streaming immediately, songwriters have watched others get wealthy from their work. Every technological shift promised equity; every one delivered new methods to take advantage of them.

That sample ends now. The instruments are right here. The clusters are forming. The selection is binary: proceed begging for scraps from a system designed to starve songwriters or construct one thing they’ll’t management.

In three phrases: Don’t beg. Construct.

Radical Self-Reliance

At Burning Man, camps type round shared themes: builders, makers, artists unite, every bringing their distinctive reward to create self-sustaining ecosystems. They don’t depend on exterior infrastructure; they construct what’s wanted. That is radical self-reliance: not isolation, however interdependence by means of collaboration.

Songwriters should embrace it now. Nobody is coming to save lots of us. No stakeholder will voluntarily share extra income. Songwriting 2.0 means creator-led clusters with full possession, the place small agile groups produce genuine work backed by clear copyright and sustainable monetisation. Possession trumps licensing.

It is a seismic shift. It calls for that managers evolve from negotiating percentages to constructing artistic ecosystems, that rights organisations reimagine their function for multi-format IP and fluid collaborations. (I’ll deal with that in my subsequent piece.)

Sure, the standard market persists. However watch the place the sensible cash goes. When Timbaland builds Stage Zero, when impartial creators type clusters as a substitute of becoming a member of writing camps, when AI democratises million-pound studios, they’re not adapting to alter. They’re writing the principles. The previous mannequin doesn’t simply exploit songwriters; it leaves cash on the desk. Clusters seize that worth. All of it.

At Burning Man, they are saying, “We obtain being by means of doing.” The way forward for songwriting isn’t one thing that occurs to us. It’s a world we’ll construct collectively, one cluster at a time.

Change is wildfire. We transfer or we burn.

Disclaimer: I’ve been writing quick tales since I used to be eleven years previous. I labored as a journalist after which moved to the music business. I like writing. I exploit AI as a instrument and I adore it. It challenges me, it helps me evolve. Whereas the concept behind Songwriting 2.0 was completely mine, I used AI instruments for analysis, readability and punchlines. By the best way – (this em sprint is mine) I pay subscription charges to 3 of them. They need to share it with the folks that created their datasets.Music Enterprise Worldwide