Each technology faces a revolution in music. Vinyl killed sheet music, MTV reshaped stars into video icons, streaming demolished the CD. However 2025 feels completely different. This isn’t a brand new format — it’s a brand new species. AI artistes and bands aren’t simply knocking on the door. They’ve kicked it open, plugged within the mic, and began performing.
From Kuala Lumpur’s The Alice Experiment to India’s Trilok, Okay-Pop’s PLAVE, Silicon Valley’s Velvet Sunset, Timbaland’s AI star TaTa, and Higgsfield’s jaw-dropping USD 50 million AI idol Kion, the query isn’t “is AI right here?” The query is: the place does this depart us — the human artists, the musicians, the storytellers, the hustlers?
Malaysia: The Alice Experiment Sparks Awe — and Anxiousness
When The Alice Experiment debuted in Kuala Lumpur this August — Asia’s first totally AI rock-pop band with AI-generated members Alice Maeve Kim, Tae-rin, Kai, and Rumi — it wasn’t simply one other showcase. It was a cultural shockwave.
Audiences liked the fusion of English and Korean pop-rock, however whispers rose too: “If a machine can write, carry out, and “really feel” like this, what occurs to the dreamers taking part in in garages and bars, hustling for his or her first break?”
India: Trilok and the Soul Query
India’s Trilok blended Vedic mantras with rock riffs to create one thing haunting and otherworldly. Some hailed it as genius—a method of preserving custom by tech. Others fearful: If AI can mimic sacred chants, does it strip them of soul? Or does it give them a brand new stage?
Okay-Pop: PLAVE and the Idol Dilemma
Okay-Pop already thrives on constructed fantasy. Bluea wholly digital idol group, offered over one million albums in its first week. Followers screamed, cried, and purchased merch for avatars who don’t exist. That is the paradox: the emotional connection is actual, however the “artist” isn’t. So, what’s fandom actually connected to—the music, or the thought of belonging?
The West: Velvet Sunset, TaTa, and Kion
Within the U.S., Velvet Sunset tricked one million Spotify listeners into believing they had been human. Timbaland’s TaTa — pitched because the world’s first A-Pop star—raises eyebrows and applause in equal measure.
After which there’s Kion. Launched by Higgsfield lately with a $50 million contract and a $1 million Fendi endorsement inside 24 hours, she isn’t only a singer. She’s a company, a model, a machine that by no means tires, by no means complains, by no means calls for rights. For human Okay-Pop trainees who spend years perfecting dance strikes below grueling contracts, the arrival of Kion looks like each an insult and an inevitability.
If Okay-Pop fandom has taught us something, it’s that human ardour is unbeatable. Dive into my deep dive on BTS, Stray Children & fandom technique.
The Debate: What Occurs to Actual Artists?
Right here’s the heartbeat of the controversy:
- Authenticity. Does artwork lose worth when the creator doesn’t really feel starvation, heartbreak, or pleasure? Or is creativity within the output, not the origin?
- Survival. Can human musicians survive in an trade the place labels could desire AI—cheaper, tireless, scandal-free?
- Ethics. Ought to machines be allowed to duplicate India’s legendary Kishore Kumar’s voice, or impersonate Anthrax with an AI album (Loopy Sheep) with out consent?
- Alternative. May AI free human artists from drudgery—letting them give attention to imaginative and prescient, whereas machines deal with execution?
Even followers are cut up. Some name AI artistry “soulless mimicry.” Others shrug: If it makes me dance, why ought to I care?
What People Can Nonetheless Do Higher
For me, as a journalist and media strategist, this debate cuts to the bone. I’ve seen firsthand the sweat of musicians grinding in golf equipment, and the genius of artists channeling lived expertise into lyrics. I’ve launched a number of unknown DJs and bands within the early days of Assume Geek Media (2003-06) who now grew to become mainstream, can AI replicate the uncooked, messy, flawed reality of human creativity.
However right here’s the twist: AI doesn’t have to interchange us. It might elevate us. I’m quick studying that too.
- Think about an indie artist utilizing AI to design world visuals on a shoestring finances.
- A PR strategist scaling storytelling throughout a number of languages in a single day.
- A creator constructing a hybrid act—half human, half AI—that connects cultures throughout borders.
Used proper, AI isn’t competitors. It’s collaboration. Let me second that too.
The Future: Hybrid, Human-Led, AI-Powered
We stand at a crossroad. One path results in soulless effectivity, an trade the place algorithms out-sing the artists who as soon as bled for his or her craft. The opposite path—if we take it—is hybrid: human tales amplified by AI’s scale, human emotion sharpened by machine precision.
From Alice in KL to Trilok in India, PLAVE in Seoul, Velvet Sunset within the U.S., TaTa from Timbaland, and Kion in Higgsfield’s labs, the revolution is already right here.
The true query isn’t: Will AI change us?
The query is: Will we be daring sufficient to make use of AI to supercharge our personal creativity, branding, and survival?
Evolution, like Change, afterall, is the one fixed. As a result of the way forward for music—and leisure—isn’t machine vs. human. It’s these prepared to adapt vs. these left behind.
What are your ideas?
This text was written by Ethel Da Costa and was first seen on ALL COST.
For extra on the most recent in artwork and tradition reads, click on right here.
