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Music Millennium canceled a listening party at the last minute after an uproar on social media spurred by the fact that the music was created with artificial intelligence.
Brandon Carmody, a longtime Portland musician, was set to have a CD release party at the East Burnside Street record store on Monday, April 13, for his new album, AI. Carmody wrote partial lyrics and melodies, which an AI software expanded into full songs. (Musical prompt that Carmody says he gave the software: “epic ’70s disco band heavy guitars.”) All the vocals are AI-generated.
What happened next was an uproar on social media in response to Music Millennium’s posts announcing the show, railing against the use of artificial intelligence in music. Commenters wrote that they were disappointed in the store, gave the event a thumbs down, and said it was hypocritical for a vaunted independent record store to promote robot-created music.
Music Millennium owner Terry Currier says a few employees came to him and said they didn’t support hosting an AI artist. Then he heard that some customers were planning a protest. Currier remembers a similar uproar at Music Millennium when synthesizers and drum machines came out.
Currier told Carmody on Saturday, April 11, that he was canceling the event and announced it on social media the morning of the scheduled April 13 performance. A post shared later the same day clarified that the show was canceled after members of the community reached out with concerns about AI music.
“This is a little too much,” Currier says. “I’m not looking to incite any trouble.”
Carmody’s album AI came out April 5. He has been a musician in Portland since 1998 and says he played a CD release show at Music Millennium once before, in 2013. Currier says he booked the listening party based on Carmody’s previous live performance at the store.
Carmody says a Paul McCartney concert last year inspired him to try to make arena-sized music for the first time using AI.
“I tried it and it was astonishing,” Carmody says. “It took songs that I have little pieces of and turned them into things that sounded like big rock songs. It was just absolutely amazing.”
He’s upset about the cancellation, but respects Music Millennium’s instinct to stand up for real-life bands and artists.
“I can understand Music Millennium needs to come down on the right side of that one.”
Carmody hesitated before answering a question about whether all this controversy would actually end up being good publicity.
“I don’t know. I’m still processing. I expected to literally be on my way home from an event, you know, riding high on the hog, hopefully gotten selfies and sold CDs. Now I’m trying to see whether or not other record stores want it, honestly,” Carmody told WW on Monday night.
