Noel Gallagher has commented on the AI-generated Oasis album that his brother Liam previously described as “mega”. And if you think you’ve already guessed what Noel had to say about it and don’t need to read any further, well, fine, you’re almost certainly right about that.
“These fucking idiots have clearly got too much time on their hands and too much money that they can afford the technology to fucking piss around doing that for a laugh”, he tells NME. “I’m saving up for the technology myself, then I’m just gonna dial it in to some computer and fucking churn it out when I’m 73. I’ll have 140 albums to go after I’m fucking dead to keep my kids in choc ices and fucking weed”.
The album, posted to YouTube under the name AIsis, was billed as a lost Oasis album from the late 90s, but was actually the work of musician Bobby Geraghty. He took an album recorded by his Oasis-like band Breezer and replaced his own vocals with an AI-generated Liam Gallagher.
Responding to all that in April, Liam said on Twitter that it was “mad as fuck”, adding “I sound great” and proclaiming it to be “better than all the other snizzle out there”.
Noel’s view, as you would expect, is basically the opposite. “Fucking hell”, he says. “‘Oasis: The Lost Tapes’. Really? Is that what you think it sounds like? You can AI the singer’s voice and his tambourine playing. Afraid you can’t AI what I do. As soon as you fucking can, I’m done, I’m finished, I’m retiring – I’ll just stick it into a fucking algorithm”.
Well, certainly all the guitars on that AIsis album were played by a human, but I think Noel’s confidence that he can’t be replaced by artificial intelligence might be misguided. The question is, would people actually want that?
There’s been a real boom of late in music using AI-trained voices, of course, and the AIsis album is not the first Noel has heard.
He says: “People kept sending me stuff like Ringo Starr singing ‘She’s Electric’. There’s not enough hours in the day. Do we need Freddie Mercury singing ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’? Does anybody give a shit? People are like, ‘Yeah, but it’s interesting, isn’t it?’ Who the fuck is it interesting to?”
Fair point. And his comments highlight the novelty phase that many AI tools are in currently. Though there will probably come a time when even Noel Gallagher is using AI as a collaborative tool, and we won’t even bat an eyelid.
