The music industry has changed greatly in the 21st century, and collaborations between big artists is now the norm. Having one pop star write a song for another to sing it is just how the music biz rolls these days. In fact, musical collaborations are even’t just between artists who are contemporaries anymore, or even living in the same time. Case in point—this “collaboration” between Britney Spears and Frank Sinatra. What if “Old Blue Eyes” covered Britney’s signature hit “Toxic?” Well, you can have a listen to it down below, and judge for yourself.
Via Futurism, we’ve learned about how artificial intelligence development firm OpenAI has created a new neural net called Jukebox, which can make new mashup songs in the style of over 9,000 different musical acts. OpenAI recently asked a pair of musicians and computer science experts named CJ Carr and Zack Zukowski, who were behind the algorithmically-generated music group by the name of DADABOTS, with this oddball request. And the results are actually kind of amazing.
Things like this have been attempted before, but they always seem to have a certain phoniness to them. But this Frank and Britney team up takes things to another level, because it really does sound like Sinatra. This new tech has opened the door for other similar AI-generated mash-ups, and maybe a whole new genre of music. Want to hear Elvis Presley belt out a Harry Styles tune? Or maybe listen to David Bowie pay tribute to Lady Gaga just as she did once for him? Now, it’s possible.
Of course, this also opens a whole Pandora’s Box of legal entanglements. This isn’t too dissimilar to using the CGI likenesses of deceased actors in modern films and television commercials. One thing’s for sure—it will be fascinating to see how the estates of these long gone musicians deal with this newest technology in the long run. It’s a wild new frontier.
Featured Image: Britney Spears