Can AI really help your music career?: 5 myths and realities

By Jess Santacroce
Music Writer, Phoenix Radio

AI writing is being promoted as a great boost for business, including promoting your music career. But is it really a help, or might it be a hindrance? Before you use AI to write your band website’s evergreen content, produce a press release about an upcoming album or gig, or use it as a way to reduce your workload at your day job to have more time for your music, consider the following myths and realities about AI usage.

Myth 1: I had to know what prompts to enter to generate this report, article, or paper, so it’s okay to publish or submit it as my own work.

Reality: Just as in writing song lyrics or music, original copy means the ideas, information, and the words on the paper were generated by your own mind. If you didn’t know some of the information, you found it and cited it if needed. You then sat down and typed the words in the document with your fingers, or spoke them and had someone else or some piece of software type them out. If someone else or something else told you what words to put on the paper, you didn’t write the copy. Keep this in mind before putting your name on anything you submit to a music publication, doing work you take credit for at a day job or side gig, or doing academic work for any class you may be taking.

Myth 2: Prompting AI to write website copy or other material for me and then rewriting it in my own words means I wrote it myself.

Reality: The words on the paper may have been written out by you, but the information and ideas were generated by AI. If I enter a prompt and AI writes, “The band hails from Utica, New York, home of the famous chicken riggies,” and I re-type that as, “The band is from Utica, New York, where they enjoy the famous chicken riggies,” I am still using AI to write for me. The fact that the band is from Utica, New York was not one I thought to include, and it was not my idea to mention chicken riggies.

Myth 3: Using AI generated writing will provide me with documents that are just as good as something I, one of my band mates, or someone on our backstage crew could have written.

Reality: AI generated writing could at best be described as “generic.” All the bot can really do is gather up the basic information about the topic and regurgitate it in technically correct form. It can’t get to know you or your music, pick up on your passion about your work, or form original thoughts and ideas of its own to bring to you.

If you don’t believe that, prompt AI to write you a song. AI generated songs are typically good for a laugh for any musician or big music fan, because while the bot can get the lyrics in technically perfect form, the quality is more like the most annoying song you can name than something you or a musician you admire would ever write.

Myth 4: Using AI to do your writing saves a lot of time.

Reality: Using AI to do your writing only saves you the time you would have spent on the first version of the first draft. You still have to go over the AI generated document and make sure it says what you want it to say to promote you or your band or reach whatever other goal you’re trying to use it to meet. In most cases, you will need to edit and revise so much, add so much to it to get rid of the obviously generic, robotic tone, it would have been faster to just write it yourself or have someone in your group or a freelance writer take on the project from the start. Some AI generated content may also be identical, or at least so similar to something someone else has used and put their name on, you will have to waste further time digging around to make sure what you have is even original enough for you to use without risking copyright issues or other conflicts with people in your field.

Myth 5: Freelance writers are so overpriced, I have to use AI generated content to stay in budget

Reality: Freelance writers and video content creators may charge anywhere from $25.00 to $500.00 per article or video. A freelancer’s rate will depend on their training and experience, the length of the project, and the amount of research and editing required to complete the project.

Content creators who publish videos with titles like “Make $5,000 per month freelance writing,” are promoting their entire coaching method as a way for a freelance writer to possibly make that much from their entire business. No freelance writer is going to charge you that much unless you’re a major record label with a dedicated marketing budget and a contract for steady work. You’re likely to be quoted about $50.00-$250.00 for a single project for your solo career or band.

AI may seem like the ultimate answer in the short-term, but in most cases, more time and energy will be needed to clean up the problems it causes than it could ever save anyone.