Deepfake music sounds fantastic. Are artists ready for this new normal?

I went hunting for the complete track on the music streaming apps, but couldn’t find it. Eventually, I found it in full on YouTube. I have to confess I listened to it non-stop a few hundred times. The warm voice, the clear lyrics, and the catchy music made it completely irresistible.

When I finally found the time to find some information on the Soul version of Without Me, I was shocked. It was AI-generated.

If you'd like to give it a listen, simply search for it on YouTube by its title on the Red Village channel. This is an account that openly states that it features AI covers, and it invites requests. These deepfake remakes have a name: Anachronic Music.

I noticed that other listeners were just as taken with the song. Comments show this: “I hate how much I love this. I end up paying much more attention and realize how good Eminem is at writing. You know, for not having a soul, AI does Soul so well."

Red Village is by no means the only account with AI music. There are many others. Soul’d Out, Fake Music Lab, Remix Realms.

The tsunami of AI-generated songs

Once you start listening, the algorithm will obviously throw similar songs up to you. The one thing they have in common is that they’re populated by songs you’ve known all your life, but each track is in another style and time. And they all sound amazing. Listeners feel a mix of awe, delight, and amazement and how far and how fast AI has come. Another thing expressed is how these songs touch them emotionally. “I thought Skynet would kill us, but it’s taking us to church and baptising us."

If you’ve ever played with an AI music creation service like Suno.ai, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how one can generate some quite high-quality music and lyrics with just a good prompt. Luckily, these services won’t let you alter a song or even use its lyrics, so you can’t take a favourite song and make your own version of it in a preferred style. Yet. There are obvious copyright issues with that.

The AI covers I’ve been encountering are created with a lot more tech, for now, but it’s amazing that there’s no band, no instruments, no real voice. As one user commented, “Which bar can you walk into to hear this?"

What, one might ask, do artists think of this trend? After all, their voices are cloned and the lyrics are outright “stolen". Their reactions have been powerfully expressed in an open letter by the Artist Rights Alliance, which had signatures from superstars like Billie Eilish and Nicki Minaj, living legends like Stevie Wonder, and the estates of foundational artists such as Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley.

The letter speaks of predatory practices and accuses technology companies of launching an “assault on human creativity" by training AI models on artists' work without permission. It also argues that tech tools are being used irresponsibly to steal professional artists' voices and likenesses. It warns that the proliferation of this technology will ultimately infringe on creators' rights and undermine the music ecosystem.

Already, examples of this synthetic genre of music have begun to appear in playlists on Spotify, SoundCloud, and YouTube. Artists have a lot to worry about, as a tsunami of AI-generated songs is expected to flood streaming services, substantially diluting the royalty pools paid out to artists and making it nearly impossible for human creators to sustain a career.

A revolutionary new instrument

Amazingly, in stark contrast to the widespread opposition, a forward-thinking group of artists is actively embracing generative AI, framing it not as a replacement for human creativity but as a revolutionary new instrument for expression and collaboration. This counter-narrative sees a future where AI empowers artists and deepens their connection with their audience in novel ways. Based on the reactions of listeners on YouTube and Instagram, I find this scenario not entirely impossible.

But that’s where the next battle begins. Lawsuits are already in motion over who owns a voice, a likeness, or even a “style". The ELVIS Act in Tennessee is one early attempt to define it, but the legal stage is only just being set. As artists, estates, and labels push back, and governments scramble to respond, the courts may soon decide what creativity even means in the age of algorithms.

And yet, even as the law catches up, culture moves faster. These tracks show that listeners aren’t fooled—they’re fascinated. AI may not have a soul, but it’s learning how to reach ours. The future of music might not lie in choosing between human and machine, but in discovering what the two can make together.

The New Normal: The world is at an inflexion point. Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be as massive a revolution as the Internet has been. The option to just stay away from AI will not be available to most people, as all the tech we use takes the AI route. This column series introduces AI to the non-techie in an easy and relatable way, aiming to demystify and help a user to actually put the technology to good use in everyday life.

Mala Bhargava is most often described as a ‘veteran’ writer who has contributed to several publications in India since 1995. Her domain is personal tech, and she writes to simplify and demystify technology for a non-techie audience.