You may not even know it, but you’ve almost certainly encountered songs created primarily or even entirely using artificial intelligence. If you’ve been scrolling through TikTok over the last few weeks, you’ve probably heard:I run“several times, but there are countless others popping up across social and music platforms. AI tools in general, and Suno in particular, are becoming a big part of the music creation process. Nowhere is this more true than in the home of country music, Nashville.
ON this episode VergecastNilay and David are accompanied by Charlie Harding, a music journalist and professor who also co-hosts the excellent event I turned on Pop podcast. Charlie takes us through his reports on how songwriters use Suno and other tools to turn ideas into semi-polished demos. They can have any style and sound like anyone – and while everyone seems to be using AI to make music, not everyone is as willing to talk about it. Charlie also created a song for us and boldly destroys it with our prompts.
Then it will be time to create AI-powered music. And then, in a lightning round, we start with a celebrity guest appearance to talk about some font drama at the U.S. Department of State, with the only person we know really competent to break it down. Then it’s time for the next installment of Brendan Carr is a Dummy, plus our look at the Pebble Index smart ring, the new Disco browser, the latest on the garage door wars and more.
If you want to learn more about everything we cover in this episode, here are some links to get you started, first on the fight against Warner Bros.:
And on Nashville’s Suno obsession:
And in the lightning round: