Summary:
-
Jack Antonoff criticizes musicians using AI for art, calling traditional songwriting a “holy process” in Instagram post.
-
He warns of a future shakeout where “bad actors” using AI will reveal themselves through “slop.”
-
Antonoff emphasizes the importance of authenticity in music creation, predicting a generational divide on the issue.
Jack Antonoff has a name for musicians who use artificial intelligence to make art, and he is not softening it for anyone.
The 13-time Grammy winner and Bleachers frontman posted a journal entry to Instagram on Wednesday titled “Update #13,” in which he called out AI in music with unfiltered language and framed traditional songwriting as a “holy process.”
“What we do has become an ancient ritual,” Antonoff wrote. “You don’t have to write music anymore, you don’t have to record it and you don’t have to bring the band out and play it. And yet for us, the idea of optimizing what we do is a complete miss of the entire point of what compels us in the first place.”
He continued, “We have never been looking for this work to become quicker or easier. We were never frustrated by the randomness and magic it takes.”
Antonoff then turned directly to musicians using AI tools, writing, “So to everyone who is gassed up about the new ways you can fake making art, by all means drive right off that cliff. We’re genuinely happy to see you go.”
He predicted a near-future shakeout in which, in his words, “the bad actors will willingly reveal themselves through slop.” He closed the section with the line drawing the most attention online: “Nothing more embarrassing than considering there is a way to optimize that holy process. Godless whores.”
ADVERTISEMENT
In a follow-up paragraph, Antonoff suggested generational lines are forming around the issue. “It’s mainly the out of touch shouting about following this nightmare,” he wrote. “The new artists I know are genuinely uninterested in anything that doesn’t come from within.”
The post arrives roughly a week before Bleachers releases its sixth studio album, “Everyone for Ten Minutes,” on May 22. Antonoff, who has produced for Taylor Swift, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and Kendrick Lamar, has been publicly skeptical of AI in music since at least 2023.
