Back in My Day, We Had Humans
I remember when you could walk into a record store—a real store, mind you, with carpet that smelled like stale cigarettes and hope—and you could hold a piece of music in your hands. You’d look at the cover, and you’d see a band of guys who hadn't showered in three weeks, and you knew every note was played by a person with a pulse and a drug habit. Now? Apple Music is telling us they need 'metadata tags' to disclose if a computer made the song. Metadata? I can barely get my TV to stay on the right input, and now I’m supposed to check the 'metadata' to see if Mick Jagger has been replaced by a calculator? It’s a disgrace, I tell you. A total disgrace to the art of the power chord.
I spent forty-five minutes yesterday trying to find where they hid the volume slider on my grandson’s iPad. It’s like they don't want you to use the thing. And now they’re sneaking in this 'Artificial Intelligence' music. I don't want my music artificial. I want it real, like the leather seats in my '88 Cutlass Ciera before the sun got to them. If I wanted to hear a machine make noise, I’d just leave the dishwasher running with a loose spoon in it. But no, the big-wigs in Silicon Valley think they can just 'tag' it and everything is fine. Well, it’s not fine, Steve Jobs! Or whoever is in charge now. Tim Cook? Sounds like a guy who makes bad barbecue at a corporate retreat.
The Metadata Mystery
So, these record labels are going to start labeling songs that were made by robots. They call it 'disclosing AI usage.' Back in my day, we called that 'cheating.' If you couldn't play the drums, you didn't get to be in the band. You became the roadie or the guy who sold the t-shirts out of the back of a van. Now, you just press a button and the computer spits out a melody that sounds like a doorbell ringing in a nightmare. And the artwork! They're tagging the artwork too. I saw a picture the other day of a cat with seven legs playing a flaming piano. They told me a computer drew it. Why? What was wrong with the cat having four legs? This is why the world is going to hell in a handbasket, people. We’re letting the toasters do the thinking.
And don't get me started on the 'distributors.' They’re the ones who have to send this information to Apple. It’s all just layers of bureaucracy. It’s like trying to get a straight answer from the city council about why they haven't fixed the pothole on 4th Street that nearly took out my suspension last Tuesday. I don't want a tag. I want a guarantee! I want a signed affidavit that no microchips were harmed in the making of this guitar solo. If I hear a song and it makes me feel like I’m trapped in a futuristic elevator, I should be able to sue someone for emotional distress. That’s the American way, and we used to respect that.
The Death of the Liner Note
I used to sit on my porch and read the liner notes of a 12-inch vinyl while the neighbor’s dog barked at nothing. You knew who played the triangle, who the producer’s mistress was, and where the studio was located. Now, it’s all digital 'metadata.' You can’t even hold it! If you dropped your phone in the lake, your whole music collection is gone. If I dropped my records in the lake, I’d have a very wet afternoon and some ruined cardboard, but I’d still have the music! Probably. The point is, these tags are just a band-aid on a bullet wound. The robots are already in the building, and they’re wearing our hats and eating our sandwiches.
I told my wife, 'Nancy, the music is lying to us.' She told me to go take my blood pressure medication and stop yelling at the Siri lady. But I’m right! If you need a label to tell you it’s a robot, then the robot is already too good at its job. Or we’ve just forgotten what a real human voice sounds like after listening to all that 'Auto-Tune' nonsense for the last twenty years. It’s a slippery slope. First, it’s a tag on a song. Next thing you know, your refrigerator is judging you for eating cheese at 3 AM and the car won't start because it thinks you’re too grumpy to drive. I'm not grumpy, I'm observant! There is a huge difference that the youth today just doesn't understand.
Conclusion
So, go ahead, Apple. Put your little tags on your digital files. I’ll be in the garage with my 8-track player and a lukewarm cream soda, listening to music that was recorded by men who knew how to grow a real beard. You can keep your metadata; I’ll keep my sanity. Now get off my digital lawn. I have a sprinkler system to adjust and a very long story about a 1974 carburetor that I need to tell the mailman.