u/Embarrassed-Wash9996

Saw a piece this morning about Spotify's latest moves on AI music. Some of it I expected. One part I didn't.

They removed 75 million tracks last year flagged as spam. Fine. But they're also rolling out something called "AI credits," where you disclose which parts of a song involved AI, songwriting, instrumentation, production. Goes through your distributor, ends up on your artist page.

My first reaction was sure, transparency makes sense. Then I thought about what that label actually triggers.

Fully AI-generated tracks are already excluded from editorial playlists and deprioritized in algorithmic recommendations. That's been the policy for a while. So the moment you disclose honestly, you're not just informing listeners. You're flagging your own work for reduced distribution. Transparency has a cost here and Spotify designed it that way.

The new verification system compounds it. "Verified by Spotify" now requires at least 10,000 monthly active listeners over three consecutive months, plus real-world activity like ticket sales, performances, or merchandise. If you're working primarily with AI tools and not performing live, you're just not getting that badge.

I've been using AI music generators seriously for a couple years, Suno, Udio, Musicful, a few others. Real time goes into prompting, arrangement, iteration. Under these rules, that work gets labeled, sorted to the bottom, and the verification badge that actually moves the needle is completely out of reach.

Spotify keeps saying this is about protecting artists. Still working out which ones qualify.

Are people actually planning to use the AI credits feature honestly? Or just leaving it blank and hoping the automated detection doesn't catch up?

Always assumed AI music was still kind of a hobbyist thing. Then I went down a rabbit hole and looked up Suno's numbers from earlier this year.

$300M ARR. 2 million paid subscribers. Suno's CEO posted it on LinkedIn back in February. The valuation at their last round was $2.45 billion.

But the one that actually stopped me was 7 million songs generated per day. On one platform.

That's not what a niche looks like. And if the market is already this size, there's no way it stays a two-horse race. More competition means more tools, better models, more options for people actually using this stuff day to day.

Anyway. Did anyone else just kind of not realize how big this had gotten, or was I the last to know?

Jack Antonoff, the producer behind Taylor Swift, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, posted this on his Substack a couple days ago.

basically called everyone excited about AI music "godless whores" and said the whole point of making music is the struggle. if you skip the process you're not making art, you're faking it.

I get it. kind of. but also this is a guy whose whole career is being the person labels call when they need a hit. that's not going anywhere if AI stays a hobbyist thing. harder to stay neutral on the philosophy when your business model is on the line.

not saying he's wrong. just saying it's worth noting.

anyway curious if anyone here actually feels like they're "faking" something when they use Suno. or is that framing just cope from people who built their identity around access to a process that isn't exclusive anymore.

https://preview.redd.it/3o9ge5o41a1h1.jpg?width=1639&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=322feeacf1f0bd65b2a877653dc6cd078f0a4f8e

Been thinking about this and I genuinely don't know the answer.

AI and AI music quality has gotten kind of insane this year. Like the jump from last year to now is bigger than I expected. At some point it stops being a quality problem.

But I'm not sure quality was ever the real barrier. Viral songs aren't always well produced. Half the time it's just the right audio hitting the right moment on TikTok and then suddenly everyone knows it. That part seems almost random even when humans make it.

So can AI stumble into that? Or does a song need some kind of human story behind it for people to actually latch on?

I lean toward thinking it's going to happen eventually. Just not sure what it looks like when it does.

Kanye's been under the microscope for a while. But the one that actually stopped me recently was Chris Brown's BROWN — "Leave Me Alone", "For The Moment", "Honey Pack".

The arrangements are off. The guitars and strings have this weirdly clean, slightly weightless quality that AI tends to produce. Someone described it well: the arrangement is obvious, but the vocals and drums feel human enough to pass.

"Leave Me Alone" is the one I keep coming back to. Sounds like it never hit a mastering console — unbalanced, muddy in a way that's pretty specific to Suno output. Not lo-fi rough. More like generated-at-3am-and-shipped rough.

Which got me thinking: at what point does AI just become another production tool nobody talks about? Ghost producers have existed forever. Half the pop tracks from the 2010s had uncredited co-writers. AI might just be the next layer of that — quieter, cheaper, harder to trace.

I don't think it's going to stay a secret much longer. The tells are still there if you know what to listen for. But give it another year or two of model improvements and I'm not sure any of us will be able to call it with confidence.

Curious what else people have caught. Specific tracks, something in the mix that felt wrong, a vocal run that was just slightly too smooth — drop it below.

There's something about listening to a ballad that used to hit differently. You could just feel the weight behind it. The artist spent real time obsessing over every detail, how a word lands, whether a line needs to be whispered or pushed, where the breath goes. That stuff ends up in the final track one way or another.

AI music tools are genuinely impressive and I'm not here to trash them. Anyone can take an idea and turn it into a real song now. That matters.

What I can't shake though is this: I can give an AI my lyrics, describe the mood, upload a demo. What I can't do is sit with one line for an hour and decide it needs more grit, or that the chorus should sound like something coming apart. That kind of obsessive fine-tuning just isn't part of the process.

Melodies are close to mainstream at this point, honestly. The vocals though still feel like something going through the motions. Technically it works. Emotionally it's just not there.

Anyone else feel this or am I being too harsh on it.

(Not fishing for model recommendations or the "train your own voice" suggestion, aware of those already.)

There's something about listening to a ballad that used to hit differently. You could just feel the weight behind it. The artist spent real time obsessing over every detail, how a word lands, whether a line needs to be whispered or pushed, where the breath goes. That stuff finds its way into the final track whether you're listening for it or not.

AI music tools (Suno, Udio, Producer ai, Musicful) are genuinely impressive and I'm not here to trash them. Anyone can take an idea and turn it into a real song now. That matters.

What I can't shake though is this: I can give an AI my lyrics, describe the mood, upload a demo. What I can't do is sit with one line for an hour and decide it needs more grit, or that the chorus should sound like something coming apart. That kind of obsessive fine-tuning just isn't part of the process.

Melodies are close to mainstream at this point, honestly. The vocals though still feel like something going through the motions. Technically correct, emotionally somewhere else.

Anyone else feel this or am I being too harsh on it.

(Not fishing for model recommendations or the "train your own voice" suggestion, aware of those already.)

No background in music production here, so AI handles basically all of it for me. Lyrics, arrangement, sound design. Whatever tool exists, I'm using it.

Got me thinking about how people who actually know production are approaching this stuff. Are you using it to create demos faster? Training your own voice models? Or has it started taking over bigger parts of the process?

The question I can't shake is whether the song is still mine if AI did most of the work. For me it's a weird one because I wouldn't have made anything without it. But I'd imagine it feels different if you have actual skills to fall back on. Like does it stay a useful shortcut or does it start to feel like you outsourced the part that actually mattered?

Anyway. Where do you guys come down on this?

I've been trying to make a mashup from two tracks and it keeps cutting off right at the first line of the bridge — every single time. Never makes it through to a complete song, just an abrupt stop.

Burned through a ton of credits trying to coax it into finishing and nothing worked. Feeling pretty defeated at this point.

Is this a known bug or am I doing something wrong? Drop your mashups below — would love to hear what you've pulled off with this feature!