Why I Don’t Like AI Music (And Probably Never Will)

I’ve seen the comments:

“Composers are just jealous. AI can make music faster and better than you ever could!”

Honestly? That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Because for me (and probably for most musicians), making music has never been about being the fastest, or the cheapest, or even the catchiest. Music is about expression. It’s about putting emotions into sound. It’s about learning, failing, trying again, and creating something that actually means something, to me, and hopefully to someone else too.

AI can’t do that.

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So what’s wrong with AI music?

On the surface, AI-generated music can sound impressive. It’s quick, it’s cheap, it’s often catchy enough for a TikTok clip. But once you dig in, the problems jump out:

• Artifacts & glitches – odd noises, weird mix issues, sudden volume jumps. The kind of stuff no real musician would ever leave in.

  
  

• Random structure – a verse that never resolves, a melody that wanders off into nowhere, or a dramatic build-up that… just stops.

  
  

• Awkward tempo changes – try syncing AI music to gameplay and you’ll quickly notice that the beat doesn’t line up, or speeds up and slows down for no reason.

  
  

• No looping, no layers – in games, music needs to work. It should loop cleanly, adapt to gameplay, layer depending on what the player does. AI music doesn’t even think about that.

  
  

• No intention – AI doesn’t know why it put that chord there. There’s no story, no emotion, no human decision behind it.

  
  

And that’s really the point: music without intention is just noise.

I’ll admit, when I first tried some of these tools, I was impressed.

“Wow, it did that in seconds!”

But after a while, every track felt the same: generic, soulless, disposable. Music that sounds like music, but doesn’t feel like music.

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Music is more than a cheap trend

Right now, AI music feels like a fad: cheap, fast, disposable. But when it comes to sustainability, rights, ownership, quality, it’s a mess waiting to happen.

And here’s another thing: real music takes time. It takes years to learn an instrument, to practice scales until your fingers hurt, to understand music theory, to figure out how harmony and rhythm actually work. It takes late nights learning a DAW, fighting with plugins, and slowly building the skills to turn an idea into a finished track.

That journey matters. It shapes the sound, the decisions, the soul behind the music. AI skips all of that. It doesn’t struggle, it doesn’t learn, it doesn’t grow. And without that process, the result might sound okay, but it has no story behind it.

And honestly? I hope this trend will burn out and we’ll get back to appreciating real music again. Live music. Human music. Music that’s messy, imperfect, full of intention.

Because music should never just be about cost, it should be about joy. About meaning. About something deeply human.

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Final thought

I’m not jealous of AI. I’m disappointed that we’re even comparing the two.

AI music might be good enough for background filler, but it will never replace the feeling of a human sharing a piece of themselves through sound. And if you ask me, that’s the only reason music has ever mattered.