David Bowie’s former producer Tony Visconti has said he thinks the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in music is “disgusting” but added that the late star would have experimented with it.
The 82-year-old is embarking on his final tour with Holy Holy, a group which plays the music of Bowie that he and bandmate Woody Woodmansey worked on.
Visconti, who produced 11 of Bowie’s studio albums including The Man Who Sold The World (1970), Low (1977) and his final record Blackstar (2016), told the Press Association: “He would have tried it (AI) for sure.
“He was always curious and if he thought it would advance the quality of pop music, he would definitely embrace it, but you know, people like him and I, I have to throw my stuff in the same basket, we have I, we don’t need AI, we have I.
“How did we ever get here without AI? We did. Woody (Woodmansey, the drummer in Bowie’s band The Spiders From Mars and Holy Holy) did and all that, and the AI, I find it quite disgusting actually.
“Because it’s crap, sorry to use that word.”
Woodmansey added that he could see artists who know what they want from a piece using AI to get that, but said he did not believe it would be able to create a piece from fresh that was as good as a human artist.
The drummer, who played on Bowie records including Hunky Dory (1971) and The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (1972), said: “If you’re just using AI to give you something that you couldn’t create, and then just going, ‘oh, that sounds good’, then you end up with a shallow piece of music that sounds like it should be good.
“It’s all about communication, you’re communicating an idea or feeling through music, so that somebody else can pick up on that feeling, or that message, or that idea.
“And without putting something into it, AI doesn’t have any ideas, it doesn’t have any message, it just repeats what you’ve put into it.”
Widely considered as one of the greatest artists of all time, Bowie achieved five UK number one singles and 11 UK number one albums during his lifetime. His best-known for songs include Life On Mars, Space Oddity, Ashes To Ashes and Let’s Dance.
Bowie was known for his drastic changes in sound and appearance during his career, beginning as a pop singer in the 1960s, before rising to major fame in the 1970s with the glam rock albums The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars and Aladdin Sane (1973).
He embraced soul on the albums Young Americans (1975) and Station To Station (1976), which saw him among the first white artists to appear on US TV show Soul Train, before plunging into krautrock influences on Low, Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979).
Bowie also ventured into genres such as dance and jazz during his career, and collaborated with artists including Queen, Mick Jagger and Trent Reznor. Bowie released his final album, Blackstar, on his 69th birthday, just two days before his death in 2016.
Holy Holy’s tour begins on Thursday and runs until September 29, with dates including London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Manchester’s O2 Ritz, two nights at Dublin Academy, and a gig at Belfast’s Limelight, with tickets on sale at Ticketmaster.