What feels different about generative AI is the speed at which it can produce something that once required far more time, equipment, and technical knowledge. In June 2026, fully AI-generated tracks accounted for more than 50 percent of new daily uploads to Deezer at peak, and the platform also reported a monthly average of roughly 90,000 such tracks a day. That number reflects one streaming service rather than the entire music industry, but I think it raises a much more interesting question than whether AI can make a good song.
If music becomes dramatically easier to create, what becomes harder to find? For me, the answer is the human experience around it. I do not think of music simply as a finished recording.
I think about the musician who spent years finding a sound, the club that gave an unknown artist a stage, the promoter who took a chance, and the audience that kept coming back. A song can exist without any of those things. There is some research behind that distinction.
A 2026 study indexed by the National Library of Medicine examined four studies that found the connection people experienced at live music events was associated with greater meaning and enjoyment during the event, as well as continued happiness afterward. Department of Health and Human Services has also identified social connection as important to individual and community well-being. That resonates with what I have seen around music.
Artists do not develop in perfectly controlled conditions. They play small rooms, make mistakes, change direction, meet other musicians, and gradually discover what works for them. I believe those experiences become part of the music because they become part of the person making it.
It is one reason I am not surprised when younger listeners discover artists whose biggest records were made decades before they were born. They are not necessarily connected only with a melody. They may also be discovering the personalities, histories, struggles, and cultural moments behind the music.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
