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Song of the Day #5,467: ‘Sukiyaki’ – Kyu Sakamoto

Today’s Throwback Weekend selection brings us to the week of June 22, 1963, when the Billboard Hot 100 was topped by Japanese singer Kyu Sakamoto’s song ‘Sukiyaki.’

This was the first song by an Asian artist to reach #1 on this chart and remained the only one for nearly six decades, until BTS did it with ‘Dynamite’ in 2020. It is one of only nine songs not in English to top the chart, and the only one in Japanese. Extra credit to anyone who can name three or more of the others (and more on that next week).

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Song of the Day #5,466: ‘Roar’ – Taylor Swift (AI)

My final example of an AI-generated song features two artists once locked in a bitter feud. Taylor Swift and Katy Perry squashed their beef on their own a few years ago, but if they hadn’t the machines were ready to do it for them.

This is a pretty convincing rendition, in part because ‘Roar’ sounds a bit like a Taylor Swift song from the early to mid 2010s. That makes sense, as many of Swift’s hits from that period were co-written by Max Martin, as was ‘Roar.’

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Song of the Day #5,465: ‘Careless Whisper’ – Michael Jackson (AI)

Today’s AI-generated track is the best I’ve heard yet. This one imagines Michael Jackson singing George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper.’

I don’t know what sets it apart. Maybe the programmer has spent more time recreating Jackson’s vocals than others. Or maybe there is some quality in Jackson’s voice that makes it easier to render digitally. Or maybe the AI is on par with the rest but this excellent match of song and performer masks the imperfections. At any rate, this one is pretty special.

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Song of the Day #5,464: ‘Lover, You Should Have Come Over’ – Lana Del Rey (AI)

Yesterday we heard a computer-generated Jeff Buckley trying his hand at a Lana Del Rey song, and today a computer-generated Lana Del Rey is returning the favor.

For some reason, this clip segues from Del Rey’s vocals back to the original about two thirds of the way through, before switching back to Lana again. Not sure if that was a computer error or an attempt to make this more of a duet than a cover, but it makes for an interesting listen. You can kind of hear in real time the way one voice is morphed into the other.

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Song of the Day #5,463: ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ – Jeff Buckley (AI)

One of the most popular uses of AI in the music space is the resurrection of dead artists. This technology allows us to hear (or at least pretend to hear) new material from singers who were sadly silenced. This is particularly poignant when applied to those who died young.

Jeff Buckley was just 30 when he drowned in 1997 having released only one studio album (1994’s wonderful Grace). Several posthumous releases have attempted to capitalize on his popularity, which is just a pre-AI form of exploitation. I’d argue that the AI efforts are less cynical because they aren’t rooted in capitalism.

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