February 18, 2020 project video ai

Coming way out of left field is an AI-generated "Travis Scott" aka TravisBott song courtesy of ad agency Space150:

Hat tip to the original AdWeek article with the full details.

I've seen some entertaining lyric-generating projects like lyrics.rip and SongwriterBot, but TravisBott took it to a new level of follow-through. Their model generated verses based on Travis Scott lyrics and Space150 performed them on top of neural network generated melodies and percussion, with a music video to top it off.

The video is quite a trip and the Travis Scott stand-in does a surprisingly fun job. If you don't have headphones or can't listen, peep the lyrics on Genius. One personal highlight though:

"I don't want no bean if you call me up
I don't really wanna **** your party food"

-TravisBott

The agency behind this video, Space150, is a “tech-focused creative shop” which I love. Check out their site for more info on their past projects. For example they created this AR collaboration with Nike and on the non-tech side they created this dope Stranger Things x Nike project. I'm definitely following their Twitter to see what they're cooking up next.

Once again, peep the article for more info on Space150 and more funny tidbits about the process, especially to learn more about the bot's "food obsession".

Besides that, I've got one last thought on TravisBott:

When I first heard the song I listened to a few lyrics before diving in and reading more about the bot. After a moment of researching and vibing I realized I had completely forgotten this wasn't a "real" song.

This made me question my own “critical listening” skills for a moment... but then again party songs don't always demand our critical listening do they? And who's to say which past hits weren't already auto-generated? Or rather, how different is TravisBott from the "song writing by committee" that already exists in the music industry? As "The Company Man" Justin Hunte would put it, I don't have the answers to these questions, but I can't wait to see where we go next.