Mikey Shulman, co-founder and CEO of the generative AI music platform Suno, is facing backlash after claiming in an interview that most people find the music creation process “not really enjoyable.”<\/p>\n
Shulman painted a rather bleak picture of music production speaking on the venture capital industry podcast The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)<\/em>,\u00a0suggesting that learning an instrument or mastering software is too much of a hassle for the average person.<\/p>\n “It’s not really enjoyable to make music now,” he told host Harry Stebbings. “It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software.”<\/p>\n “I think the majority of people don\u2019t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music,”\u00a0Shulman\u00a0added.<\/p>\n Suno’s AI-powered platform allows users to produce songs simply by entering text prompts. Shulman\u2019s vision of democratizing music creation through artificial intelligence represents a growing tension in the music industry: the struggle between traditional, skill-based artistry and AI-powered instant gratification.<\/p>\n “If you want to impact the way a billion people experience music, you have to build something for a billion people,” he declared, apparently dismissing centuries of human musical tradition as too cumbersome for the masses.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not really enjoyable to make music now\u2026 it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you have to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don\u2019t enjoy the majority of time they spend making\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/zkv73Bhmi9<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Mike Patti (@mpatti) January 11, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The tech exec’s claims seem perfectly timed to justify the AI-powered framework of Suno amid mounting legal troubles. Suno is currently battling a pair of landmark lawsuits containing explosive copyright infringement allegations from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)<\/a>, which claims the company used copyrighted recordings without permission to train its AI models.\u00a0The trade body is reportedly seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each copyrighted work.<\/p>\n While he defended Suno’s technology as “transformative” on 20VC<\/em>, many in the music industry are bemoaning his comments for bastardizing the value of musical craftsmanship.<\/p>\n\n