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It's so shortsighted. Musicians using AI visual art instead of having a sense of solidarity with artists are just digging their own grave. The real question is what role the label played in this decision.
I'm 51 years old and remember back in the day buying death metal albums based only on the cover art. if the artwork was cool, then I would buy it, and I have to say, about 9 times out of 10, the music was bad ass! Pay an artist to design your album. it just gives it a lot more personality and realness.
43 years old here, and yes… Death Metal cover artwork changed *everything* for me as a kid in the 90s. Seeing the cover artwork for early DISMEMBER, PUNGENT STENCH, VITAL REMAINS, ASPHYX, SINISTER, ENTOMBED, INCANTATION, GORGUTS, MALEVOLENT CREATION, etc. influenced me more than I can express. DEICIDE is actively killing the dark mystique that made Underground Metal so captivating in the first place.
I thought the art was weak even before hearing it was AI, and that’s the final nail in the coffin for me honestly. You can’t overstate the importance of a good album cover; it’s the first thing about an album you really interact with. This really shows that it’s impossible to use AI to truly replace and do as well as human artists would.
Thanks for bringing up the notable artists of the genre. Artists like Necrolord, Ed Repka and the legendary Dan Seagrave have their art synonymous with the genre. I can sit and stare at a Seagrave artwork for ages, admiring the details while listening to the music. And you appreciate it more because you realise that it was a human who spent hours to put the work in to create the piece. AI can't create anything original, it just replicates what others have done before.
Deicide could have held a contest where fans submit original cover art, and they would have gotten something a lot better. They would have saved money and gotten a publicity boost too.
Wait when has he died? O_O Considering how ha has made some of the coverart for Pestilence in the early 90s and they have just used AI art for their next release. o_O :/
Melanie, thank you for advocating for traditional art…there is a beauty to human engagement in art that artificial intelligence will never replicate authentically. Thank you also for the generous shout out.
Agreed! I think it’s ironic musicians who are artists themselves who advocate people to not stream, not RU-vid and buy their physical media their downloads, their shirts, their hats their mugs etc. buuuuut……are not willing to pay visual artists to do their artwork. It’s ridiculously hypocritical. If you have a limited budget? Fine, hire an unknown or starting artist. You’d be surprised how many rookies are actually really good and are willing to almost give their work away for free just build a resume aka portfolio. Now, agree to disagree on the new Deicide single especially the first one I think is rips!
Aside from AI art being completely uninteresting and void of personality, it's also incredibly lazy for accomplished bands to use AI for album covers. You telling me Deicide can't afford to get a real artist to do a cool album cover? I get why new or struggling bands may do that if they can't afford to hire an artist or whatever, but it's really lame for accomplished bands to pull that shit.
Thank you for putting this out there! Agreed, - photos and public domain images (thousands upon thousands at your disposal) are respectable options to use as album art. The ai art looks atrocious now, but in 5 years it’s going to be interpreted ten times worse. It will be cemented in this period of art like the terrible early 2000’s photoshop stuff but with an ethical problem to it as well.
Early 2000s Photoshop artwork was bad, but it still had a human element to it. AI generated imagery is "slimy" in its digital excess, there's something deeply repulsive about it.
I basically agree with every point you made! Any established band likely has quite a few talented artists in their fan base who would be willing to do it for a very fair price or maybe even nothing. If you arent sure who to use, why not have some kind of contest on your social media and have fans submit art. You'll surely find something cooler than this AI stuff and also be helping out the artist(s) at the same time. As for bands lacking the funding...depends on who & where you are I guess, but being in a band who will hopefully put out some kind of demo this year, I can think of at least 5 local people I know who could absolutely create some awesome art for the cover....and I live in a town of 600!! All kinds of art are closely linked and those of us who are involved in any of them should try to support each other, regardless of the medium we use to express ourselves. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Melanie 🤘🤘
Exactly. One of the earliest Death Metal advertisements I remember seeing as a kid was for 'Left Hand Path', with the infamous tagline in huge letters: DEAD HEAVY, DEAD EVIL, DEATH METAL!
Maybe it was mentioned and I missed it. Anyone notice how similar the new Deicide and Kerry King album covers are? Battle of the grand dad album covers.
Well, the discussion is always valid, but AI doesn't bother me that much. Actually the new Deicide album cover is not that bad, at least superior of their debut or even as good as the new Kerry King album, which by the way I don't see anyone bashing. What about AI music videos? There has been some already out now from bands such as Queensryche, Disturbed and Periphery. Doesn't those artist's labels have a budget? I think everyone will eventually jump on this trend, even the more extreme acts. I am a digital designer myself, and I don't think AI will prevent artists to make a living out of it. Love your videos Melaine, and you're good at rantings, so keep them coming \m/
Honestly didn't know a lot of this but it's not surprising. The Kerry King album was a real artists I believe. Thanks for watching! Appreciate the respectable comment of the discussion.
@@MelanieLovesDeathMetal yes, KK album cover was made by a fellow artist from Brazil (Marcelo Vasco) who also did the last one for Slayer. His art is amazing!
Hour of Penance's new album cover is probably generated with AI too, while the Hideous Divinity cover is a very nice Adam Burke's painting, I don't see a massive trend towards AI-generated artwork yet but some bands, like Deicide, are already experiencing a huge backlash which will make bands think twice before going into AI territoy.
Hour of Penance did use AI for their album. They were the ones that I was targeting the comment "you're here for the music not the art" because that was their response to someone on Instagram. I'm not a fan of them so I guess I'm saving money.
Yeah that new HoP album cover is a huge downfall, especially from what Gyula Havancsak has been creating for them for a decade. I remember when they had Pär Olofsson do the artwork for The Vile Conception back when that came out. This AI wave (that I hope does not pick up) will be remembered just like the death metal albums that utilized poorly rendered CGI in the late 90s. It makes me miss Mariusz Lewandowski that much more.
There are also longer-term implications of this that are pretty scary when extrapolated. It's 2024 and AI is pooling artworks created by humans (from the past up to this point) to create new AI artworks. If we are to assume that this trend will continue and AI is only used more and more as time goes on, what does it look like in 2044 where AI is then pooling AI artworks from the past 20 years (2024-2044) to create new AI artworks. At some point humans are no longer in the equation at all. And historically, whenever humanity and what we have to offer is no longer valued or deemed necessary, bad stuff starts happening.
I have a feeling the label has hand in this one coincidentally Kerr king is on the same label if you look at his cover art there are similarities between the two within the concept art but I will say the music of deicide makes up for the flaw.
I've been drawing and interested in art for as long as I can remember and one of my rules is not to buying albums with AI art. Yes, it's about the music. But why should I pay for your at best 6/10 album when you can't even hire some cheap artist? Overall, I'm against any AI art. Although it's more understandable when it's a fresh band with no budget, rather than old fucks saying that it's "moving with the times". I always loved the fact that art cannot always be fully described, but still look beautiful and AI just can't do that.
I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not too sure what i can add to the conversation. I guess the best I can say is that I'm kinda neutral about AI in general where I think it's half good, half bad, and I do feel for all artists that are affected by it because proper artwork is much better than AI, that I can agree on. Frankly, I try and stay out of many conversations about it because I'm scared of potentially being slandered for what I may say, you know? The only one I can really talk about confidently is the new Deicide album because I'm a new fan of the band, been so for a month and I'm on the hype train for the album. As soon as I saw the cover, I could instantly tell it was AI generated and was kinda disappointed, but I think it could have turned out a lot worse. I guess I can say I'm glad the band haven't embraced AI entirely as the artwork for the two new singles look to be genuine artwork and they've teamed up with David Brodsky for their latest music videos. My personal opinion on the album cover is it's definitely not great, but it's not terrible. I'm just glad the music is kickass so far in my eyes. Kinda like a Dance Of Death scenario. I do wanna say though that you're a great content creator, Melanie, and it's always cool to see you covering different topics. Keep it up!
I agree 54 YEAR old metalhead and just to remind everyone....in the 80's we bought records JUST BECAUSE OF WAY RECORD LOOKED!! THIA IA CRAP WOULD OF BEEN A BIG TURN AWAY!!
I just read an interview from Benton bitching about Slipknot not throwing them a bone for touring. It’s hilarious that he can go off about not getting support while simultaneously not supporting other artists. Truly the cognitive dissonance is impressive.
I want to add another comment on this. I did feel the same way about digital art in general when that started to take the album cover art by storm in the late 90s and early 2000s. To be honest I still do. I guess when I graduated from art school, computer art was still somewhat new. Photoshop was still a new program. I took a few digital classes and hated them. But keep in mind my concentrations were drawing and metalsmithing. Extremely organic hands on styles of art making. I will always prefer and give more credit to any art form done my hand over a computer. I understand a computer is just another tool like a hammer, a pencil or a brush but for me personally? I still think it’s a short cut in the creative world. I never took to Pixar animation either. I find it soulless and too mechanical. CGI I still think looks fake. No matter how good they make it I can still tell it’s not real. Rubber suits and corn syrup may look cheesy as hell but at least they are real and tangible. 3D printing is affecting my line of work to the point that is making me uncomfortable as well. Everything is being either done by computers or at least getting touched up now. I get it, I understand it but I just don’t like it. I’ll say this too on the new Deicide art. It’s definitely trying to replicate the original artwork from their first album. Which I love but why couldn’t have it been another sculpture or painting? Cost. Which is sad but technology is like Pandora’s box there’s no putting back. For every great thing it does it has a negative effect. We just have to weigh the positives vs the negatives.
AI art sucks, as a Metalhead who has listened to Metal long before the internet age… most of the blind picks of then unknown artists that made me give them a chance was the killer artwork from the likes of Iron Maiden to the first Death scream bloody gore .. i picked solely because of the cover art and ended up being a fan 🤘🏻😎🤘🏻
One absolutely awful example of AI art is the cover of the latest Angra album "Cycles of Pain". What confused me is that there was a thread at power metal reddit where most people discussed how much they think the artwork is fantastic. I don't know if it is mainly the younger generation of metal heads who don't care that much but it is really confusing. Or they just have bad taste.
I 100% concur that it’s upsetting and we should not support AI art. Especially for underground metal. As a tattooer of 26 years that painstakingly illustrates all of my work for clients I’ve got some opinions here. It took me years to learn how to illustrate contemporary tattoo art. Japanese, Biomech, Neo traditional and so on. I’ve seen technology cut a lot corners. I use an I pad myself now but procreate brush tips for Tattooer’s have become very much like cheating. I thought that was bad enough but alas it gets worse. Over the last 18 months I’ve seen some Tattooer’s that I thought were ok at tattooing but mediocre at illustrating get to professional level drawing in like 18 months. I was dubious of this but I’m starting to see the forest for the trees so to speak. Shits fucked up. Learn to be creative or go become an accountant or some shit. Fuck AI
Not surprised that Deicide went that way, since they write childish lyrics. I cant even listen to them, their lyrics ruin their music for me. Its not the content, their lyrics are just goofy and stupid.
Unfortunately we all knew this was coming. A good opportunity for new/young/unknown bands to get a album artwork, but a band like Deicide should have some budget to afford a real artist to create a good artwork. Btw. your own artwork looks way better than Deicides one 😅
You can tell so easily that it is A.I. and it looks cheap. I'm a little older so back in the day we would buy records based solely off of the cover art etc
Crap artwork, and might turn me of from buying the album, if it's good enough. Really enjoy the previous two albums by Deicide, but not impressed by the new single. As I said to Matt(Altar of Mattness) on his video about it, glue some horns on Glen's head and take a photo and use that as a cover, way cooler. But maybe Glen is doing this just to piss people of....... Cheers. 🤘🏻🤘🏻
I'm part of the dark photography community on Instagram, and a huge fan of art. It really is a disappointing cover. So many of my IG friends could've done something way more interesting, with a camera. Keep bashing AI, many of us don't want it.
@@michaelh2935 I'd search hashtags on social media. My original comment disappeared. Related to what you're looking for and type of art. If I get too detailed my comment will disappear. Nightjar Adam Burke is one of favorites.
Just gotta say, some of us don't have a ton of extra money, and the extra there is goes into recording and equipment and bla bla bla. Just gotta say that 30-40 bucks for a month and cranking out a bunch of half decent images that may or may not get used is a better return on investment. I'd love actual artwork for my upcoming ep but as of right now the budget says use AI. The part that really sucks is when people shit on a tool that fits a need because of the same reasons as organic trader Joe's hippies. And then those same people won't stick it out for the little guy to add insult to injury.
Why are people mad at Deicide? They probably have no idea that the art is AI created. They either worked with an artist who may have used AI to create the art or their record label said here are some options and pick one.
@@MelanieLovesDeathMetal You think Glenn Benton knows anything about technology & would even be able to say “hey, that looks like AI art work”. Haha, id bet money that he was still using a damn flip phone up to just a few years ago.
Nope ai I feel is a lazy box neck way to art ...a true artist can draw it out and it is much better because it actually came from the artists hands and brain not some bollocks computer generated crap bag period , 🤘🏼 anything else is junk period 👎👎👎👎👎😴☝🏼💯🤘🏼🥱
