A recording with fake voices of Drake and The Weeknd bombed and was taken down by the record company. Podcast explains the bullshit and creative possibilities of technology, which may be 'new autotune'.
Over a melodic rap beat, The Weeknd's high-pitched voice is all about his ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez, with insinuations that she cheated on him during their relationship. He is backed up by another equally powerful star, Drake, who appears to reinforce the hints.
It would be the dream feat, with the potential to top global charts, but it has turned into a nightmare for giants of the music industry. The problem is that neither The Weeknd nor Drake participated in the recording of the track "Heart on my sleeve", posted in April on the Internet by a user who identifies himself only as Ghostwriter.
The song, played more than 10 million times on TikTok before it disappeared from the platform, was made with artificial intelligence. The technology was able to simulate the voices of the two artists, from patterns identified in other vocal records of theirs available online.
It was not perfect, not even close. The recording has low quality, weird vibration and flawed vocals. It sounds like a pirated demo. Still, it managed to arouse some special feeling in people: it became the first algorithmically generated viral hit, which annoyed Universal Music, the Weeknd's record company.
Source: G1.