photo by Illustration by Josephine Lim

As you scroll through new music choices, a name catches your eye: Noonoouri. Intrigued, you click on her music, seeing a song with a German DJ by the name of Alle Farben. After you listen, you decide to learn a little bit more about the artist. But you soon discover that it is not a human musician, but rather an AI generated artist. 

Noonoouri is the first AI artist released by Warner Brothers Central Europe and has been a digital entity since 2018. Created by German graphic designer Joerg Zuber, Noonoouri was conceived as a 19-year-old metaverse avatar, as reported by Interesting Engineering.

Noonoouri’s debut song, “Dominoes,” may have amassed 168k views in the initial weeks, but her traction is slowing down. The entire idea of the AI pop artist seems to sexualize a young girl, who was dressed in a revealing outfit. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail with her bangs hanging in her face.

Along with the cover and music video, the music isn’t anything better than average. Listeners can hear how fake it is, and overall, the lyrics don’t make sense. The title, Dominoes, seems to be the main word in the song. The lyrics which include “Watch them fall / like domi-dominoes domi-dominoes. “

The singer herself has a bit of a raspy tone, but a bit of giveaway that her voice has been AI-generated. Her voice is a little high pitched, but not overly plastic, or fake as some X users believe. Her lyrics in the pre-chorus “You ain’t stopping my wave / Pick ’em up again knock ’em down / Until they all get gassed out.” could relate to younger people, like the gen z when they attempt to find love.  A lot of music lovers really just like feeling the human connection, myself included. The feeling that brings us joy and to have lyrics that connect with us is great, although the video execution was poor. 

Noonoouri will not be the last AI-generated artist, but hopefully this trend will come and go quickly. The use of AI within the music industry isn’t a good idea. It would be as if you mixed Ice Cube and kid-friendly shows like Spongebob or Peppa Pig. It wouldn’t make sense. It really isn’t worth the time, as it could be hard to understand the meaning behind the song. Could it have a hidden meaning? No one really knows. 

But let’s imagine that Noonoouri gets some traction, generates a fan base, and then, like all up-and-coming musicians, goes on tour. Would it be cool? A bust? It would probably be a bust as it would be hard to project a generated AI onto a stage if it could just be put on a screen. Fans would go crazy to see that an AI that is the first generated artist is in their city or their state as for her first tour. One of the larger problems are tickets. If they are too high, people won’t buy them. If they’re too low, no profit is made. Another problem would be the sound. Does her creator make changes to her voice to get a more ‘authentic’ concert experience? But there isn’t a substitute for the real thing, and Noonoouri just isn’t it.