Devo and the B-52s Announce Tour... With an AI Generated Image
Devolution is truly upon us.
After performing on the same bill for the SNL 50th anniversary concert, New wave legends Devo and The B-52s are touring together with support from Lene Lovich. With Devo wrapping up their multi-year 50th anniversary farewell tour, and The B-52s leaving their post-farewell Vegas residency, these guys don’t know when to quit (not that I’m complaining). Even the poster on the press release reflects this indecision, with it being subtitled “One last orbit (maybe?)”
However, looking beyond the show dates to an image of a UFO over a flower field in a city, it is painfully evident that it is AI-generated. I don't want to explain the obvious, so see for yourself, and take a look at those windows.
Several outlets have already covered this tour, but no one beyond comments from disappointed fans on social media has mentioned this, so I, as a disappointed fan, will. For two bands famously composed of art students who create their own designs, and arguably the namesakes of “art rock,” I could easily be convinced that this was a decision made by someone else — the Live Nation logo at the bottom is very telling. It would also not be surprising for a band like Devo, which has always sought to be on the edge of new technology, to experiment with AI, and that would be fine if it weren’t so horribly boring.
The Residents are a band of a similar vein in terms of experimenting with tech, and they’ve been posting AI slop for months. The one slightly interesting thing they’ve produced with it was a video of “Artificial Ignorance,” a deepfake of the Cryptic Cooperation’s president (who switches to a different US president every time it cuts back to him) being interviewed by a Cherry with a human mouth. Any amount of interest that comes from it stems from the disturbing nature of bearing witness, and it shouldn’t be surprising that when you’re working with a medium exclusively built upon blending other people's work, you'll never produce anything original, thus, anything compelling.
AI has gone so far beyond marketing in music, and while there are headlines about streaming services taking measures to stop computer-generated songs from being uploaded, people are generating backtracks to sing over or modify their cover art (this is entirely targeted at metal singer Draugveil, who’s new cover features a leather strap blending into his metal armor.) For this tour, I understand that the bands, or more realistically, Live Nation, are trying to sell a product on a scale where details can be delegated to people who don’t understand how distasteful this is. But when it’s on a small, indie level like Draugveil, why? What's the point of putting effort into something you're not even doing if it's for a field of passion and not obligation? If you only want to sing and not make instrumentals, join a band. If you want to make a poster, draw a picture of a monkey or lobster and slap some dates on there, it’d be more relevant than the one they went with, given half the dates are in suburbs.