What Nick Cave thinks about taste

@nick-cave · 16 positions · 1 change of mind · On ppll ↗

Australian songwriter and writer, frontman of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Since 2018 he has answered readers' questions in public at The Red Hand Files, where most of what he has said about how songs are made now lives.

Nick Cave did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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Only Nick Cave on taste. See everyone on taste

4 dated positions, 2019 to 2023, in their own words. Our reading of what Nick Cave has said — not written or endorsed by them.

4 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

1. 20 Nov 2023

   Our readingThe only thing a maker really controls is telling the good work from the bad; what arrives is not up to them.

   Their wordsWhere we do have control is in identifying which is which.

   ↗What do I do with these songs?theredhandfiles.com 2nd of 2 in this piece

2. 10 months earlier

3. 16 Jan 2023

   Our readingWhat a generative model makes is a replication of art rather than art, because it can only imitate or average the choices human makers have already made.

   OpenAI

   Their wordsWhat ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty. ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary but it cannot create a genuine song.

   ↗I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think?theredhandfiles.com 1st of 3 in this piece

5. 16 Jan 2023

   Our readingMaking something great is the opposite of resembling what is already recognised as great.

   Their wordsWhat makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite.

   ↗I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think?theredhandfiles.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

6. 4 years earlier

7. 23 Jan 2019

   Our readingWhat moves a listener is not the song alone but a human being straining against their own limits, which is why a machine can write a good song and never a great one.

   Their wordsWhat we are actually listening to is human limitation and the audacity to transcend it. Artificial Intelligence, for all its unlimited potential, simply doesn’t have this capacity.

   ↗Considering human imagination the last piece of wilderness, do you think AI will ever be able to write a good song?theredhandfiles.com 2nd of 2 in this piece