United Kingdom - Brentry

Hope Rose High is a product of Tom Collins' determination. He initially worked with someone else, but this project was stranded in mid-March when the corona pandemic broke out and everyone in Europe was urged to stay indoors as much as possible.

Collins, a lecturer in music technology at the University of York, decided to turn this unfortunate situation into an opportunity, and brought in his spouse, Nancy Carlisle. They flipped open their laptops, and in a matter of days created an AI Song Contest entry based on the same data that Collins had used in his first collaboration. The result is a totally different song using the same source material – proof of the countless possibilities offered by AI.

One big motivation for Collins’ participation in the AI Song Contest was his annoyance about what is being sold to us as AI: songs on YouTube supposedly generated by this technology, but actually made by people to a large extent. All fine, but be transparent about it, he says. He thinks this contest is necessary and good, because it broadens our understanding of what AI can and cannot do. 

Nancy Carlisle, who in daily life is an assistant professor in Psychology at Lehigh University and on sabbatical at the University of York, tweaked the AI-generated melody, chords and drum parts into a ballad, while Collins wrote the bassline, which seemed more or less implied by the AI materials. The text was also created by AI, but the combination, instrumentation and production of these materials comes from Collins and Carlisle. Their team name, Brentry, is an ironic nod to Brexit. Collins hopes the UK and the EU will jam together again one day.