Kid Rock’s on the Wrong Side of History Again as He Takes Pro-AI Stance
Stop me if this sounds familiar, but Robert James Ritchie (aka Kid Rock) has opened his mouth about shit he doesn’t understand and once again, he’s said something dumb. Only this time, it’s about the AI slop that’s clogging up the music industry.
Kid Rock’s latest foot-in-mouth instance came about in a video by YouTube channel Core Memory. The main conceit of the video was that these two guys used AI to make a country song in the heart of the genre, Nashville. About three-quarters of the way through the video, they ask Kid Rock what he thought of the track and to comment on the state of AI in music. Though he initially stated that the song was “average” and that the hosts “might want to stick in the tech lane,” he said he was curious about AI but that he was unsure how it would affect songwriters.
“The songwriters, I have, you know, a special place in my heart for them. I don’t know how it works out for them. Like, there might have to be some legislation there or whatnot. Maybe for artists too.”
Oh man, legislation. Maybe his buddy Donnie “I’m totally not in the Epstein files” Trump will make that a possibility. Though I doubt it, because Trump’s been at the forefront of unshackling any restrictions on the AI industry. Oftentimes he’s siding with AI tech companies to the detriment of communities around the country with massive datacenters and industries getting overrun with the technology.
Of course, we’ve talked about the deeply negative impact something like AI would have on the music industry, not only in terms of the business model but also the art form’s human element. A computer can’t evoke an emotion or make you feel something, man. It’s just generative bullshit; it’s all just ones and zeroes following an algorithm that would never be able to create the next big breakthrough.
But there goes Kid Rock again, not knowing what he’s talking about but saying he’s not going to stand in the way of technology and change…
“I’m not against it, but I don’t think we need to be unreasonable about something we can’t stop… My attitude personally is, like, if a hundred thousand people want to be out there writing songs with my intellectual property, whatever, my voice — go for it. I hope somebody nails one. If you nail one, I’ll give you a piece of it because I get to go sing that live and we make a majority of it live at the gate.
“Now what’s going to happen is the other half of the country that are writing songs about how Kid Rock wants to blow Joe Biden you know, stuff like that, and I’ll laugh at that too.”
Well, internet. You heard the man….
