Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.

Subject: Tech : Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: Nick Dow
Date: 29 Oct 25 - 10:57 AM

On YouTube usually explicit and completely false. They are AI inventions. The problem is that they appear to be using existing recordings and singers to produce the video. At the moment, nobody has been hurt to my knowledge. However, the dangers are obvious. Imagine finding a selection of 'banned' songs using the voice of your favourite singer without his or her knowledge.

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 25 - 03:53 PM

Yes. I've seen a couple of these Nick, I just scroll on!!

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 29 Oct 25 - 05:19 PM

Good advice unless they scroll on us.

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 05 Nov 25 - 03:08 PM

Could you give a couple examples?

Sincerely
Gargoyle

I truly do not understand.

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Nov 25 - 06:51 PM

Here's one from Anita Hardcok, a banned 1940s song titled "It Isn't Gonna Eat Itself":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhfLYJwkE9k

I assumed from the name "Hardcok" that Anita's songs were AI, but I didn't investigate the matter. You'll find much more at SuS Records.

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 06 Nov 25 - 08:57 AM

Funny stuff, and musically almost perfect. In contrast, most other style imitations by AI sound fake as fake can be. I wonder whether a human composer helped a little.

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: Nick Dow
Date: 06 Nov 25 - 06:59 PM

Which is my worry. I'm told the originator of this material is a drag queen in the US. Good for him. However if he is using existing music and recordings of (in this case) an actual 1940's band and singer, or worse an existing band playing 1940's style, do they or their estate know? Red flags are waving. Who's or what is next if so?

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 12 Nov 25 - 02:25 PM

I had seen these on YouTube occasionally, though I never listened to any of them. I wondered where these previously unknown bawdy recordings came from and now I have the answer!

Yeah, the Science Fiction of yesterday is now the Science Fact of today. (Sigh...)

I'll stick to my old Belle Barth and Ruth Wallis 78's!


Jay

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 13 Nov 25 - 07:50 AM

On the Bandcamp page for SuS Records there is a tagline that says:

"SuS Records - Bringing back the songs that never were!"

There's well over 250 of these songs there, all with risque titles.

A post from Sus on X says the music is AI, the arrangement and lyrics are human and 100% Sus.

LFF

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 13 Nov 25 - 02:46 PM

LFF, I read somewhere else that the lyrics and the music including arrangements were done by a known "songwriter software". Is your source genuine, or yet another fake? What do they mean by "the music is AI" – the tunes? And what about the voice?

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 14 Nov 25 - 06:07 AM

When they say the music is AI, I would imagine that all the music - the tunes, the sounds and the voice - is AI. AI has got pretty good at all that now.

Just to clarify the overall tenor of this thread - is the point that these aren't actually old bawdy songs that were banned, they are new compositions pretending to be?

It's essentially a modern songwriter writing retro nostalgic songs in the style of risque old music-hall/cabaret material? But using AI to do so?

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 14 Nov 25 - 06:16 AM

I doubt they are using ACTUAL recordings of bands - not least because sampling them and splicing them and editing them and overwriting them would be too much like hard work for whoever's making them.

Instead, they can just type in AI prompts to software such as Suno, which has trained itself on the aggregate sum total of all the millions of 1940s/1950s recordings out there. So no direct copyright infringement of any one particular singer or band.

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 14 Nov 25 - 07:26 AM

Grishka - I'm simply reporting what's online, I make no claim as to its veracity. But on Bandcamp they do call them "songs that never were" which fits exactly Matt's impression that they are new compositions pretending to be from a previous period.

Maybe they refer to them as banned songs from whatever period simply to get attention. How else might you market them?

LFF

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 14 Nov 25 - 11:14 AM

There is no doubt that this is new stuff, created using AI, and not really claiming to be older. But they imitate the old sound, except for the lyrics, which are "explicit" in a way that does not match the period, including genuine banned songs. That's the funny thing, not the bawdiness as such.

The remaining question is: To what extent and in what way were humans involved in composing the songs. My experience is that AI music is typically much worse, and lyrics tend to be not much better. This experience may now be challenged.

Subject: RE: Tech: Banned songs from the 1940's 1950's Etc.
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 14 Nov 25 - 11:56 AM

I would be surprised if there were any human input in those songs at all. For one thing there's just too many of them.

AI music has come on a lot, to the extent that you can't really tell whether it's used any real instruments or any humans. The biggest tell is usually that the music and lyrics are very dull.

Did you hear the AI-generated band Velvet Sundown? "They" have released a couple of very popular albums. They sound a bit Tom Petty, a bit Neil Young... they are an AI version of a classic early 1970s country-rock band.

They are very boring but some people clearly like boring...

Here's a link to one of their songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzX1YFZW0jc

I heard an AI-generated soul singer the other day and I honestly wouldn't have realised it was AI at all, it just sounded like 1990s-style "nu soul" singers like D'Angelo or Eryka Badu.

I do think folk music has a huge virtue and strength in this ugly new world, in that its backbone is live music. And that live music is participative in a way that very few other genres of music are - the performer often is the audience and vice versa.