AI resurrects Nirvana (2021)
Grunge legend and 90s cultural icon Kurt Cobain may have died in 1994 but AI models honoring his legacy attempted to bring him back to life in 2021 via the generated song, Drowned in the Sun. Created by the advocacy group Over the Bridge, the AI-generated track was trained on a mash-up of around 30 different Nirvana songs run through Google’s Magenta software. Once analyzed, the AI models spit out the song’s melody, guitar riffs, and drums. The developers reportedly used a separate neural network to create the song’s lyrics.
Remarkably, the song actually sounds pretty close to Nirvana, odd dark, brooding imagery and all. Every element of the track is computer-generated except for the raw vocals. Those were laid down by Eric Hogan, a singer in a Nirvana tribute band. Sean O’Connor, a member of Over the Birdge’s board of directors, told Rolling Stone the Nirvana-inspired song was particularly difficult to create because the band’s mix of heavy distortion, fuzz, chorus, and other effects led to a crowded “wall of sound.”
