I read an article in a recent Economist about how global music has now become hyperlocal. Taylor Swift is popular - so might make one think things would lean towards international shared experiences. We all love Star Wars, right? In fact, 17 of the top 20 songs in Denmark are in Danish. Brazil? All top twenty are Brazilian.
Interested in this trend, I wanted AI to give me a list of great new songs in their own idiom. Claude would have just given me a good answer. Chat wanted to clarify my process.
Of course, knowledgeable people would argue this or that. Like porn, you know good music when you hear it. This was a list to play with Spotify, not a Rolling Stone article. Any good answer was good enough.
Not for ChatGTP. It gave me answers where most of the songs were threadbare 1970s retreads or what grandmother dances to at a wedding. This is the new?
No. Songs from the last three years. Chat didn’t want to just decide.
Fine. Give me songs every younger person knows the words to - karaoke gems. For any country, I got the English equivalents of: My Way,
Bohemian Rhapsody, No Scrubs.
You like melody, not lyrics, Chat told me, based on almost nothing. Who are your favourite singers?
What?! I like Dylan, Simon, Cohen. Poetry set to music. If I can’t understand the language, sure, a catchy beat is nice.
And who is the Mexican Leonard Cohen anyway? I told Chat the Mexican Cohen is Morrissey. They friggin’ love the guy. He isn’t Mexican, granted. He is not Jewish. He does not sing in Spanish. There are no traditional guitars and costumes.
Chat said no. But was wrong because many people in America with a strong connection to Mexico don’t speak Spanish either. It’s the brooding. The melancholy. The introspection. The saudade.. We argued about expats and how many languages second and third generation Americans spoke, and whether this influenced their love for Morrissey, since people who spoke more English than Spanish might better understand his lyrics.
What are the English equivalents of saudade? No word. Lots of other languages have a similar word though. The best English word is saudade.
Fine, Chat. Give me the song every grandma knows. The cool song at weddings. 3 songs people only admit knowing the words to when they are drunk. 3 Secret Shame siongs people sing if alone in the car… popular when they were fifteen.
Do this in 50 countries.
No, said Chat. That’s, like, 150 things. Let’s do one country each week. Claude would have just done it.
Next week? Eeek. Bugger off. Okay. There are musical countries - Cuba, Mexico, US, England, Colombia, Nigeria…. There are cultural heavyweights: France, Germany India, China, Australia, Ireland…. There are cool places: Canada, Japan, Korea, Italy, Morocco… There are regions I wish I knew better: Africa, East Europe, The Middle East…
Do the Musical Countries. First, then… Just make a decision. Pretty good list.
Give me 3. Give me one from this year. Make 2 more, indigenous to that area… Song, group, genre, year, influences, lead singer, etc. No Top 40. No songs people will have forgotten in five years.
And I finally got some good stuff.
I think. The lists for the countries I already know well were great. It was sad to learn I naturally think in systems, maybe Chat does to and that’s how to talk to it.