Chords Of Truth – Echoes

Chords Of Truth – Echoes – Singles Review

Okay.  So.  I’m gonna preface this whole review by saying that I’m actually a really big fan of people like Jason Garriotte of Chords Of Truth.  Dude is a completely positive force on this planet and a heck of a nice guy…to me, that kind of stuff matters.  I don’t want anyone out there to get that confused with fully understanding the man behind the music…but I think that our paths have crossed throughout the years because even in the instances where things are tougher to figure out, there’s a mutual respect we can always fall back on.  Jason’s always served highly altruistic purposes that are intertwined with his music; I’ve always appreciated where he’s come from and the authenticity in his perspective – he’s genuine in all that he does as far as I’ve ever been able to tell.  Sometimes I really like the music he’s made, and I’ve also experienced moments along the way where I haven’t been quite as enthusiastic about it – but I’ve always appreciated the uniqueness of his point of view and the value that it has the for people listening.

When I was recently contacted about the fact that he’d put out a STAGGERING number of ‘new albums’ – FIFTEEN in total…I honestly thought it was a typo.  I thought there had to have been a mistake in there somewhere, and that it was likely fifteen new songs.  I was wrong.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been off by so much mathematically before to be truthful…and that’s saying something, because I am truly terrible at math.  Anyhow.  Fifteen albums.  Legitimately.  All created from AI out of past songs that have been put out by Chords Of Truth.  I don’t know if anyone out there has gotten more mileage out of their material than Jason has in the history of music.  Heck, when I first crossed paths with him more than twelve years ago, I was already reviewing an album of his that was a ‘remixed double LP’ called Reflections Of Reality.  He’s always had an interest in seeing what else can be done with a song, and I fully respect that…I think there are far too many that don’t go down the avenues he travels with his music, and there’s always something fun that can be done to revitalize material from the past.  But AI?  To say I’m skeptical would be putting it mildly.  When I push play, I’m completely expecting to discover listenable songs that likely sound way more like Jason than I’m probably comfortable with, in a variety of genres & different styles…and yes…I’m open to seeing what we’ve got here.  Does this mean you should all open up the floodgates to AI and start sending me fifteen albums of your own?  Please do not do this.

AI IS something we’re all going to have to reckon with and cross paths with at some point as creatives – it’s simply way too late to put that genie back in the bottle already, even as new as the technology still seems to many of us.  Obviously, we all have our preconceived notions of what it is, how it contributes, and how it can affect art – I am viciously uninterested in having it assist me in anything that I do – that’s who I am.  Beyond that, I’ve yet to see or hear much that has convinced me the machines deserve my time…but believe it or not, I am open to the possibility that that could change.  I’ve learned as little as I can about it to-date, so this will be somewhat of a new experience for me…checking out all this AI-based stuff that Jason’s been up to and the Lucid Principles he’s created to support the work he’s doing.  From what I can tell, it’s a little bit like the self-help section of the bookstore come to life through a set of lessons and parables that come along with the new material & old songs he’s written throughout his career…and even though I’m about as enthusiastic towards the whole self-help industry as I am about AI – I really do keep an open mind as best I’m capable.  I also recently watched John Oliver’s feature on AI content during Last Week Tonight (Scary Jason…you should watch that!) and then because the almighty algorithms tuned into what I was doing, I ended up checking out “The Fall Of Trump” by Eminem.  Though of course, it wasn’t Eminem at all…it was some other AI-generating content creator that goes by the handle of lil Byte.  Of course, it’s released online to certainly make it look like it’s a new Eminem song…which is again, where we start swimming in the grey areas of how AI can be a good thing, but can certainly be exploited in a million different ways, especially as it begins to invade the art world.  For the moment, I definitely hope Eminem learns about this, and sues lil Byte into the oblivion of the ether.  Was it convincing stuff?  Sure!  About 95% of it really, really was.  That’s the thing though – Eminem has never put less than 100% into a performance throughout his entire career…that’s not me saying his material is always great, that’s not how I feel – but his standards for performance have never been anything less than impeccable.  So to me, I got about four bars in, at this point still assuming I was listening to a new Eminem song mind you, before I realized that I had to be listening to an AI clone of him.  There were choices being made that I simply couldn’t believe he would make, and that’s what tipped me off…but sure…to be fair, 95% of the way to being totally believable is pretty impressive.  Frightening for its implications of course, but yes…impressive too.  In the right hands – like a person like Mr. Garriotte here for example, I firmly believe great things COULD be done.  In the wrong hands, we’re continuing to open up Pandora’s box of misinformation & disinformation without any real consideration.

My concerns are simple – Jason has two hands.  The hands that would exploit AI, far outnumber that in a world filled with meaningless content creation for a trivial amount of financial gain and clout chasing.  Anyhow.  I have clearly digressed.  Let’s have a listen to what all this stuff sounds like, shall we?  I’m going to randomly poke open these AI-generated Chords Of Truth songs and react in real-time for ya.

And so I clicked on “A Good Time (Beach Pop Echo),” the first in the list of Lucid Principles from the mind of Jason Garriotte.  My first thought was about how Jason had mentioned, somewhere along the way in my research, about AI’s ability to do so many different things that he just couldn’t otherwise…at least, presumably, without spending years and years working on different styles and such.  I could go into the whole ‘and who would want to do THAT speech’ about how artists probably should be willing to spend that kinda time on their material…but I’ll assume y’all understand how I feel coming from the other side of the fence & all.  My second thought was completely in agreement with him – I’ve never heard Jason do anything like what you’ll hear on “A Good Time (Beach Pop Echo)” – and short of pressing the right buttons and supplying the right prompts…I’m still not sure that I actually HAVE.  I’ve heard AI do an uncanny impression of what it would be like for Jason to take “A Good Time” in this direction…and don’t get me wrong, I think it would be AMAZING to hear something I did that I know I didn’t actually do – I can fully understand that, it’d be mind-blowing.  Plus…then you start considering how useful of a tool that AI could be in terms of writing a song, and then seeing what else you could potentially do with it, in order to determine what might actually sound best.  I don’t know that that’s always going to be useful for artists/bands so much as songwriters, but sure, I can definitely hear how something like this could be used right off the drop.  Beyond that, honestly, “A Good Time (Beach Pop Echo)” does sound great – I’d even go as far as to tell ya that it sounds seamless to me, and more perfected than I’ve personally heard any AI music to be so far.  Which again, is terrifying on SO MANY LEVELS JASON, but still cool too; I get it.

Then I figured I’d check out some Blues Rock, because that’s not usually my genre and I’m already well beyond my comfort zone anyway.  Interesting to hear what AI’s take on Blues Rock is through the song “Authenticity” – I think we could definitely have a TON of debate about the stylistic properties on display here…this is straight Pop/Rock to me and I can’t discern an ounce of the Blues in here anywhere.  Does it sound good?  Sure does!  Heck, it’s pretty much made Jason into a one-man version of Imagine Dragons…and obviously that could expand his potential reach massively.  That being said, I’ve never been a fan of Imagine Dragons personally, because that whole songwriting-machine type of formulaic music ALREADY sounds like what I’d think AI tunes would be like, so it’s never been what I’d want to hear.  My main beef with “Authenticity (Blues Rock Echo)” much more revolves around the inaccuracy of the sound for what it has been labelled as…but show me a day where I haven’t read a press release from some promo company that did the exact same thing with an artist’s music they’re promoting and I’ll show you I was off that day.  Inaccuracies in this instance occur every day of the week and are hardly the fault of AI, but I’m not all that impressed by its assessment of what Blues Rock sounds like, even though I do like the sound of what I hear.  Also, it’s weird to be listening to an AI-generated version of a song called “Authenticity” served up in a different style than its original, isn’t it?  We live in the Twilight Zone.

Let’s see what a “Flowing Echo” would sound like.  I pushed play on “Darkness And Light,” and of course, this is about as far away from anything I’ve ever heard from Chords Of Truth that I’ve experienced so far.  Here he’s swapped out his own vocals and replaced them with a female lead…which is…again…kind of mind-blowing when you think about it.  I think there was a lot of things I was expecting to find, but it really hadn’t occurred to me that I’d be listening to other ‘singers’ that weren’t even based on Jason!  I mean…I guess the AI still has to train on his voice and songs and all that, but yeah…you get what I mean – this ain’t Jason!  Does it give new dimension and depth to “Darkness And Light?”  Sure!  I’m not going to be the guy that suggests it doesn’t.  Do I think there’s value in going the AI route, when Jason is already well aware that he could just pick up the phone or send an email to a remixer & a female lead singer and get something back that would be just as good as this?  Honestly, yes – I still get it.  While I would argue there’s going to definitely be a preferred route to go within the ARTIST COMMUNITY – as in, NO AI – what Garriotte’s displaying perhaps more than anything else is the sheer level of convenience.  I can’t argue against being able to quickly prompt our way to something that sounds as good as “Darkness And Light” does…that’s quite amazing really, and clearly way faster than creating the alternative.  Should everything we do be super easy?  I’m never gonna be the guy to advocate for that.  Do I think that, as an introvert, this opens up a tremendous amount of possibilities for people that don’t have the gift of being able to talk to others, or a community of musicians that they could work with?  I do.  I’m still going to argue that the internet already essentially solved that problem, but I do think that there’s still a whole lot of value for the introverts out there, perhaps more-so than any other group.

A little more random…let’s try the “Freedom Is (Anthemic Classic Rock Echo)” from side A of the Lucid Principles (pay no attention to how I select things…the list is simply alphabetical and I’m just trying to be funny – ignore me until I am).  Interesting!  Jason…you and I both know this isn’t it either…this is about a million miles removed from Classic Rock – this is Modern Country if we’re gonna label it properly.  So right now…the math is pretty straightforward – I can trust AI to pump out a track that sounds really damn good, but I can’t trust it to know what it’s actually doing in the sense of specifics.  Prompts are prompts…I’d assume we can only get them to be as close as we can, for now.  I’ll tell ya this though, and I mean this sincerely – I’ve honestly enjoyed everything I’ve heard in this series of Echoes so far – no label or mislabel would affect that.  These are quality tunes, and in that respect, I’ve definitely been having a great time in listening.  Plus, I like things that make me think…it’s been neat to consider all this, even if I’m not yet at the point where I feel like I could fully support the use of AI.  This whole method opens up options, potential, and possibilities…I respect that – but more than anything, it saves time.  I don’t yet know how I feel about that fundamentally…I’m a simple blood, sweat, and tears kinda dude.

I clicked “Love Song” next…and this was neat, because I got my choice of either going back into Blues Rock again, or back into the Flowing Echoes.  My personal taste is closer to the Flowing Echoes sound, so I naturally went left instead of right – let’s see what the Blues Rock version of “Love Song” is like, and whether or not AI gets any closer to what the genre actually sounds like this time around.  Hmm…first impressions…I mean…it’s got Jason sounding more like Ed Sheeran-meets-Michael Buble-meets Imagine Dragons…and I’ll let you decide how many of those names you associate with Blues Rock.  Far be it from me to tell AI to get itself an education, but it clearly needs some exposure to what the genre is really like.  There ARE more trace elements of Blues Rock within “Love Song (Blues Rock Echo)” but they’re like how your nose can often smell an ingredient that still eludes your taste buds – I want more distinct flavor if we’re going to label things as specifically as they are.  Remember, AI-based or not, if you’re putting things out under your name, this still becomes a reflection of YOU and your own knowledge – and right now, I’d say that Jason’s got a potential issue on his hands that could affect his own credibility.  I think as listeners, we all want to trust that the artists/bands we’re listening to know and understand their sound…whether it’s promoters, or AI doing it wrong, I do not care – it still threatens the credibility.  So yes…I’d advise some caution here…because while it does sound good, it’s definitely misleading too.

“Pop Or Soda” – I just like the name, so we’re clicking that.  Same options at the moment as the last cut I checked out, so let’s go with the Flowing Echoes version this time.  A lot of this stuff I’ve heard so far has definitely got Jason sounding a lot more like Ed Sheeran than himself…and that might too be a concern.  Look at it this way – if we all sound like the same thing…then we all sound like the same thing – and that should be something that worries ALL of us.  Anyhow.  “Some people like to criticize” – right Jason?  I was probably the least impressed by this one so far in terms of whether or not it appealed to me directly, but could I imagine other people out there liking “Pop Or Soda (Flowing Echo)?”  Sure!  You bet.  Nothing ever seems to be glitchy or feels like it’s stitched together…everything flows brilliantly like it was done by professionals, and there’s no arguing against the degree of listenability these AI songs possess.  Do I feel right about listening to AI-generated tunes?  Don’t know that I’m there yet either – but I very much like how much these songs have made me have to consider what’s important to me.  There are a TON of folks out there in this world that’ll tell you right to your face that they couldn’t care less about where the music comes from or who made it as long as it sounds good & they can sing along.  “Pop Or Soda (Flowing Echo)” is pretty geared towards the masses in that regard…it’s highly accessible.

Alright…so…I might have to switch up my method a little bit here as the Lucid Principles site is still being developed and when I clicked on the next track, I was again presented with the same options…so let’s see here…let’s see what I can find when I click on the Bluegrass Trap Fusion version of “The Future.”  Now I’m realizing that Jason’s already got five more albums than he did when we first started talking about this AI-stuff doesn’t he?  Are my eyes deceiving me, or are there TWENTY albums now instead of FIFTEEN?  Hit up that John Oliver segment on AI Jason…quicker rather than later my friend.  If there’s one label you really wanna avoid, it’s being considered “AI-Slop” – he’ll tell ya all about that.  Anyhow.  I can’t imagine myself liking anything that would be considered to be Bluegrass Trap…so heck yeah, I’m interested – convince me!  Annnnnnnnnd…the verdict is…yikes.  C’mon Jason.  You know I love you bud, but this ain’t it.  This is as loosely Bluegrass anything as I’ve ever heard, and it’s non-existent when it comes to any traces of what we consider Trap music to be – so what are we doin’ here?  You wanna know the real concern once again?  The Imagine Dragons/Ed Sheeran thing ain’t going away no matter what I seem to click on…and I think that, from the listening side of things, the diversity is non-existent, objectively speaking.  I get that I’m selecting things purely at random and I’m positive there will be better representations of this sound or that sound in TWENTY ALBUMS worth of stuff…but by that very same token, it should be massively concerning that no matter which genre or style I’m clicking on, we’re hearing things come out with a very similar end product that’s not half as versatile as being advertised.

Funk!  Everybody loves the Funk, right?  AI even has to love the Funk, doesn’t it?  If the machines don’t get the Funk then I’m about to lose all hope for the future ahead.  If I click on “Tune Your Mind (Psychedelic Funk Echo)” Jason…it’s gonna sound like Funk, yes?  I’m counting on you here brother-man.  *clicks play.  Okay…promising…I can live with this.  It’s a little more digitalized than what I’ve previously heard…a little more noticeably AI, or at least effects-heavy…but at least stylistically, it IS closer to the genre that it’s aiming for.  I think what’s happening here is that AI also understands the reasoning behind WHY we’d be doing what we’re doing in making music through methods like this – we’d be doing it for the same reasons anyone gets into the biz or grabs a guitar to begin with – to be heard.  So in considering that, it sounds like each genre is highly infused with POP sensabilities…and that’s where we get a general consensus like Ed Sheeran or Imagine Dragons-esque sound that can’t seem to be escaped no matter which style you click on, because that’s massively popular stuff the planet earth can’t get enough of.  So is it Funk?  No – it’s Pop-Funk, but I can live with that.  Is it Psychedelic?  Bro…don’t even get me going down this rabbit-hole – NO!  A kaleidoscopic visuals-based video does not Psychedelic make, though YES, I do enjoy watching this kind of stuff & I can’t see that will ever change anytime soon.

What else we got here…let’s see, let’s see.  80s Pop.  Sure!  Why not?  We KNOW that AI definitely has a grip on what Pop music is based on what we’ve heard, so let’s see if it can dial itself in a bit more specifically than it has proven to be able to do so far.  Let’s go with…”Pattern!”  Buffering…  Holding back judgement for the moment…  Hmmmmm.  How do I feel about this version Jason?  What can be said about this “Pattern (80s Pop Echoes)” variation?  I grew up in the 80s – if there’s a sound I’m familiar with, it’s probably this one.  So look…I think that it’s really hard to identify “Pattern (80s Pop Echoes)” to the specific time period…BUT…it’s not so far off that it would frustrate me like some of the others AI has presented us with, and hearing how “The Passing Tide” sounded right after, I can hear that the degree of 80s influence is sprinkled in with varying amounts…so again, it could just be that I’m clicking on some of the wrong stuff but still making the right points.  But yeah…I mean, as it stands here, “Pattern (80s Pop Echoes)” is about as 80s as something like The Killers would be…so yes, we can hear the influence of it on the overall sound, but production values & such still give it all a much more modern texture.  That might seem like splitting hairs and all, but it’s a factor if you ask me.  Now…I’m not suggesting we want things to have the airy qualities of listening to music on cassette – but I am saying there are noticeable modernizations being made that somewhat expose the limitations of AI as well.  Because if you’re really looking for 80s Pop, that’s what you wanna hear…no other substitute would suffice, you feel me?  We’d want that Jefferson Starship anthemic, fists raised, sing-along type stuff, and while of course there could be all kinds of names you could cite from Michael Jackson to Phil Collins…this version of “Pattern” wasn’t quite any of those on an individual level so much as a consensus or homogenization of what it would ALL sound like if it was blended together – make sense?  I think that’s the idea that The Killers already ran with, and that’s why we’ve got something in “Pattern” that feels similar to what they create.

Let’s do this next…let’s try Swamp Gospel, because I have NO idea what that would even be.  Yeah, Jason – I think I might have some bad news for ya bud…I think you’re way too into all this to be objective – that’s what I’m hearing.  The similarities between styles are just way, way, too noticeable and not at all different enough.  From the outside looking in, something like whatever Swamp Gospel would be, should sound so totally different from anything else, shouldn’t it?  So…I mean…this could be caused by a wide variety of things I suppose – the first one being that the Swamp Gospel page takes us to the Blues Rock Echoes, and I’m not 100% sure they’re supposed to be the same thing.  If they are, then again, we’re still miles away from what Blues Rock would be on “The Mirage,” but once more it seemed like maybe I was off by a track and “Truth And Lies” was going to supply a closer sound to what the genre is known for.  But yeah…I came here for the Swamp Gospel yo – so where’s that at?  I fully support ya in the sense that virtually EVERYTHING has sounded great to listen to…but there’s no denying how similar it is in terms of the fundamental roots of the sound AI is pulling from.  I was hoping to click these songs from genre to genre and hear MASSIVE differences between the material, but it’s all very marginal as far as my ears can tell.  I know how it goes though…you start getting psyched up about a project you’re working on, next thing you know, three whole days have passed, you’ve forgotten to go to work and really have to pee…we get locked into what we’re doing and our objectivity is the first thing that suffers.

So…Celtic!  That’s gotta be different enough, right?  Let’s go deep into the set-list here with…”Valley Of Shadows.”  And the verdict is…probably the closest to being different as we’ve gotten so far.  While the sad news for me in that regard is that it comes through a style of music I very rarely seek to listen to if ever at all, at least the Celtic aspect is much more pronounced than most of the other genres have seemed to be so far.  I’d charge that it’s still like, somewhat of an accent flavor, and we’re still very much rooted in a modern-era take on what the Celtic sound would be, but sure, this is definitely closer to being what the label claims it’ll be than most of what we’ve heard so far.  Maybe it’s part of the prompt, or maybe AI is not yet capable of going too far back in order to generate its sound…Jason would know what’s caused the comparative similarities much better than I would…but yeah…definitely something to at least be aware of, and perhaps that can be tweaked a bit further to make things a little more convincing than they’ve been when it comes to the genres he’s looking to adapt his music to.  I don’t mind “Valley Of Shadows (Celtic Spirit Echoes)” though…it might not by my favorite style, but hey, at least it supplied a bit more of the diversity I was looking for even if it still has a distinct Pop bend to it all.

While I could continue poking around in this AI-based realm all day long out of pure fascination, it’s best that I shake the dice and make my last roll here, otherwise you’ll be here all week reading this review.  I went with Cinematic Folk to finish things off with “The Power To Be Alive (Soaring Cinematic Folk Echo).”  The verdict here is that it’s still pretty much Pop Jason…Folk it definitely is not…Cinematic, a little bit I suppose…and for whatever reason, the production didn’t sound all that great in this very last track – it’s way too blown out.  Look…don’t get me wrong – I have LOVED every minute of checking this all out – it has been AWESOME to consider all the different things that AI could go on to do, even if I don’t think what I’ve heard here today proves that it’s ready to do any of that at this particular time.  What I think is actually most important to understand, is that without a song to begin with, none of this exists.  As I’ve stated many times throughout the years, the testament to great songwriting is in its adaptability – if you can take a great song in one genre and it’s still great in another…honestly, that’s something special.  All of these adaptations we’re hearing here…these are still based off of Jason’s songs…off of that blood, sweat, and tears I was referring to earlier – that came through Garriotte’s original works.  I guess what I’m saying is, if it wasn’t for him, none of this exists at all…but the fact that his material can be adapted in so many different ways is definitely not something we should discount either – that speaks volumes on behalf of what HE can do, regardless of whether or not the machines got it completely right when it comes to whatever style they were going for.  It’s his original songs that make listening to any of this stuff worthwhile…and I honestly hope he doesn’t lose sight of that fact.  Because we can get totally and utterly lost in making music this way…and while we’re doing it, cost ourselves the time we need to really focus on our own originality.  He’ll have to weigh what’s more important to him in the long run, and I’m not suggesting that he shouldn’t or can’t have some fun in the meantime with stuff like this.  I do also think that once he’s fully finished with his Lucid Principles ideas, he’ll have an interesting hybrid project that crosses the potential in different mediums and methods of creation…and there will definitely be value in the experience he’ll gain from that too.  As it stands, he’s got a lot of material that’s great to listen to – so much that he is going to threaten his own work with an oversaturation that would take me a whole other review to express the dangers of – but I do think it would be crazy for me to say that any of it felt quite as meaningful as what I’ve personally heard from him in his original music in the past.  It’ll be very interesting to see where things go from here…if there’s one thing I’ve learned through this, it’s definitely that we’re already at a point where AI songs are insanely convincing to listen to – but if there’s two things I’ve learned, it’s that AI really needs to broaden its own palette if it wants us to really listen.

Find out more about Jason Garriotte’s Lucid Principles here:  https://lucidprinciples.com

Find out more about Chords Of Truth here:  https://www.chordsoftruth.com

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