From the Napster revolution to the streaming gold rush, disruption in the music industry has become the norm. Now, a new revolution is brewing: artificial intelligence. Few individuals are as uniquely positioned to offer insights as Yung Spielburg. The Grammy Award-winning producer and songwriter has been at the forefront of exploring AI’s potential impact on the creative process and the business of music. As the research coordinator at the music and tech network Water & Music, Yung Spielburg brings a unique perspective to the future of sound. Recently, I had the privilege of sitting down with Yung to chat about his remarkable career and explore the future of music in the age of AI.
Yung’s journey in the music industry began early, when he landed under the wing of legendary producer Howard Benson while still attending Drexel University. “He let me work on some records as a programmer,” Spielburg recounts. “He told me my programming was shit, but he liked a string arrangement I did, so he kept me on those. I’ve learned a lot about music programming from him.” That mentorship set the stage for Yung’s contributions to the Halestorm album The Strange Case Of…, which he worked on as a senior in college and earned him a Grammy at just 24.
Yung recounts the surreal moment he found out about the win: “By the time the album got nominated, I was managing the studios at Wind-Up Records in New York. I was literally cleaning the toilet while they were having a Grammy party in the studio. Greg Wattenberg, who ran the studio, comes into the bathroom and tells me I won a Grammy. I think my response was like, ‘Huh?’ and he goes, ‘Yeah, and you missed a spot.'”
Following his Grammy win, Yung dove into a whirlwind of projects, and his career continued to take exciting turns. In 2016, a college friend at Red Light Management reached out with an intriguing proposition: to serve as musical director for Japanese artist Miyavi‘s European tour. This led to a series of writing sessions and demos, which, despite initially losing the album project, caught the attention of Asahi Beer. The company licensed one of Yung’s songs for a commercial, compelling Miyavi’s label to bring him on board for the full record. This marked the beginning of an ongoing partnership that has spanned seven albums with an eighth forthcoming.
As his career progressed and AI began to make waves in various creative fields, Yung recognized the need to understand its capabilities and potential implications for the music industry. “I knew that AI would eventually find its way to music, and if I wanted to sustain my career, I needed to understand the possibilities of this technology, including its current state and its potential trajectory,” he says.
This exploration led Yung to his role as a core team member at Water & Music, a research and intelligence network founded by Cherie Hu. The organization aims to provide data-driven insights to help music industry professionals navigate the rapidly changing landscape, with a particular focus on the intersection of music and technology. Water & Music has been at the forefront of researching AI’s impact, publishing reports on AI-generated music, AI-powered music discovery, and the ethical implications of AI in music creation.
Yung offers a thought-provoking perspective when the conversation shifts to the future of music and the role of AI. “The music industry is already oversaturated [with new content], so I think AI will accelerate what has already been the trend,” he says. “When you’re talking about a machine that can train on people’s data and then output an infinite amount of music, the scale is hard to comprehend. I don’t know what will happen to the attention economy when you have an even more endless supply of music.”
For Yung, the extent to which AI will disrupt the music industry depends on the context of the listening. He distinguishes between “active listening,” where the listener cares about the artist, the message, and the context, and “passive listening,” where music serves as background sound, or as he puts it, listeners are “just letting the music go by”. “When people care about the context of what they’re listening to, that will never be replaced,” he says. “If I care about a singer’s biography and what they have to say, and I want to go see their show and appreciate what someone can do with their throat or hands, shoutout Mat Dryhurst for that language, I think that will always matter.”
He suggests AI might become the king of “passive listening,” the background soundtrack to our commutes, meals, and gym sessions. “Most people consume music passively now. It’s become background noise for our activities. The thing is, AI isn’t the problem. AI is only accelerating the truth, that the barrier to creativity has gotten lower. Music’s supply and demand is the inverse of what it used to be. It’s a good thing that people can express themselves creatively, but there are real-world consequences with that in being able to make a living making music”, Yung says.
“I think revenue for certain income streams for artists will shrink and become more competitive. Even as a multi-platinum Grammy award-winning producer, a good chunk of my income comes from creating podcast themes, and that could definitely get automated out. Most companies aren’t concerned with the artistry of music and will just use machines to replace music owned by rights holders if it saves them money,” he admits.
Despite these challenges, Yung sees opportunities for collaboration between AI and human tastemakers. Rather than viewing AI as a direct competitor, he suggests it could be a tool to enhance and complement the creative process. “AI has been a tool in music for a long time. The amp simulator didn’t replace the guitar. The drum machine didn’t replace the drummer. Nobody is complaining about Splice or DistroKid, which are non AI tools but really expanded the amount of independently made and produced music,” he says. He believes this new class of generative tools has the same potential to help artists experiment with new sounds and styles while still maintaining the emotional depth and nuance of the human experience and perspective.
In the face of these challenges and opportunities, Yung emphasizes the importance of artists cultivating a strong sense of purpose and building active, engaged communities around their work. Guided by this philosophy, he chooses projects based on working with artists with a mission beyond the music itself. Yung emphasizes the importance of creating a safe space for artists to express themselves honestly. “As a producer, my goal is to find artists that I think can have a positive impact on the world and create an environment that allows them to access that part of themselves that will do that,” he says. “It’s about being honest, empathetic, and open yourself. When I share, other people will share back.”
These days, Yung’s working with artists like Latasha, a rapper and singer from Brooklyn now based in LA. She was one of the first to release a music video NFT and has been killing it in the web3 space for years. He’s also starting a project with Andy Smith, a TikTok creator with a voice Yung describes as “virtuosic”. It’s an exciting time, with new collaborations and technologies opening up fresh possibilities.
Yung’s holistic, community-minded approach offers a compelling alternative vision in an industry fixated on the next viral hit. By pushing technological and creative boundaries while staying grounded in social purpose, he is laying the foundation for a more innovative and equitable future of music. As the industry continues to evolve, expect Yung Spielburg to remain at the vanguard, shaping its trajectory for years to come.
Connect with Yung on Instagram: @yungspielburg
