How this happened
What started as a fun mission to outdo the AI-generated holiday cards I’ve sent the last few years turned into something stranger, funnier, and unexpectedly revealing.
When you assemble a small army of specialist bots (producer, record-label exec, lyricist, plus Suno as the “musician”) and let them do what AI does best, the creative output can far exceed the initial scope.
Songs were drafted, discarded, refined. Genres were debated. Hooks were iterated. Along the way, a holiday song became a seven-track concept album about everything that’s broken in our industry... and what it might look like to fix it.
This project is three things at once: a fun holiday experiment, a marketing gimmick (yes, obviously), and a showcase for how potent AI can be.
One of the first things the bots did was analyze Top 40 / Pop music to develop a “rubric for popular music.” I can’t ignore the irony: while the consulting industry uses “formulaic templates” to sell high-priced advice, the music industry has long been doing the same to manufacture “real songs.”
Are these songs “good”? I honestly don’t know. I am the first to admit I am not a “music guy” and am likely the last person qualified to judge their artistic merit.
If this makes you slightly uncomfortable, consider it a provocation and preview of Vorpal Hedge. Sit back, listen, and laugh, and perhaps recognize some of the grievances we’re about to solve.
Iliya Rybchin · Founder, Vorpal Hedge
