The integrity of music in the era of AI and social media was one of the themes at the heart of Oshawa Music Week’s Indie Showcase.
With the help of Durham College’s Music Business students, the downtown Oshawa bar, Atria, hosted the event to bring spotlight to four local music groups.
Linda Bush, who teaches in the program, said it’s important to have an in-person music community, especially when music has become so digital.
“It’s easy to make, you know, videos, get on TikTok, or Instagram and sort of do some stories, and kind of get your bar across, right? ” said Bush. “And that’s the real different thing about music nowadays is it’s a full package. It’s like you’re selling yourself; you are the product.”
In many ways, musicians today are expected to advertise themselves, often leading to a lack of live music particularly in smaller areas such as Durham Region.
Ivan Ellis, lead singer of local Toronto-Based emo band, Benched, said it’s especially important to foster music scenes in smaller areas since that’s where many of the great Canadian bands have started rather than expecting all local musicians to conglomerate in Toronto.
Similarly, the band Benched has members from all over the GTA. Both the group’s drummer and guitarist are from Aurora and Ellis himself is from London, areas lesser known for their music scenes.
Thanks to a Kijiji ad Ellis responded toin 2024, the group formed and created an outlet to release emotions.
Ellis self-identifies as a recovering cocaine and heroin user but has said since being in a band he has gained support from his group members, which has allowed him to create music to express the emotional pain he has lived through instead of consuming to cope.
“I tend to dive into experiences that I live through,” said Ellis, “and then write about that. I struggle with writing happy music. I need to get better at that.”
He currently works as a creative content producer and social media director within the music industry.
He acknowledges the changes that are happening due to the growth in the digital world.
“I think in, like music, in the digital space, we’re talking like a pretty dangerous line of like losing the integrity of the art,” said Ellis. “We are just like in a clip culture and it’s like clips are everything.”
According to a study published by the streaming app Deezer, about 50,000 AI-generated songs are uploaded to the platform each day, making up 34 per cent of all the music posted on the app.
Just last year an AI band called Velvet Sundown went viral reaching 1 million streams on Spotify in just a matter of weeks.