Fans react to AI creation of Kurt Cobain singing Hole’s ‘Celebrity Skin’

2 May, 2023

Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, with daughter Francis Bean Cobain, at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. Credit: Terry McGinnis/WireImage

Fans have reacted to a new AI-generated clip of Kurt Cobain singing Hole‘s ‘Celebrity Skin’.

READ MORE: In the age of AI Oasis, there’s no point being ordinary

The original track was released in 1998 by the Los Angeles-based alternative rock band, which was founded by the Nirvana frontman’s former wife, Courtney Love, and guitarist Eric Erlandson.

Now, a clip has emerged with Cobain’s vocals on the track, which has prompted mixed reactions from fans.

“This version was made based on a human interpretation, but the voice was synthesized by AI. Many more to come,” poster FaustoX wrote in the YouTube description.

“Whoever is offended by this version, I really hope you understand that this is not a part of Kurt’s or Courtney’s official work,” they added in a follow-up comment. “It has no other intention than to be an experiment, just like a more elaborate mashup, and they have no hidden motives.”

Check out the track below.

“It’s only the beginning of AI era, but this is already creepy and crazy at the same time. I don’t know what to think right now,” one YouTube user wrote.

“It’s actually scary how accurate this is. It even has his voice kind of giving out a bit,” another added.

A third described the cover as “frightening”, adding that the vocal inflections “are haunting at many points. To be honest I kinda wanna sob”.

“As a 37 year old lifelong Nirvana obsessive I cannot believe how close this is. Better than the original. Insane,” another comment read.

Others, however, were more sceptical. “I’m not sure if I love this or hate it,” one listener said.

“Call it what you want, but this is copyright infringement, totally distasteful, poorly executed, and subtextual misogyny that panders to bigoted whisperings that Kurt wrote [Courtney Love Cobain’s] hits. Let them both rest,” one person wrote on Twitter.

Love recently remembered her late husband, who died by suicide on April 5, 1994, on the 29th anniversary of his death.

Another said of the cover: “I strongly believe we need to make this shit illegal. Not even slightly kidding.”

One person suggested that “the future is gonna be really messy”.

Conversations around the ethics of music and artificial intelligence have been gaining more traction in recent months.

Last month, Liam Gallagher responded to the “lost” Oasis album that was created using AI and recently went viral.

Grimes also recently weighed in on the ongoing debate, permitting fans to use her voice to create new music using AI because “it’s cool to be fused [with] a machine”.

Nick Cave, however, has strongly criticised the emerging technology, describing ChatGPT and AI songwriting as “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”.

The Bad Seeds singer made the comments on his blog The Red Hand Files, revealing that he’s received numerous submissions from his fans of song lyrics written “in the style of Nick Cave” on ChatGPT.

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