The jury’s still out on whether Fenix Flexin’s ultra-catchy “80s trap” hit “Rubberz” was generated by AI. But what does the song’s success, and the controversy around it, tell us about how musicians might use these tools, and whether listeners will accept the results? Jack Callahan, half of the NYC conceptual pop duo Callahan & Witscher and cofounder of the late music marketplace Nina Protocol (RIP), joins this month’s cultural weather report us to help us make sense of this strange moment in music tech. Plus: online hipster discourse, American sports fever, Oliver Tree, and more. But first, we go long on Callahan & Witscher’s origins as a meditation on the transience of scenes and the highs and lows of the independent music hustle; the band’s excellent new album, Sorry to Hear That; and Nina’s instrumental role in incubating “cloud rock,” “laptop twee,” and other niche-but-important 2020s underground sounds.
