Though The Rolling Stones used cutting-edge tech to de-age themselves for a recent music video, the octogenarian rockers aren’t too keen on artificial intelligence.
Speaking to the Times of London about their creative process ahead of their upcoming 25th studio album—”Foreign Tongues,” out on July 10 — Mick Jagger admitted that he found AI to be disappointing. The frontman said he tossed album title ideas at a large language model before the release of their 2023 album, “Hackney Diamonds.”
“No one could agree, and I threw all these titles at it, and it came back with such rubbish, it didn’t help me at all,” he said. “I was saying, ‘These are my 12 album titles, give me some more,’ and of course in the end we never used any of them.”
Jagger said if generative AI has any use, it’s as a confidence booster. He sees the junk that AI puts out is a shot in the arm for creatives who are doubting their own instincts.
“It can unstick you, and you think, ‘OK, that was rubbish,’ or ‘Mine are loads better than yours,’” he said. “It gives you confidence.”
The band also took time to discuss “Ringing Hollow,” a countrified ballad on the new album that grapples with their nostalgic feelings about the United States and its seeming decline. In an interview with Mojo Magazine last month, Jagger explained that the track was about “America as an idea.”
“The American Dream is intact for some people, and I’m sure we can find some wonderful immigrant stories that happened in the last 12 months, but we read about the decline of the American Empire,” he said. “Is the Iran war America’s Suez moment? … In any case, it’s not the same place as it was.”
Speaking to the Times, Keith Richards explained that the song was a “nostalgic love affair” with the United States. Richards, who has lived in Connecticut since 1985, said that the country was “a bit of a disappointment at the moment.”
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