If you’re anything like me, you’ll love parading around your music taste in the hopes that someone will tell you you’re really cool. That never happens, but we can hope, right?
I jump at the chance to connect my phone to the speaker at a party. I spend much of my free time reading music magazines, watching DJ sets on YouTube, and trawling through Spotify to find the best up-and-coming artists.
Anyway, over the past week I’ve seen everyone on Instagram asking ChatGPT to roast their feeds. I was overcome with inspiration. I thought, what if I do this, too, but with music?
So I booted up the ol’ ChatGPT and put OpenAI’s iconic chatbot to work. As ChatGPT can’t seem to read your playlist links directly, I had to type out every one of my songs, which was a little time-consuming, but doable.
ChatGPT did not hold back.
My first track was ‘Guess’ by Charli xcx ft Billie Eilish. ChatGPT said “Trying to ride the coattails of not one, but two artists who are trendier than your fashion sense. Are you hoping their coolness rubs off on you? Spoiler: It doesn’t.”
Oof. ChatGPT clearly has access to the things I worry about at night when I’m trying to fall asleep.
One of my favorite roasts was for the tracks ‘Here’s the Thing’ and ‘Starburster’ by Fontaines D.C., my current obsession band.
“Edgy. You probably wear black turtlenecks and pretend to read existentialist literature in coffee shops.”
Look, I’m way past pretending to read existentialist literature in coffee shops. Yeah, I did that when I was at university — but what 19-year-old doesn’t pretend to be cool? Nowadays, I proudly read trashy rom-coms in public.
One bone I have to pick with ChatGPT is about the London artist Lava La Rue. The chatbot said this about their music: “Lava La Rue on Repeat: Not one, but two Lava La Rue tracks? You’re deep in the London underground scene, aren’t you? Tell me again how you only listen to artists with under 10k followers on Instagram.”
Um, actually… Lava La Rue has 67k followers on Instagram, so I think someone needs to tell ChatGPT the truth here.
As I’m a child of the late ‘90s-early ‘00s, I had to put a few of my favorite nostalgia tracks in to see what ChatGPT would make of them. Of ‘Rollin’’ by Limp Bizkit (one of my favorite songs of all time), ChatGPT said it’s a “mid-life crisis in music form. Are you seriously still holding onto that backwards red cap phase?” Similarly, when I fed it Evanescence’s ‘Going Under’, ChatGPT asked me if I’m “still living in 2003?” and if I “cry-sing this in the shower while pretending you're Amy Lee?”
What I do in my own time is of no concern to you.
I kept my favorite roast until the end. ChatGPT has exposed me for who I truly am here — a fake-edgy has-been clinging onto the thrills of the past. With Muse’s ‘Supermassive Black Hole’, ChatGPT said: “Let me guess, you think this track makes you sound edgy and cool. Spoiler alert: it just makes you look like you peaked in the Twilight era.”
Ouch.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be recovering for 3-5 business days, or until ChatGPT issues me a formal apology for the emotional wounds it’s caused me today. But don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of Evanescence to listen to while I cry in the shower.
