First of all, Happy New Year to everyone who reads this.

So what can we expect in the music scene in 2025 and how does this affect my music? According to music pro and author, Bobby Owsinski, successful songs in 2024 were slower than before and contained a high rhyming density with multiple rhymes including internal rhyming, i.e. rhymes within single lines of lyric. AI is taking a foothold in music, as well as in everything else, but is expected to become more regulated in the coming year.

Having read Bobby’s book “The Musician’s Ai Handbook”, I developed my own strategy on the use of AI in music. Firstly, I feel that it’s best to totally avoid AI in areas which involve, or in time will involve, copyright. Examples of this include melody, lyrics and some aspects of performance such as vocals. This is both from a legal and moral viewpoint as you are ripping off the work of other people who may well seek litigation. I also firmly believe that you should stay in total control of your own work using AI only to offer you suggestions. I use a software tool called Scaler 2 to help me create chord sequences, which are not subject to copyright issues, and the Mastering Assistant in Ozone 11 to help me produce a final master of my recording. When I feel that these AI tools produce something I like, I try to investigate why it appears to be working with a view to learning from it. Some song pitches now state that they will not accept tracks involving any use of AI, although I think that in 2025 this is becoming increasingly hard to achieve. Even a singer/songwriter with only an acoustic guitar for accompaniment is probably using a microphone with AI noise reduction.

Of the other trends that Bobby raises, I feel that the song which will probably be my next release, “Jukebox in My Head”, scores highly on rhyming density but, at 120 bpm, cannot be reasonably described as slow – or fast for that matter. Personally, I don’t bother too much with trends, although I believe it’s good to be aware of them. I am more concerned with the fact that Roberta wrote the lyric for this song and, since she has not written any other lyrics, has not joined PRS. I am not sure how that affects any royalty payments but will endeavour to find out.

Lastly, I believe that I have purchased the software upgrades I need to progress, Cubase 14 Pro and Kontakt 8, and look forward to producing much more music in the coming year.