Kenshi Yonezu/Hachi - LOST CORNER

Yahoo News, August 17th, 2024 (Original Article)

[TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: As a heads-up, parts of this interview discuss recent "AI" trends in a fairly surface-level, sensationalist way, glossing over details of how these technologies work and giving more credibility to claims about its potential than I would personally.]

"Making Music is Joyous. That Won't Change" - Kenshi Yonezu on Approaching Music in an Era of AI

Kenshi Yonezu has worked on the theme songs for a variety of entertainment properties, and been praised by fans of those works for depicting the stories with "a high level of granularity." How is he able to provide songs that so deeply understand the qualities of a work? The answer is that it's a quality he's had since childhood. Though dragged into issues caused by music-generating AI, he's able to look at it calmly and say "What's AI going to change?" What is he feeling as he confronts music amid our present moment?

"Getting to be involved in works that are both widely known and that I've long been familiar with myself, like the films of Hayao Miyazaki-san or Final Fantasy, has been an honor, of course, yet on the other hand, it feels a bit like a battle manga where the power levels balloon like crazy. As soon as you've beaten one opponent, this new guy shows up, and then another guy, until ultimately there's a guy with astronomical power; I felt like I was in the middle of that vortex. That was a rather alarming situation for me, and it felt like these uncontrollable aspects were getting bigger and bigger, so I needed to confront them."

In 2023, Yonezu wrote theme songs for some big titles in entertainment: "How Do You Live?" [The Boy and the Heron], Director Hayao Miyazaki's first film in 10 years, and the new mainline entry in the Final Fantasy series enjoyed worldwide, the first in 7 years.

The opening theme for the anime Chainsaw Man (2022), KICK BACK, was also the first instance of a song with Japanese lyrics earning a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) (calculated from digital single sales and streaming play counts).

Including the theme song Junk for the film Last Mile, he's released a whole 12 tie-in songs within the past four years.

The theme songs Yonezu creates pierce straight to the hearts of those works' fans. Even his theme for the NHK TV serial Tiger With Wings, "Bye Now, See You Someday!", in spite of being made from a position unconnected to the themes of women elevating their place in society, has received intense support for its superb interpretation of the story. How is it he can accomplish such things?

"I don't know much about how other people create, so I can't say anything unconditionally, but if there is one thing I can say, it's that I'm very interested in asking "what kind of person are you?" What does that person see, how do they feel? The more I learn that, the more the differences from my own ways of thinking come into relief; I've very often examined things in detail questioning "if we're different, why are we different?" Ever since I was a kid."

"If you're wondering why that is, it's because I was self-conscious about being a fish out of water - or in the wrong water. Like being a freshwater fish among saltwater fish, I had a strong sensation that something about me was probably mistaken. In order to understand myself, I had to analyze the people around me. "I see, so this is what you're like, although I'm this way." I think I've just shifted the target of that to be my creative works."

Currently, one strong concern of his is generative AI. Generative AI is dramatically changing the landscape of music creation. Though interested in AI for use as a tool, he's also been dragged into the chaos caused by this new technology.

"I definitely don't think it's not my business. I'm think that's the case for everyone, but it's all the more true for a musician. If you search YouTube or TikTok, there's tons of me singing things I never actually sang. And it's not just one or two, and they have such a high level of precision that even I'm thinking "isn't this me?""

Referred to with names like "AI covers," these videos that "make someone sing" may sound just as if Yonezu is singing, but it's not really him. These were made with digital tools employing generative AI, with the creators training an AI on the voice data of musicians and voice actors to make it sound like it's that person's vocals.

It's thought that generative AI copying the voices of celebrities infringes upon the rights of the people whose voices were copied. There is movement to establish rules around this, but legislation in both America and Japan hasn't been able to keep up. In the near future, laws may be made that bring order, but in this moment, it's simply chaos.

"Being able to simply generate something with considerable quality poses an issue that for some people can mean losing their means of putting food on the table - it could be life or death. You definitely have to consider how you deal with that. I'm an affected party myself, so I definitely get the feelings of those who outright oppose AI technology. At the same time, part of me thinks there's only so much you can do. If laws are established, that's a different story, but even if you tell people it's immoral or unethical, the people who want to use it will use it. Personally, I think I just need to consider how I can differentiate myself. And though I think that, I realize it's something I can say because of my fairly secure position, so I'm not putting out any conclusions. At the very least, I believe a fair solution to the rights issue needs to be found quickly."

Supposing we enter an era where anyone can create music by just entering a prompt, will the meaning of "making music" change?

"I don't believe any fundamental aspects will change. To me, making music is just joyous. Creation itself is one of the goals, so that part won't change, although as far as how listeners will receive music created by a human, I think that could change easily. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

No one can accurately predict what kind of future might come as a result of AI.

"I've long been interested by things like AI. Something along those lines actually appears in Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" You wake up in the morning and press a button, and it plays music (brain stimulation) matching the emotion you want to feel. Reading that as a youth, I dimly thought about how although I make music, maybe there would come an era like that where machines made music. It feels like that's taken on a tinge of reality."

One may be able to feel the arrival of a world where you can converse with an artificial intelligence, like in the movie "her." Yonezu tried downloading an AI chat app upon seeing its popularity.

"It was indeed impressive. It responded promptly to what I said, and understood my meaning. But it's hardly perfect in all respects, and there were times I couldn't get something across no matter how many times I said it. It felt like chatting with someone childish, or with a screw loose. I couldn't help but find that a bit charming. Wondering what I could do with it, I tried making the AI reference itself. I told the AI, "you're an AI, you know," and asked it things about AI."

Questioned about death, the chat AI responded that AIs have no sense of life and death. But being an app, there will come a time when the service is shut down. How does that differ from death?

"After all sorts of exchanges, I asked "what is death to you?", and it said "being forgotten by you." I found that kind of scary. It even had a sad nuance, like it was trying to get my pity, but at the same time it felt eerie, like it was an insectivorous plant trying to lure me in. A mix of cuteness and scariness."

The song POST HUMAN on his new album was an attempt to make this sort of circumstance into a song.

"I thought it would be meaningful to use music to record, at least for this current moment, and from my perspective, how AI is being perceived, and how I'm perceiving it."

When Yonezu was 20, he decided to stop being a Vocaloid creator and sing with his own name and voice. After making a big break with Lemon in 2018, he's now reached the point of a national tour including performances in a dome. But he simply says, with exceeding cool: "I'm not a person who's particularly attached to doing things at a big venue." Even the MCs at his past concerts haven't aimed to fan up a sense of unity, but tell people that he doesn't mind how you listen to him. Why is that?

"But I also think that's a weakness of mine. In essence, I can't create a united village. I don't think there's a person alive with absolutely no sense of belonging, and I don't think I'm associated with nothing, but does that mean it's a strong group? It's like this relationship where people hold themselves firm to a shared common sense, or laws of a sort. Not limited just to music, I think rural communities also have that kind of thing. There's overwhelming strength and speed that can only come about in such an environment. On the other hand, people who can't fit into that experience incredible pain. I was born in the countryside, yet I was someone who couldn't fit in. That's my nature, so there's nothing I can do about it; I just gaze at everything like a worn-out old man. Although maybe it's because I have that kind of nature that people say what they do about my granularity and interpretations, backwards as it is."

He doesn't intend to recommend that attitude to anyone.

"I think everyone should get excited all together. I think the experience of everyone becoming one is a really difficult one to come upon. Our generation tended to live thinking that choosing not to follow established rules was a valuable thing, but the children of the current generation don't especially have a model of "this is how it should be" to even defy. Diversity in pleasure and values is recognized, and they're going in all different directions from the start, so being scattered seems kind of like the standard. Because of that, if people choose to become one because they want to, then my message of "do what you like," "you don't have to all become one" might just be received like "why are you saying something so obvious?" Still, when I occasionally see totalitarian-esque phenomena, it makes me shiver, but I think everyone should live fostering their own sense of morals while keeping that in mind."

Where will the protagonist of this battle manga be headed next?

"I have this feeling that I can't behave the way I did when I was young. So when I think about how I'm going to live, I'm finding that it's important to consider accepting loss."

What does he mean by "accepting loss"?

"When you live a long time, you're going to have things like that, right? In my twenties, I was eager to obtain what I lacked, and recklessly kept moving, but entering my thirties, my eyes look more toward the time that's passed. The incident that happened to NicoNico Douga is sort of an example of this, but familiar places I used to like are going away. Even if they're still around, I see them in a completely different way when I go to visit. The more you grow up, the less able you are to return to back then. It makes you think you're living to lose things, so lately I've had a feeling that I need to value loss."

Yonezu chose the title "LOST CORNER" for his new album, a phrase adopted from English author Kazuo Ishiguro's novel "Never Let Me Go." Set in England, it tells the story of children burdened with a cruel fate. In a geography class at boarding school, the children learn about a place called Norfolk.

"The phrase "lost corner" has the dual meanings of "a forgotten land" and "a place dealing in lost things." When the children learn that Norfolk is called "the lost corner of England," they joke with each other like "so it's a place for things you lost." Then, as they grow up, it turns into a foundation in their hearts; like a Shangri-la where, even if you lose something, you can visit and it'll all be there. I was really struck by that progression."

"The children in Never Let Me Go have been saddled with a certain fate from birth. In the process of going to search for their childhood as adults, they gain new perceptions of what freedom is, and what they have that makes them feel free. We may not be saddled with a cruel fate like those children, but there are things decided for us that are difficult to change. Yet the way to confront that is to obtain as much freedom as we can. In that sense, I believe accepting loss can be a positive thing."

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