Ozzy Osbourne's making headlines for saying he'd consider using an AI copy of Randy Rhoads' playing

[highplainsdem]

This started with comments he made during an Osbournes podcast (I hadn't known they had one), and I think Guitar.com was the first news site to pick up on it:

https://guitar.com/news/music-news/ozzy-osbourne-ai-generated-randy-rhoads-song/

On the latest episode of the Osbournes podcast, the musician and his family discuss the technology used on the Beatles’ newly released song Now And Then, which features sonic contributions from all four members, including the late John Lennon — whose vocals were extracted from “a ropey little bit of cassette”.

As for whether he’d consider doing something similar with unreleased Randy Rhoads material, Osbourne says: “I haven’t considered it yet, but as far as me doing something like what the remaining Beatles did with the John Lennon thing… that was a partial song and they cleaned the track up.”

“I don’t think I have anything left of Randy Rhoads.”

Ozzy’s son Jack then noted that it’s possible to make a song by having AI come up with guitar parts based on Rhoads’ existing recordings, to which the rocker replies: “Well, you know what? I’m open for anything, if it was good quality. ‘Cause, let’s face it, that Beatles thing, Now And Then, wasn’t a Beatles song; it was a John Lennon song.”

-snip-

Sharon, to her credit, doesn't think much of AI-created music.

Their son Jack seems much more interested, even plays an AI-created snippet of Ozzy singing a Shania Twain song.


I think probably everyone here is well aware of what I think of AI being used in this way, to "resurrect" deceased artists.

And I don't think Ozzy had really thought this through when his son brought up this possibility. I'd like to think that if Jack or Sharon had mentioned using a talented young guitarist to play like Rhoads, he'd've liked that idea better than simply using tech instead of real, living musicians.

The article has the podcast video, which is also on YouTube. The discussion of AI starts at 31:55.