Maggot Brain
365 Songs Project—May 2, 2024
Sometimes I revisit old writing. It’s the fastest way to calculate the distance from then and now, between the versions of me that time and circumstance has altered. I’m often surprised by how prescient my past self was, how many themes exist in that old writing that still haunt me today.
I wrote the post below just a few years ago in early 2021, mid-pandemic, during that stretch of time when checking in on lapsed relationships was momentarily vital. At that point, I hadn’t been back to my hometown since the summer of 2016, the Trump election that broke so many families. I felt a wave of nostalgia, missing people and places I’d lost touch with long ago.
2021
My closest friend growing up was two years older than me, which means he was two years cooler, smarter, and in the know. In the early years, we played video games together late into the night, during sleepovers, or after school. Everything changed when he turned 16. The world opened for us. Long, meandering drives set to cigarettes stolen from my Dad’s half-empty packs littered throughout the house. (It was a different time back then, ok?)
As is true for most kids discovering the art of going nowhere, we lived our best lives.
Windows down, music loud. We were into angst, given the era, but also lots of metal. LOTS of metal. But when I think about that time, about that friend whose life has taken a far different journey than mine, I remember one song. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.
That song is Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain.
It was Cleveland, early ’90s, which means we were almost twenty years into a local tradition: every Sunday morning, at last call, a famed DJ for the best rock station in town played the song in full. So for us, we’d do whatever we had to do to be in that car at that time to hear the song live on the air. That wasn’t always easy, but sneaking out was a part of childhood. And that’s exactly what we did, at least a few times.
But let’s get back to the song.
It’s the Eddie Hazel show for over ten minutes, an electric guitar masterclass that meanders with the same enthusiasm of a couple kids driving after dark for the first time. As the story goes at least, George Clinton was all tripped out on acid and he challenged Hazel:
“Eddie and I were in the studio, tripping like crazy but also trying to focus on our emotions… I told him to play like his mother had died, to picture that day, what he would feel, how he would make sense of his life, how he would take a measure of everything that was inside him and let it out through his guitar. I knew immediately that he understood what I meant. I could see the guitar notes stretching out like a silver web.”
These are the only Clinton lyrics before Hazel loses his guitar-playing mind.
Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time
For y’all have knocked her up
I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe
I was not offended
For I knew I had to rise above it all
Or drown in my own shit
I’ve lost a mother, and Maggot Brain is what it feels like. Not just that day, but the long days and nights after that for years to come.
It’s been 11 years since that day, and grief still sounds like Hazel’s guitar. But it also sounds like being stoned for the first time, side by side with the friend who opened my mind for the first to the bigger, darker possibilities in life.
So do yourself a favor next time you’re in a car late at night, with no destination in mind. Play this song — but maybe skip the joint, if you’re behind the wheel.
Today
Maggot Brain was playing in a coffee shop, the first time I’ve heard it since I wrote this post. It hit me differently this time, a jolt of sadness, a sort of mourning for emotions I don’t currently possess.
I made it back to Cleveland last summer for the first time since that 2016 summer. I drove those same streets, walked alone through old neighborhoods, past houses that once meant something to me, alert for people who’d recognize me. Nobody did. My father lives in the same old house, on marriage round two since my Mom died, and though the shell of that history still stands, her absence is more profound than ever. I was on alert for feelings I’d recognize. Nothing hit me. I felt removed, numb. I sneezed a lot, got wheezy, and though that was partly due to the cats I suspect I was allergic to something else: a past I no longer recognize, versions of me I can no longer reconcile.
I saw that old friend one night. He’s a cook in a restaurant not far from where we used to drive, where we used to smoke, where we used to dream together of a future that felt so limitless. He didn’t seem ok — and though he’d lost his way long ago, my previous encounters with him felt nice, a shared energy only two old friends can share. We agreed to grab a beer the following day, but I never heard from him. He never heard from me.
I guess that’s what happens as we grow older, more removed from our pasts. We’re not just strangers to our old friends, we become strangers to ourselves. And that’s never more obvious than when we go back to where it all began, when we can see in the mirror of others all the ways in which we’ve changed.
Let’s just say reactions have been extreme. Here are a few.
The LA Times wrote: “The Hardest Part,” a new song from indie pop artist Washed Out, is all about love lost, among the most human of themes. But ironically, to illustrate the tune’s sense of longing, the musician turned to something far less flesh-and-blood: artificial intelligence.”
Washed Out’s Ernest Greene released a statement, in advance of the release, that sums up his take on matters:
“I had the seed of this video concept 10 years ago, where we do an infinite zoom of a couple’s life over the course of many decades, but I have yet to attempt it because I figured it’d be too ambitious for a music video. While the technology is experimental and cutting-edge, I wanted to do something that also felt like a classic music video that would hold your attention no matter what tech was being used in the process. I was specifically interested in what makes Sora so unique. It offers something that couldn’t quite be shot with a camera, nor could it be animated in 3D, it was something that could have only existed with this specific technology. The surreal and hallucinatory aspects of AI allow you to explore and discover new ideas that you would have never dreamed of. Using AI to simply recreate reality is boring. I wasn’t interested in capturing realism but something that felt hyperreal. The fluid blending and merging of different scenes feels more akin to how we move through dreams and the murkiness of memories. While some people feel this may be supplanting how things are made, I see this as supplementing ideas that could never have been made otherwise. Many artists in this industry are constantly compromising and negotiating their ideas with the reality of what can be made. This offers a glimpse at a future where music artists will be given the opportunity to dream bigger. An overreliance on this technique may become a crutch and it’s important that we don’t use this as the new standard of creation but another technique in the toolbelt.”
Trevor Powers, of the vastly superior indie peer, Youth Lagoon, didn’t hold back. “This Washed Out AI vid is the best case for blatant artlessness I’ve ever seen. It says nothing, does nothing, is nothing. Ugly slog too. Being an artist carries the responsibility of telling the truth. Ur personal truth. Some guts. Anything short of that, ur a bore & a grifter.”
And, of course, the Redditors went fucking nuts.
Redcloud15 said, “I honestly love that the use of AI in the music video is causing such controversy. These are the conversations artists and fans ultimately need to be having. AI clearly isn’t going away, but to what extent should it be used and how should it be regulated?”
Shvffle said, “high tech plagiarism that just makes me dizzy. super disappointed in washed out and sub pop for doing this!”
“Yeah this video is pretty creepy ngl. The technology is cool but the execution makes my skin crawl a bit.” — /u/paartalitors
“This is such an artistic leap forward! Love seeing Washed Out continuing to innovate.” — /u/robotboy1206
“Absolutely mind-blowing use of this new AI technology. A pioneering artistic statement.” — /u/mcmacmac
“I don’t get the appeal personally. It comes across as very sterile and devoid of genuine human emotion to me.” — /u/st4rl3
“Kinda crazy to think we’re watching the first major music video made entirely through AI. The future is here!” — /u/synnaxian
Whether you like it or not, or find value in making art at all costs, the real issue is how OpenAI has built Sora’s technology — which has been, and will continue to be, the recipient of some of the most landmark copyright cases in modern history. I urge you to listen to Ezra Klein’s three-part AI series, or The New York Times podcast, Hard Fork, which go into depth around how AI leaders like Microsoft, Google, Meta, and OpenAI are indexing everything ever made, no matter who made it or how it’s protected, to build their engines.
And that leads us to the most important response I’ve read, which was shared by DP Oren Soffer, after Vimeo named The Hardest Part a Staff Pick. It’s important to note that Vimeo has long been home to filmmakers as an outlet to share short and technically experimental films.
“Insanely, mind-numbingly ironic to give a Staff Pick and a platform to a video created utilizing software built entirely on plagiarism of existing works while at the same time issuing automated copyright takedowns of legitimate and properly licensed commercial projects on people’s portfolios that hundreds of real human artists worked incredibly hard to create.”
This, friends, is the point, and this is where things get really complicated.
I almost entirely agree with Oren, Trevor, and the crazy Redditors: this shit is fucked and sets a terrifying precedent for the future. I’m disappointed that Washed Out went the AI route at the expense of promoting an up-and-coming filmmaker — not to mention the crews who make all films possible.
That said, I work in film production and know all too well how much it costs, how impossible it is to produce a video in a world where musicians — and filmmakers, for that matter — already can’t make money. And we all know music videos have never been a profitable game. Let’s say the average indie music video costs $50,000 to produce, give or take. Thanks to the profiteers at Spotify, it’d take roughly 1.35 million listens to pay for a music video. And that’s before the artist makes a penny.
That doesn’t mean I’m defending Washed Out, Paul Trillo, or Vimeo. I’m not. Though I do appreciate that they created conversation not just about the use of AI, but also the ethics and quality of the video itself. This is exactly what we need.
It is up to us, however, to demand fair pay in the music and film industries. Let’s remember: multiple truths can exist at once: we can criticize an artist for using ethically questionable technology, but we can also accept that given the economics these same artists need to find innovative ways to survive. And that’s up to us, the audience, to accept that how we consume art is not sustainable, that we can’t have it both ways: free or cheap access to unlimited songs and movies AND the right to criticize artists for using the tools available to promote themselves.
It’s time we blame the real problem: out of touch politicians for accepting big tech lobby money at the expense of common sense regulations, the tech platforms profiting off of art while inhibiting earning potential, and ourselves for buying into the model at all.
Oh, and since I promised: I think the music video is absolute shit. It’s interesting for a few moments, if for no other reason than because it’s so disorientating and dizzying it takes a moment for your brain to catch up to what’s actually happening. To re-quote Trevor, “It says nothing, does nothing, is nothing.”
