Volkskrant Op-ed: Killed the Radio Star?

Back in 1979, The Buggles sang “Video Killed the Radio Star.” If we’re to believe today’s tech futurists, 2025 will be the year AI puts musicians out of business. But successful artists do a lot more than just string the right notes together.

 

Just days after the Dutch employment agency UWV warned that professional musicians might soon be replaced by AI, the first AI-generated band broke through on Spotify with millions of streams.

 

The band, Velvet Sundown, blends ‘70s psychedelia, Americana, and folk with familiar guitars and melancholic vocals. It’s AI music at its finest: sweet, simple, and recognizable. Perfect for playlists like Rainy Days Music or Road Trip Vibes.

 

If you listen carefully, you’ll notice it’s everywhere. Background music in restaurants. The intro of your favorite YouTube video. The tune playing in your fitness app. These are the places where music is functional and where nobody asks who or what actually made it.

 

Future Forecasts

 

Apparently, that’s enough reason for UWV to jump on the doom-and-gloom bandwagon: the supposedly inescapable future in which smarter computers replace us all. If the brains behind ChatGPT and Google say it’s coming, it must be true right?

 

So what’s left for musicians? According to the UWV report, maybe it’s time to retrain as an IT consultant, binge-read the AI section in management books, and get smart with AI before AI gets you. In essence, the message from one of the Netherlands’ biggest public institutions to anyone with talent and musical dreams: forget it, go be a consultant.

 

But how is it that an entire profession can be written off as replaceable without any serious pushback? Why don’t we ever see a segment on national TV questioning whether this AI-fueled future, dreamed up by the likes of tech gurus, is really that inevitable? Why is no one asking what the alternatives might be?

 

Because let’s be honest. When was the last time our digital future was accurately predicted? In 1999, we were told every computer would crash at midnight. A few years ago, we were all supposed to move into the Metaverse thanks to COVID-19. From where I’m standing, not much of that came true.

 

What hasn't changed: hundreds of thousands of people still spend big money on music festivals every year. Band merch sells like hotcakes. And we follow musicians’ lives by the millions on social media.

 

Artists like De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, Suzan & Freek, or DJ Tiësto aren’t successful just because they know which notes sound good together. They make a living by telling powerful stories; stories that resonate, that people want to be a part of. There’s no evidence whatsoever that AI will ever inspire thousands of sweaty fans to jump into a mosh pit on a scorching summer day. That kind of magic? Only humans like Joost Klein can deliver.

 

Business Models

 

Of course, none of this means AI won’t affect musicians’ livelihoods. It already competes with them for playlist spots, ad syncs, and licensing deals for games, series, and films. As these spaces become flooded with AI-generated tracks, it gets harder for real artists to be discovered, grow an audience, or earn a living.

 

To some, that might sound like confirmation that the AI takeover is inevitable. But let’s not forget: the end of the music industry has been predicted almost as often as the end of the world. And yet, musicians have always found new ways to connect with their audience: from radio to burned CDs, from MySpace to TikTok. In the end, music is about human connection, emotion, and identity. It always has been and always will be.

 

AI is undeniably changing the industry, but that doesn’t mean musicians will disappear. In fact, more and more artists are embracing AI as a creative tool or a way to challenge themselves, explore new sounds, and rethink how they make money.

 

So as long as people fall in love, get heartbroken, or want to jump around in a mosh pit, there will be musicians who can capture that feeling. We don’t need smarter tech for that.

 

So here’s our advice to anyone with musical talent and ambition: turn off your mystifying AI podcast, delete that consultancy traineeship application, fall madly in love and just buy a guitar.

 

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This op-ed by Thunderboom was published in de Volkskrant newspaper on July 12 2025