“A horror show”: Kinks AI track gets the thumbs down
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The Kinks’ Dave Davies has hit out at an AI ‘cover’ of one of his old band’s songs, dubbing it ‘fukin’ horrible’.
The so-called ‘new original track’ called Hop, Skip And Jump had originally been uploaded to YouTube back in January and eventually, Davies caught wind of it. He was not impressed, and took to Twitter/X, posting: “What the fuk is this??? This Kinks AI cover is like horror show sounds fukin horrible.”
None other than Star Wars actor Mark Hammill commented on also commented on Davies’ post, writing “you will be happy to know when I clicked on this it said ‘video unavailable’. (Still curious what The Kinks AI would sound like though),” to which Davies replied: “this one was shit”.
The person behind the AI track later fessed up. Someone called Leeroy posted: “Sorry Dave I’m a big fan and my favourite all-time band. I meant no disrespect. I have taken down.” He then rather cheekily added his own cover of a Kinks’ track, Living In A Thin Line, which met Davies’ approval. “I really like your cover,” the 77-year-old replied.
The Kinks guitarist recently took to Twitter to exclaim shock on seeing his Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame award being listed on ebay for $12,500.
You might well ask how did it fall out of his possession? Davies had no idea, but guessed it might have been around the time of his 2004 stroke when he was incapacitated and quite understandably had other things on his mind.
"Regarding ebay listing for my RRHOF award statue has been made without my consent,” he wrote. “I lost track of my award years ago and didn’t know where it was. If the person bought it at a storage unit it may have been and the time of my 2004 stroke when I was incapacitated in UK... I’m grateful to have made a full record from my stroke but it’s a shame that I wasn’t contacted. I’m assuming this is what happened."
He added: "We’ve written to the seller and are waiting to hear back. I don’t want to have to pay 12 grand to get my own award back. But maybe we can work something out more reasonable."
In this instance, there was a happy ending. The seller turned out to be the owner of esteemed New York record store Colony Records. He came to an agreement with Davies, removed the listing and the award was recovered.
