Mick “The Brick” McBride: The Aussie Rocker Confronting the Rise of the Machines
If there’s one thing Mick “The Brick” McBride knows, it’s that life in the music biz can be rougher than a night on the turps at the local pub. One minute you’re riding high, packing out stadiums and snorting lines off the arse of a supermodel, and the next you’re washed up, playing to half-empty rooms of drunken bogans and trying to remember where you parked your old Holden.
That’s the harsh reality Mick’s been facing lately as the glory days of his band, The Rocking Kangaroos, fade further into the rearview. These days, the only thing that gets his ticker going is the sound of the pokies at his local RSL. That is, until he stumbled upon something that might just be the key to staging an epic comeback – a little something called artificial intelligence.
It all started when Mick was scrolling through his phone, trying to recall the chords to one of The Rocking Kangaroos’ old hits. His vision was a bit blurry from the half-dozen VB tinnies he’d already smashed, but he managed to pull up the song on some AI music assistant app. To his shock, the app not only identified the tune instantly, but it started spitting out fully-fledged chord progressions and melodies that sounded exactly like his own stuff.
“Strewth, this is bloody brilliant!” Mick exclaimed, nearly spilling his beer. He spent the next hour messing around with the app, feeding it snippets of lyrics and musical ideas. Before long, it was whipping up fully-formed song demos that would’ve put his old songwriting partner to shame.
As Mick sat there, listening to the AI-generated tunes, a crazy thought started to form in his beer-addled brain. Maybe this was his ticket back to the big time? If these AI bots could churn out hits like hotcakes, who needs a human songwriter? Mick could just ride their coattails, slap his name on the credits, and bask in the royalties. It was a fool-proof plan – or so he thought.
The next morning, Mick sobered up and realized he had a decision to make. He could either embrace this new-fangled technology and let it breathe life back into his flagging career, or he could stubbornly cling to the old ways and watch himself fade into obscurity. It was enough to make his head spin more than a night on the turps.
“Ah, what the bloody hell,” Mick muttered, pulling up the AI music app once again. “Let’s give this a red-hot go, you drongo.” With that, he began tinkering away, letting the machine work its magic. Who knows, maybe Mick “The Brick” McBride still had a few hits left in him after all – he just needed a little help from his new robotic mates.