Do Androids Dream of Terrible Music? / by Allison James

During 2024, I bought a month of Suno, an AI music generator that takes prompts and spits out music of varyingly rough quality. Having wanted to make another rhythm game akin to Bullet Hills for years, I drafted an idea for a game called “Do Androids Dream of Terrible Music?”, in which robots from a distant planet have located Earth and attempted - poorly - to understand the concept of music. I used fairly comical/ridiculous prompts with bizarre prompts to deliberately make the resulting output worse than if you used generic ones.

Due to a growing dislike of AI (I still fuck with it sometimes nowadays but it’s gotten pretty old and its usefulness in creative stuff is… bad), Do Androids Dream of Terrible Music? probably won’t ever be made, but I did over 100 songs for it - here’re some of them, with a rough approximation of the prompt I used to generate them. (Note: the “cover art” are also AI-generated, although often heavily edited.)

98 Windows
Sophie Raygun

A pop punk song about a guy who asked his grandma for Windows 98 but she bought him ninety-eight windows instead

a
Sophie Raygun

An EDM song where the only lyric is “a” repeatedly

Beefarita
Sophie Raygun

An electro-swing song called Beefarita, about a hot new dance

Don't Steal
Sophie Raygun

A pop song listing all the things “You Wouldn’t Steal…”, starting naturally with a car

Drummy Wummy
Sophie Raygun

A drum and bass song called Drummy Wummy. No comment

Eat 'n' Sneeze
Sophie Raygun

Pop drum and bass where the drummer sneezes before every single line of the song

Echoes of Sandman
Sophie Raygun

A 2000s emo pop rock song that is a lullaby in the verses but turns into heavyish metal in the chorus

Free Chocolate
Sophie Raygun

A soulful song about a singer who had “free chocolate” as a clause in their recording contract and are filing a lawsuit as it was missing

Hot Towel Shave
Sophie Raygun

A Eurodance song about the magic and ubiquity of Turkish barbershops in the UK and the services they provide

Lactose Fury
Sophie Raygun

A rock song about a guy who has lactose intolerance, but he really fuckin’ loves milkshake so he’s having it anyway

Love Roll
Sophie Raygun

A K-pop song about a man who really loves British sausage rolls, but he has the hiccups, so his love ballad is periodically interrupted by “hic”

No, I CAN Believe It Isn't
Sophie Raygun

A woman is really offended and angry because she CAN believe it’s not butter

Peanut
Sophie Raygun

An EDM/dubstep song about the peanut butter baby where the lyrics are just “a” repeatedly to a club anthem

Ring-a-Ding Therapy
Sophie Raygun

A catchy bubbly pop song about ringing your therapist

Shooketh on Fat Tuesday
Sophie Raygun

A jazz/swing song about being “shooketh” at Mardi Gras

Why Can't I?
Sophie Raygun

A drum and bass tune about a man who is upset that dogs have the freedom to defecate in public parks and he doesn’t

Wings
Sophie Raygun

An ambient EDM track about someone gloating about their ability to fly

X Marks the Bop
Sophie Raygun

A song where the majority of the words in the lyrics start with the letter X