Liza Minnelli Releases Surprising New Track After 13-Year Absence: 'I Always Thought Music Was About Emotional Truth'

Liza Minnelli has released her first new music after a 13-year hiatus, adding her vocals over an artificial intelligence (AI)-created dance track, The Guardian reports.

The song called “Kids, Wait Til You Hear This”, which will also be the title of the autobiographical book that the American singer is about to publish, represents for Minnelli an unexpected foray into the “deep house” genre. Minnelli adds a few spoken statements over the pulsating accompaniment.

The 79-year-old singer hasn't released new music since 2013, when she performed a song for US music series Smash, but she now says she has great faith in the potential of music created with the help of AI.

On her Facebook page, she praised ElevenLabs, the company behind the piece, describing it as “a six billion dollar tech giant [care face] amazing things… What will I not allow this great company to do? To create, clone or copy my voice! … I used arrangements made with AI. Not AI-generated voices… All words are mine!”.

In an accompanying press release, she stated, “I've always believed that music is about connection and emotional truth. What interested me here was the idea of using my voice and new tools in service of expression, not in place of it. This project respects the artist's voice, the artist's choices, and the artist's ownership. I grew up watching my parents create wonderful dreams that were owned by other people. ElevenLabs makes it possible for anyone to be a creator and an owner.” it matters”.

Unpublished collaboration for Liza Minnelli

The track is part of a compilation of music created or modified by AI, and other featured artists include Art Garfunkel. His track, “Authorship,” includes a spoken excerpt from the audiobook version of his memoir “What Is It All But Luminous,” paying tribute to his father over an AI-generated piano accompaniment.

“Music has always evolved with technology, from microphones to multi-track recording,” Garfunkel said. “What struck me about this experience was the respect for musicality. The human remains at the center of attention. My voice, plus the technology, just opens another door.”

Their enthusiasm for AI stands in stark contrast to the attitude of other artists and industry professionals amid growing concerns that AI-generated music will undermine the jobs of human musicians and imitate the work of others without properly compensating them.

“If you take a job away from a human being, I think that's probably a bad thing. The purpose of society is for us all to work. If everything was done by robots, everyone would be out of a job. I just think AI is a bit weird,” Ed Sheeran once said.

Lil Wayne instead expressed doubt that AI could accurately reproduce his own voice: “I'm naturally, organically amazing. I'm unique. So actually, I'd like to see that thing try to copy my voice.”

Still, a wave of new “generative AI” companies like Udio, Suno and Klay are pushing ahead, signing deals with record labels to let users manipulate artists' creations with AI tools or create entirely new tracks using text commands, based on AI learning from the work of others and using it to generate new compositions. Artists can choose if they want to participate in such projects.

The record companies were initially hostile to these companies, threatening legal action, but have since entered into several agreements and partnerships with them.