A few days ago, I was listening to my New Songs playlist, which I use to find new Song Pick of the Day features. As usual, Spotify kept playing algorithmically selected songs after the last song in the playlist. It was „When We Lied“ by an artist called „BookTok,“ which publishes AI-generated songs topically associated with popular romantic fantasy literature.

We would not feature AI-generated songs for the same reason we are very reluctant to include anonymous artists or producers who hire nameless singers to spice up their music.

In music, the artist’s personality matters. A song that has never been sung with words that have never been thought by a human lacks something essential, even if you cannot immediately hear it.

AI music (and AI in every other aspect of life) will dominate the discussion in 2026, whether we want it or not. AI is not going away, and creators of all kinds will have to use it to keep up. So better embrace it and make smart choices.

What does that mean for music? Honestly, music will be fine. Technology has already changed hugely how music is created and consumed. A single producer on a laptop could replace a band, or even an orchestra, as early as 15 years ago. AI just simplifies this process even further. (Water & Music has a great, detailed piece about where technology is currently going.)

But musical instruments are fun to play and even to watch someone else play. People still go to classical concerts to hear pieces that have been recorded many times, just to be in the room where people create these beautiful sounds.

Also, making music is fun, whether producing something new or interpreting an existing piece. Typing a prompt and being presented with a polished result may be thrilling for a moment, but it is certainly not emotionally engaging in the long term.

Yes, much commercial music, perhaps even up to and including Hans Zimmer-level soundtracks, will go to AI, and with it, many current income sources for musicians. But music, and art in general, is inherently human and will not be replaced by machines that merely mirror what has been created before.

Another story we found worth sharing has nothing to do with music but everything to do with caring. Amaia Rodríguez Solá and her brother, Julen Rodríguez, started a for-profit company, Gravity Wave, that retrieves abandoned fishing nets from the ocean floor and turns them into sellable products. Good things can be done for the planet, and they do not always have to be purely charitable.

Cover Song of the Week

Short and sweet is Geneviève Racette’s take on “Come As You Are,” a stark contrast to Nirvana’s raw original. But this cover proves once again that good songwriting works in any musical context.

Five Songs

Listen to glamglare five songs on Spotify, Apple Music, or below on YouTube.

Last fall, British artist Bat for Lashes released a remastered version of her album Fur & Gold. The original came out in 2007, a very different time for music. Piracy was still a major issue, and the game-changing monthly subscription service had yet to become mainstream.

In the 2000s, we would also have difficulty filling glamglare with at least 50% female musicians. Indie(-ish) women artists like Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan were far and few between.

Today’s five songs come from female-fronted acts that we specifically sought out in the 2000s.

• Bat For Lashes - Sarah
  Maybe my favorite song on Fur & Gold is for its dark, mythical vibes. On stage, Natasha would be beaten with a wooden stick on the floor and instructed the engineer to make it sound even more evil.
• Martina Topley-Bird - Anything
  Martina Topley-Bird is a singer and multi-instrumentalist from the orbit of Tricky and Massive Attack. Her debut album Quixotic came out in 2003, and Elke gave it to me for my birthday sometime later. “Anything” gets me every time.
• Charlotte Martin - Under the Gravel Sky
  We saw Charlotte Martin for the first time when she opened for the Psychedelic Furs at the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side, and we were so impressed that we bought a CD. She is more of a traditional singer-songwriter on the piano, but “Under the Gravel Sky,” from her 2005 album Veins, is an outlier with its darker electronic production.
• Dot Allison - We Are Science
  If my memory serves me well, I downloaded Dot Allison’s 2002 album We Are Science from eMusic, an early subscription service that offered limited download credits, after I found her name on a list of women in electronic music.
• Kelli Ali - Psychic Cat
  Kelli Ali was the singer of the British trip-hop band Sneaker Pimps on their first album before she launched a solo career. The 2004 album Psychic Cat was also a birthday gift and was on constant rotation on my iPod.

This Week’s Song Picks

Listen to all seven songs on YouTube, or follow our daily updated Song Pick playlists on YouTube, Apple Music2, or Spotify3.

• KEELEY - “Hungry For The Prize”
• néomí - “Didn’t I”
• Dream Prescription - “Wave Cafe”
• Tabi Gervis - “Twenty-Two Parade”
• molto morbidi - “To Watch The Ducks Go”
• Austel - “30th Day”
• Demob Happy - “Power Games”

We publish one Song Pick of the Day every day. You can subscribe to receive them by email.

Valentine’s x 9

Twenty-plus years, different apartments, different neighborhoods, and always the two of us, a table, a street, a little celebration tucked into the everyday. From Park Row in 2002 to Williamsburg and Ridgewood — and Downtown Manhattan again. From snow in Queens to oysters in Williamsburg. From crowded sidewalks to quiet dinners at home. Nine moments without grand gestures. Just love, in all its very New York forms.

1. First Valentine’s in New York, Park Row (Elke) – 2002
2. Huge gift baskets, Delancey Street – 2010
3. Snow at All Saints Cemetery, Glendale, Queens – 2021
4. Oysters and bubbly at home, Williamsburg – 2015
5. One last party before Covid shut everything down, Ridgewood – 2020
6. Heart-shaped keto pizza – 2022
7. Dinner table at home, Ridgewood – 2023
8. Valentine’s Day in our Downtown Manhattan home - 2025
9. First Valentine’s in New York, Park Row (Oliver) – 2002