So this is weird…
A little while back, Songwhip announced that it was going out of business, so this morning I decided to update my website with new links to my music. Easy enough, I guess, but when I went to my artist page on Amazon music, I saw a bunch of music that wasn’t mine. It’s all from an ambient album by someone else named Marc Schuster. Curiously, the album is called Hide and Seek.
Also weird: The cover of Hide and Seek is the same color as the cover of my album Arguably. The shading is the same, too. It’s as if someone removed the images and just left the background.
Then I checked Spotify to see if the other Marc Schuster was there as well. Turns out he is, but he has his own page. And that page says that the works on Hide and Seek were composed by someone named Patrick Scheiter.
Is it significant that Scheiter is German for failure? I don’t know. I also don’t know whether it’s significant that all of Patrick Scheiter’s cover art is clearly AI-generated.
I am, however, wondering if the recordings attributed to the other Marc Schuster might be AI-generated as well–they’re all fairly anodyne and incredibly short. I’m also wondering if anyone else might be experiencing something similar. Then again, maybe it’s all just a coincidence.
Speaking of which, just before I discovered the other Marc Schuster, I had posted on Twitter that I was taking a break. Mainly it’s just to preserve my sanity as things heat up in the political world — and as the world heats up more generally. I always get a little irritable in the summer, and I’ve felt the irritability coming on for a while now. A lot of what I see on social media tends to make it worse, so I wanted to get out before I posted anything I might regret.
With any luck, I’ll be able to unplug for a while and not worry about this other Marc Schuster. In the meantime, I’m hoping to work on some music and maybe some drawings as well. Most likely, I’ll share my drawings on Instagram.
And, of course, there’s this blog and my radio show. I’ll keep those going as well. Otherwise, my instincts are telling me to lay low for a while.
Feel free, though, to drop me a line whenever you have news.
7 responses to “Weird Goings-On”
Wow, that sounds like a strange story, Marc. As a native German, I can confirm the German word (noun) for failure is “Scheitern”. “Scheiter” isn’t really used, though in theory you could say “scheiter!,” which would be a command to fail, i.e., fail!
In any case, I hope you’ll be able to unplug and relax despite the extreme heat and the current political atmosphere, both of which are hard to escape!
Thanks, Christian! That’s interesting… A command to fail! The mystery deepens!
As strange and probably irritating as it is, I hope you can unplug and “forget about it,” at least for some time!
Our summer here in the Southwestern deserts has been even hotter than its normally blazing self (we set a new all-time high of 124 on July 5, and it’s hit 118-122 another six or seven days! And yes, our politics has reached a literal fever pitch, and I’m deeply despondent. I’m trying to stay off Twitter more myself, and also have little motivation to even write about music. Enjoy your break, Marc.
Thanks, Jeff! Wow… That’s really hot! Do your best to stay cool, my friend.
That does sound very AI like to me. Too coincidental. In any event, I hope you have a successful and restful unplugging!
Thank you, Frank!