Fans of Pulp were left split by the use of artificial intelligence in the video for the band’s comeback song, Spike Island.
The track serves as the lead single of the Jarvis Cocker-fronted group’s first album in twenty-four years. More, which will release on June 6, features songs written by Richard Hawley, leftover tracks from Pulp‘s previous album, We Love Life, as well as a Jarv Is… demo, Slow Jam. While fans remain excited for the album’s release and the upcoming UK and Ireland tour, the use of artificial intelligence for the music video has rubbed fans the wrong way. Cocker explained the use of generative A.I. in the press release for More and during an appearance on Absolute Radio earlier this week.
He said: “Someone had asked me what I thought of AI and asked ‘if you were going to do something with it, what would you do?’. For some reason, the first idea that came into my mind was to use those photographs that were done for Different Class, and so I tried it myself and as soon as I put the first one in, I realised that I didn’t really have that much control over it.
“Some people don’t like the video because it uses AI. I think what maybe could redeem the video, you know, the text parts are me trying to comment on what’s happening, and I know that there are issues to do with AI, it’s not gonna disappear. You have to learn how to deal with that. And I don’t know what the end result of it will be, but this is my halting attempt to make sense of it.”
While Cocker confirmed the initial results of his AI use were underwhelming, he decided to “carry on and see where it gets to.” The songwriter behind Common People confirmed he was pro “human intelligence” in a statement released alongside the single. Fans were nonetheless disappointed to see AI in the music video for Spike Island.
Fans of the band took to Twitter and shared that, while delighted with the song itself, the music video left much to be desired. Users were quick to point out they agreed with the message of the video, but disagreed with the use of generative artificial intelligence.
One wrote: “The point of the spike island mv is anti AI, even if the way of depicting it wasn’t the best. I mean, he’s still right at a certain point, but that doesn’t change the fact that a huge part of his message is defeatist. He’s not in favour of its use for now, but it’s still disappointing.”
The Lipglossed fan account added: “I think the message here is quite defeatist really. AI is never going to be able to replace artists, and we shouldn’t have to reconcile ourselves to a future where it’s embedded into art. Telling people they just have to accept it, get used to it? What sort of message is that?”
A third user has since pointed out the “privilege” at the heart of the song, with the artificially generated video contrasting with the “lovely sentiment” heard on Spike Island. They wrote: “So privileged as well, on the video he sings, ‘I was born to perform / It’s a calling,’ and it’s a lovely sentiment but there’s many young people now who were born to do creative things — like make videos — and AI is displacing them.”
Cocker had previously confirmed he used artificial intelligence for the music video to prove his preference for “human intelligence”. He said: “I was told that someone was interested in investigating A.I. & did I have any ideas?
“The first idea I had was to animate the photographs that Rankin & Donald took for Different Class: after all, back in 1995 they had been an ‘artificial’ way of dropping us into real-life situations & getting an album cover done whilst we were too busy recording the music for that album to pose for pictures. No brainer.
“It was my initial idea to produce a kind of ‘making of’ video that showed how the photos had come to be taken – but as soon as I fed the first shot into the A.I. app I realised that wasn’t going to happen. So I decided to ‘go with the flow’ and see where the computer led me.
“All the moving images featured in the video are the result of me feeding in a still image & then typing in a ‘prompt’ such as: ‘The black & white figure remains still whilst the bus in the background drives off’ which led to the sequence where the coach weirdly slides towards the cut-out of me.
“The weekend I began work on the video was a strange time: I went out of the house & kept expecting weird transformations of the surrounding environment due to the images the computer had been generating. The experience had marked me. I don’t know whether I’ve recovered yet…
“I have to thank Julian House for some expert post-production work & Rankin & Donald Milne for allowing me to use their work in this way. As it says in text at the end of the video, I think what they did for Pulp back in 1995 was ‘Human Intelligence at its best’. My final thought? H.I. Forever!”
Despite the controversial use of artificial intelligence in the music video, the song itself received a glowing review from Cult Following. The five-star review of Spike Island praised the song for maintaining “a very high standard they [Pulp] set decades ago and established once more with their live shows… rarely is an artist able to blend the old tones with new topics; Pulp makes it sound ridiculously easy.”
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