An astronaut in a field of sunflowers. It is the cover of Songs for a Nervous Planetthe album that Tears for Fears will release on October 25. Since Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith made it public, they have attracted a lot of criticism.
It is in fact evident that it was created with the help of artificial intelligence and this does not go down well with many people who have left comments ranging from “embarrassing” to “you can do better to “how disappointing to see that artists use AI that steals the work of other artists”.
The image is for many “soulless”, but it is not just a question of aesthetics. Generative artificial intelligence is trained by submitting existing images to it, a process that raises many questions about the legitimacy of the unauthorized use of artists' works to “automatically” create new ones.
The band responded over the weekend with an Instagram post, first explaining that the cover was created in collaboration with Surrealistly, the stage name of Vitalie Burcovschi. The cover is described in the post as a “mixed media digital collage,” meaning a digital collage created by combining different techniques, not just AI. “AI is just one of the many tools that were used during the creative process.”
There is no further explanation as to the use of AI. The band explains instead that the idea was to evoke typical sci-fi themes and an idea of escape from the world we know, with the sunflowers “referencing the imagery of Tears for Fears” and the astronaut “recalling a new song, Astronautand a sense of alienation and non-belonging.”
For his part, Burcovschi explains in the same post that “balancing the surrealism and emotional depth of their music was a challenge” and that the result “captures the essence of their story.”
Judging by the comments, the explanation did not calm the critics: «I will not buy a record with that cover», «I have been a fan of yours for decades, but I cannot support you in this thing», «So many words to justify a cheap use of AI», «How ironic to title an album “music for a nervous planet” and then use on the cover the AI that is destroying it», «AI artists are not artists», «Study how harmful AI is and stop hiding the comments that talk about it».
