Oh but it actually is, and there’s been loads of studies on exactly what combinations of chords and transitions people generally find pleasing to listen to.

Okay, pedant. Perhaps I should have been more specific by using the word “melody.” But those chords you mentioned aren’t all the same. They might be the same notes, but they’re all played differently, with more or less expression, with varying tempos, etc. There is math and theory and even marketing studies involved, but Music is more than just notes strung together in a pattern.

It’s a sad reality of the industry, like it or not.

Okay, but I’m not talking about the industry. I’m talking about music in general, of which the industry is a single part. AI might sound similar to or use some of the same pattern-following as mainstream music, but that doesn’t make them equivalent, just nominally parallel.

And focusing only upon mainstream music discounts the vast array of non-mainstream music. There are countless musicians that try new things, that don’t follow the mathematical patterns, that tell “stories.” Most of them don’t make it onto the radio or into movie soundtracks, but that doesn’t make their art less valid or varied, especially when comparing it to AI slop.