I just finished my debut album, and I made physical CD copies that I handed out to my family and friends. I want to put it on BandCamp up for a $10 price (one for each song), but the problem is the cover uses AI, for a couple reasons: 1) I'm not an artist 2) I can't hire an artist 3) It fits the aesthetic 4) It's free and easy to use.

I feel like putting it up on BandCamp wouldn't be terrible because I'm showcasing the music, not the art. But would you feel ripped off if you bought it and found out the cover wasn't human made? (only for the art. all the music is made strictly by me)

Overall question, would you buy my album if I put it on BandCamp, even if it uses AI?

No

there are other ways to approach this issue. for instance you could commission someone to create album art for you, supporting a human artist in the bargain

yes! that would be great if I had money to hire one. I don't have any that would do it for free

also, I don't know how much money I would have to give them with the amount that I make? and I don't want this to turn into a lawsuit or anything lmao

anyway, nobody born skilled on anything, arts included - and here at botb can be a great place for practicing!

asking me if i wld buy your album without any reference point of what the album cld sound like is a little ... weird. completely unrelated to the AI thing

ikr! I just think it would be awesome to do everything myself, including the artwork! but rn, I have far less talent than I wish I had to make an album cover 😂😂

creativity is king. if i were you, i would give it time, and try to think of an interesting design which you believe you could make yourself/with little money instead of taking the easy way out. unless your album is about utter cynicism

kleeder, I just meant if you went in blind and then realized the cover art was AI. The way I worded it sounded pushy, sorry, that was not my intention.

Better question would be “would you buy an album if the cover art used AI”

im gonna be real, if i recognize any sort of ad/promo art/cover art as AI, i'm gonna assume that the product it's trying to sell me is low effort.

but that's me.

that’s fair. thanks for your opinions guys, it was good to hear the other side of the spectrum

it is also free and easy to use Phone Camera or Webcam to take a photo graph IMO. also if you have no money but you want to commission a friend you can trade a song for an art. i do that a lot with my drawing friends. your avi would work for an album cover too tbh Face As Album Cover is pretty normal

Knowing that the cover was made with AI would definitely make the album way less appealing to me... Unfortunately, I can't give much cover art advice without knowing what your artistic intentions are for the album!

i think telling us that the only thing about the album being it made with ai is gonna sway many ppl off, especially as they have no idea what the any track in the album sounds like,

(this is coming from a poor idiot so feel free to ignore this)

The AI-generated art I see around is, as a rule, kitschy in a way that is both garish and boring. I don't like this aesthetic even when it's human-made.

I can't judge more than that without seeing/hearing the album, but if your audience is fans of indie music, an AI-made cover might lose you more audience than you gain.

Even something as simple as a random photo or as austere as just the album's name would be more respectable, since those are used by musicians in all levels of professionalism and funding.

Personally, I’m more likely to listen to an album that just has no cover art or a 5 second sketch as it’s cover art than one with an ai art cover. Ai art gives me a pretty instant negative reaction whenever I see it

The AI art I had for it was a space scene with like a flying car or whatever vehicle with a nice background palette. Unfortunately, it was exactly what I was envisioning with my album, which is called “Road Trip” so I didn’t do anything better

But now with your thoughts, I’m definitely going to take the time and make some actual art. Idk maybe I’ll do it digitally myself, or photography, or like azur said trade a song for a drawing (I’ll have to look into that)

I will update this when the album is out, and I’ll enable free listening on it, too, so you can hear what it sounds like. Thanks again, guys!

[Also, unfortunately, a lot of cover art on my YouTube is made with AI (as I mentioned in the original post) but they are for no monetary gain. I will just start using other artist’s works and crediting them or making them myself.]

AI artwork just makes your stuff look tacky unfortunately, across the board, so i think it's totally the right decision to either make something yourself or do an art trade with a buddy like azurglade suggested - it shows you really care about what you're putting out, whether it's the most polished thing or not

something i'll add to this convo is when dalle 2 first came out, i thought it'd be fun to use for soundcloud uploads of stuff like botb entries, but pretty quickly i realized it's just always gonna be better to use the major battle artwork or, if not that, something else kinda related that is not AI - it's just not a good look, and also not very cohesive either, makes the tracks just seem random and slipshod

@Kalowe one of the visuall battles i hosted was about album covers - maybe we should host more like this? https://battleofthebits.com/arena/Battle/6089/MainScreen/chamber+music+vinyl+cover (sorry i'm out of mood for hosting battles... who can help hosting some?)

@nitrofurano these battles by kleeder are kinda close to a album cover batol, so this could work (assuming they host this one more)

are you saying somebody here could do the art, nitro? like for a battle?

@Kalowe actually both, as you also might want to participate as well, which would be awesome, because it's a whole process of creation, practicing, learning, sharing ideas, criticizing and improve self-criticizing, etc. - i think this is also why botb exists! ;) (anyway, never underestimate your skills, or lack of skills, on everything!)

also, consider collabing on visual battles meanwhile (including that future battles major), this will help you a lot to break the ice in the whole process!

I like how this just turned into motivating me into learning how to draw. You guys are awesome, thanks again for the responses

you made me remember what a drawing teacher said in my class once: "get used to draw every day, no matter if you draw well or not, or where you are drawing - only draw every day, and the quality of your drawing will naturally and constantly improve"

and another teacher once said "when drawing, imagine you are sculpting a sheet of paper with a pencil, or a pen"

hey, can we move this to soundcloud dms, nitro? lol

soundcloud has dms? this is new, i never heard of it! :O

and more about drawing exercises, when you try to copy drawings from Rubens, Le Brun, Egon Schiele, Albrecht Durer, Leonardo Da Vinci, etc., you'll realize how amazing teachers they are even centuries or decades after they passed away

yes, soundcloud has dms! I just sent you one!

not sure who said this before me, but you could probably ask just about anybody. I have plenty of friends who could totally hook you up with an album art, and I’m sure there’s people all over (even some on here) who’d be willing to make you an album cover.

yes, but how many would do it for free? as well as not paying them for the money I make from the album?

nobody should work for free

exactly, and I am not in any position right now to pay, that's the problem. but the work around is I will work at art until I am confident enough to make my own

i think nobody is confident enough! :)

maybe it's just me but... you can absolutely use stock photos with basic GIMP editing knowledge to create something cool.

i have zero qualifications for art beyond being able to envision and trial-and-error my way through it.

i've learned a lot by just giving it a shot myself. look at some other album art you like, and make something

I mean you clearly have some photography knowledge given your profile picture, if not someone you asked who knows how, why not use that to your advantage? plenty of albums are a mix of photography and a title

here's a link to gimp. it's free, open source, and there are plenty of tutorials out there to get you started.

https://www.gimp.org/

saying your not an artist is not giving yourself enough credit. Just try and do it yourself. All of the reasons you've provided don't justify you being somehow bad at art. I didn't think I'd want to make my own album art for the stuff I'm working on either, but with no other options I gave it a shot, even though it's 400x400 pixel art, which is larger than I normally work with, I'm super happy with the results! I haven't shared it yet on account of the album itself not being finished (ok there are several, i have a problem with starting too many projects, I know, I know) but if someone with barely any experience in digital art beyond what I've struggled to attempt to create myself, it's very doable.

I can provide a link to one of my album covers as I posted it on discord. this is for an upcoming EP. it was made in aseprite, but I edited the cherry blossom branch (a stock photo) in gimp and then inserted it into the rest of the pixel art

that is really good, 02. maybe I'll give photography a shot

(the picture was done by my boss' wife, btw, but I've always been fascinated with learning photography, too)

oh it looks like my album art example got nuked, fooey
EDIT: I can't wait to replace the link to it every couple of weeks or however long it takes for discord to change the link..

besides gimp, give inkscape a try as well!

you (and perhaps everyone here) might enjoy taking a look at websites like this: https://designreviewed.com/ - such references for "visual culture" are mostly essential in the creative process

i haven't looked at your album art but depending on how it looks like, if you didn't specifically say that it was AI art, there's a high possibility that nobody would have noticed. but i also recommend fucking around on gimp or whatever, or drawing on paper and scanning/taking a pic.

seeing lots of album covers (and trying not to copy them!) can be a great start:
- https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/iconic-album-cover-designers/
- https://www.groundguitar.com/blog/greatest-album-covers-of-all-time/
- https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-album-covers-1235035232/frank-ocean-blonde-6-1235038776/
- https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/25-iconic-album-covers/
- https://www.thisisdig.com/feature/best-peter-saville-artworks-album-covers/
- https://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2006/04/23/neville-brody-and-fetish-records/
- https://aramajapan.com/aramaexclusive/opinionpiece/what-are-the-best-japanese-album-covers-of-all-time/73894/
- https://rateyourmusic.com/list/amaterasubestgirl/top-100-japanese-albums/
- https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/the-100-greatest-album-covers/
- https://beehy.pe/special/best-japanese-albums/

playing around with colours and then using them can be a great exercise too - creating an account in social networks like colourlovers can be a great help for that (my account is at https://www.colourlovers.com/lover/nitrofurano ) - there might be other similar ones around

you might enjoy this one as well (extract palettes from photos): https://labs.tineye.com/color/f476dfde80dbb3cdae97ba207402ec1603371ce7?ignore_background=True&width=125&color_format=hex&ignore_interior_background=True&height=125

I'd much rather see a bad drawing than something AI-generated

@02FD i'd totally avoid using stock photos, is almost the same thing as using ai imho...

Stock photos and public domain art have been used in album covers for decades, including very iconic ones.

@Max_Chaplin please show us some examples (im asking because most stock photos are beyond terrible) (edit: i humbly made an experience, i guess this is how we should use stock photos! ;) - https://battleofthebits.com/arena/Entry/20240922a/71450/ )

hey kalowe, here's a recent blog that is parallel to your situation and may help you in future albums:
https://blog.landr.com/how-to-make-your-own-album-cover/

you guys are the best, thank you so much

@nitrofurano:
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
The Pogues - Rum Sodomy & the Lash
Rage Against The Machine - s/t [NSFW]
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
Sophie's Product-era singles

Just a few examples