There's a quote by the legendary producer Steve Albini, whose death, of a heart attack at age 61, was announced earlier Wednesday, that's been rattling around in my head for so many decades that it's been paraphrased beyond recognition, or at least the reach of search engines. It goes, vaguely, like this: There is nothing better than the sound of a drum kit in an empty room. As a producer, Albini, who recorded albums by Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Pixies, the Breeders, and hundreds of others, was renowned as an icon of punk-rock purity, one who approached the process of making albums and the business of selling them with the same uncompromising approach. When Nirvana was overwhelmed by the runaway success of their major-label debut, Nevermind, they turned to Albini for the follow-up, In Utero, hoping that his abrasive approach would help reduce their fan base to a more manageable level. Instead of jumping at the chance to work with the hottest band in the world, Albini responded with a lengthy letter outlining the circumstances under which he would, and would not, make an album with them.

With the success of Peter Jackson's Get Back, the documentary streaming on Disney Plus, Beatlemania is back. Watching Paul McCartney create the eponymous song out of seemingly nothing, as George Harrison stands nearby yawning, is one of 2021's cinematic pleasures. The Beatles are arguably the most successful pop group in history and, in the years since their heyday, countless artists, producers and songwriters, not to mention record companies and now music streaming services, have tried to recreate the same magic. The latest tool for capturing elusive pop music gold is artificial intelligence. Usually when we think of artificial intelligence creating art, it's making something bizarre or unintentionally hilarious. Take Google's horrifying Deep Dream with its thousands of dog eyes, or Sunspring, a movie written by an AI that was fed hundreds of sci-fi scripts.