Fans of Nirvana may do a double-take when they hear'Drowned in the Sun,' a new song created by artificial intelligence that simulates the songwriting of late grunge legend Kurt Cobain. Engineers fed Nirvana's back catalog to Google's AI program, Magenta, which analyzed it for recurring components and then developed an entirely new track. The voice on'Drowned in the Sun,' is 100 percent human, though--provided by Eric Hogan, lead singer of the Atlanta Nirvana cover band Nevermind. The song is just one release from The Lost Tapes of the 27 Club, a project developed by the nonprofit Over the Bridge, which spotlights mental health issues in the music industry. Other AI-generated'lost' tracks have taken their cue from Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Amy Winehouse, who, like Cobain, died at age 27.

The recently launched Lost Tapes of the 27 Club project uses AI software to create songs in the style of musicians who died at the age of 27. One of the featured tracks is called "Drowned in the Sun", and it comes pretty close to replicating a Nirvana song written by Kurt Cobain himself. With opening guitars starting out restrained before reaching a crescendo on the chorus, the track is reminiscent of Nirvana's signature hit, "Come as You Are". Its chorus sounds like something Cobain might have written, too, with lyrics like, "I don't care/ I feel as one, drowned in the sun." As explained in a Rolling Stone feature, Google's AI program Magenta was used to analyze the pioneering grunge band's music and create the instrumental track.

Were he still alive today, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain would be 52 years old. Every February 20th, on the day of his birthday, fans wonder what songs he would write if he hadn't died of suicide nearly 30 years ago. While we'll never know the answer to that question, an AI is attempting to fill the gap. A mental health organization called Over the Bridge used Google's Magenta AI and a generic neural network to examine more than two dozen songs by Nirvana to create a'new' track from the band. "Drowned in the Sun" opens with reverb-soaked plucking before turning into an assault of distorted power chords.

Ever since Kurt Cobain's death in 1994, Nirvana fans have hypothesized about the music he would have made had he lived. But other than "You Know You're Right," the scabrous, throat-shredding meditation on confusion that Nirvana recorded a few months before his suicide, and a few comments he told confidants about potentially collaborating with R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe or going completely solo, he mainly left behind question marks. Now an organization has created a "new" Nirvana song using artificial-intelligence software to approximate the singer-guitarist's songwriting. The guitar riffs vary from quiet, "Come as You Are"–style plucking to raging, Bleach fury à la "Scoff." And lyrics like, "The sun shines on you but I don't know how," and a surprisingly anthemic chorus, "I don't care/I feel as one, drowned in the sun," bear evocative, Cobain-esque qualities.

Hardly a day goes by without news headlines trumpeting another advance in artificial intelligence. Yet despite all the publicity, many people still think of intelligence as the mere accumulation of information. The late musician Kurt Cobain shared an interesting perspective on the difference when he wrote: "I have met many minds able to store and translate a pregnantly large amount of information, yet they haven't an ounce of talent for wisdom or the appreciation of passion." Despite famously dropping out of high school, Cobain had an astute grasp on one of the most vexing problems in cognitive science. He understood you can have six strings on a guitar or 88 keys on a piano but still lack music.

From the way you move and sleep, to how you interact with people around you, depression changes just about everything. It is even noticeable in the way you speak and express yourself in writing. Sometimes this "language of depression" can have a powerful effect on others. Just consider the impact of the poetry and song lyrics of Sylvia Plath and Kurt Cobain, who both killed themselves after suffering from depression. Scientists have long tried to pin down the exact relationship between depression and language, and technology is helping us get closer to a full picture.

From the way you move and sleep, to how you interact with people around you, depression changes just about everything. It is even noticeable in the way you speak and express yourself in writing. Sometimes this "language of depression" can have a powerful effect on others. Just consider the impact of the poetry and song lyrics of Sylvia Plath and Kurt Cobain, who both killed themselves after suffering from depression. Scientists have long tried to pin down the exact relationship between depression and language, and technology is helping us get closer to a full picture.