AI is blowing up music. How should the Grammys handle it?

Hogging seats on a crowded train, not saying excuse me, watching videos on your phone with no headphones in. Sometimes it feels like we don't know how to act anymore. What we have been seeing, increasingly, is people breaking rules. Why should I play by the rules if nobody else is going to do that for me? This week on Explain It to Me, how to mind your manners.

New episodes Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Neil Ipatel, editor in chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. Today I'm talking with Harvey Mason Jr., the CEO of the Recording Academy. That's the outfit that puts on the Grammy Awards.

I last talked to Harvey in 2024 when it was obvious that generative AI would upend the music industry, but not exactly clear how or how fast that would happen. Well, it's been 18 months since that conversation, and you're gonna hear Harvey say that AI is now, quote, omnipresent in music production. And Harvey knows what he's talking about. He is himself a legendary music producer who's worked with everyone from Michael Jackson to Beyonce.

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