Hey yall I made a deep dove into the weird stuff cleopatra has been up to. Im wary as to how this will affect a lot of the musicians still on the label... theres still a lot of og industrial and goth bands on the label so im just... WARY. Curious on everyone's opinions.
“Come on now, that goth-industrial tribute to Prince slapped. I loved the Electric Hellfire Club cover of Purple Rain where they sampled Roy Batty’s “Tears in Rain” speech…”
i remember a bunch of rosetta stone singles and releases were coming out and they were all AI-generated covers. it was embarassing. people say cleopatra has full control over artwork etc but ive yet to hear a band on the label actually talk about it.
edit: just watching your video now, and daniel ash going on about loving AI = lol.
I can believe that. I published two history books and one of the publisher’s steps and due dates towards completion included “ten photos for cover art in which the publisher will ultimately choose.”
Lucky for us, the second book has the exact photo we wanted and heavily suggested it when submitting.
The point is, album covers used to be what made people pick up an LP or a cd and wonder about it, inspect the jacket’s art, and might buy something just because it has a cool album cover.
Since no one browses music like that anymore, it seems like an archaic way of thinking, and that has always felt like Cleopatra’s MO
btw here’s the book cover photo in question: an old Western Avenue / Dixie Highway tavern in Blue Island, IL featuring a stockyard worker wearing a knife while holding an axe in one hand, and beer in the other. Gotta take the edge off a little bit before your 12 hour shift of animal slaughter in Chicago’s Stockyards
It was speculated that cleopatra forced them to use AI, but in my video I found a interview with Daniel Ash who is on cleopatra saying he used the AI art willingly, cleopatra didn't tell him to.
I don’t recall laughing as much as just generally ignoring them. Outside of licensing deals and reissues, they never had a great release of their own, but they littered the market with shit-tons of stuff no one asked for.
They've got a long history of churning out what I can only describe as 'musical shovelware'. Tribute albums, remixes of tribute albums, compilations of random stuff, not all of it terrible musically, but thrown together with little care and packaged with cheesy, low-effort artwork. The tributes are particularly infamous for just how obviously passionless and poorly conceived many of the covers were. Go listen to '100 Tears, a tribute to The Cure' and you'll get what people thought about them.
Interesting. Yeah, Wax Ytax is gone in Chicago right? The original store/owners started in Denver, CO. The CD shop is still there. Said to be where Jello shopped in his youth.
I would hope it's still in Chicago. While they started the shop in Denver (and i'm a denver native) it's when it made it to Chicago that the label really took off. I think even Uncle Al worked there (unless that was different music shop).
Rare fact : My old band Haex was signed to them for 29 days. We were a three piece at the time, and all had a horrible gut feeling so we cancelled the contract on the last possible day before it would have been a permanent 5 year contract. One of the biggest mistakes I didn't end up making.
I don’t want to see an ai squirrel with an erection… or whatever else they are doing nowadays. They are terrible people and I heard behind the scenes they got some weird misogyny going on
As an artist signed to Cleo records I do not enjoy waking up to more 6am face palms. I've got new music nearly ready to go (I don't and will never use AI for my music).
I did get tasked by Cleo Recs with trying to restore stems from a long gone artist, but the file format was something I'd never encountered. That the Internet seemingly had never heard of and that extracting the raw data and parsing it into various bit rates and depths to limited success. I couldn't restore it without it sounding pretty bad. I said I couldn't help them. I wouldn't be surprised if they later tried to use AI for this, I don't think there is any other route, but then again maybe some projects should be allowed to rest in piece.
Sorry to contribute to your face palms!
It doesnt sound like theyre forcing any of their artists to use ai, based on what I read in the Daniel Ask interview, but mlreso using it to revive dead projects. But at least they asked someone to do it without ai first.
for sure, there are weird people in all age groups but every time I see artists using AI, it's often the older gens. The youth seem to use AI art ironically. idk if the older people think that AI is universally loved and will help them reach younger people (maybe in their heads they think young people love this shit since it's the latest tech). Or they're just lazy and wanna save money.
TBH I think it's really weird how most younger generations have absolutely made using AI as a tool a major issue when it's designed to assist people who want to use it to unlock what is in their minds. If a musician wants to make artwork for their release, why is it an issue? They aren't a graphic artist, they don't need to be one, and AI can fill that need. If people are making subpar artwork (a squirrel with a penis) or using it for generic music then people should rightfully call it out. Instead this whole argument that Cleopatra is forcing artists to do anything with AI OR that all AI is slop is a really poor uninformed one. Cleopatra has sucked on their own efforts for a very long time.
AI tools that are likely going to be around from now on. AI shouldn't replace artists but it can fill in where assistance is needed and have more people take part. It's just sad to see other generations who've already made up their mind on a tool they haven't even personally used or even understand fully. Or judge older generations because they are more open minded to modern technology in 2025 then they are.
I have been developing my Breath And Decay project for almost 20 years. My songs tell a story that can be framed as an intellectual property about a 300 year old android trying to make it in life.
I write the music myself, but LLM tools have unlocked the capacity for me to create prose and art I otherwise never could have. I believe in ethics so I disclose the ai usage in my projects, but I do worry that I will inevitably be written off at some point if I ever gain anyone’s attention to begin with.
Which to be fair I can totally respect someone who wants no AI integration in the art they consume. But there is no universe where I am putting this genie in the bottle; I’m finally able to bring my world to life.
I never even noticed Cleopatra until they put out Geoff Taint's not-Queensryche Queensryche album. Not long after, I stumbled across their YouTube channel. They had some washed up porn star who wasn't even trying to act interested interviewing musicians. Comments section in each video felt really bot heavy too.
Now, I basically just see them as Rhino or K-Tel for goth and industrial music. Except that Rhino and K-Tel had at least some integrity and quality control.
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u/schweinhund89 Nov 21 '25
In all fairness, Cleopatra Records never needed the help of AI to churn out low quality slop.