I hate that I don’t hate this song made with Suno
The Verge Terrence O’Brien
An indie artist named 1010Benja made a song partly using Suno's AI tools, and a Verge critic who usually can't stand AI music actually likes it.
Based on reporting by The Verge, Terrence O’Brien — read the original for the full story.
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There's a particular kind of cognitive dissonance that hits when something you've dismissed on principle turns out to be good anyway. That's what happened with "Semiramis' Dream," the opening track on 1010Benja's new EP Time Has Nothing To Do With What You Choose. The writer at The Verge has made no secret of finding Suno-generated music tedious, even while admitting a soft spot for artists like Holly Herndon who use AI with more intention. Yet here's a track built with generative AI tools that actually sticks.
Benja isn't hiding the AI involvement or hedging about it. He's been upfront that generative tools shaped this EP, a stance that's still rare enough in music circles to raise eyebrows. Most artists who dabble in AI either bury the admission or lean into gimmick territory. Benja does neither. He just made a song with a jungle beat that explodes out of the speakers, and it happens to work.
The rest of the EP doesn't quite land the same way. Compared to Benja's 2024 release Ten Total, the other three tracks feel thinner, like they're reaching for something the earlier record already had. That gap matters. It suggests the AI tooling isn't some magic ingredient that guarantees quality across the board. It's more like a wildcard that occasionally produces something alive amid a pile of forgettable output, which tracks with how most people describe working with Suno and similar tools generally.
What's notable here isn't that AI music can be good in isolated bursts. Plenty of critics have grudgingly admitted that before. It's that an artist willing to own the AI usage publicly, rather than launder it through vague production credits, made something that stands on its own merits. That transparency changes the conversation a little. It's harder to wave away as novelty when the person behind it isn't pretending otherwise.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
I've said for a while that most AI music criticism is really criticism of laziness dressed up as criticism of the technology, and this is a decent data point. One good track out of four isn't a revolution, but it's proof the tool can occasionally produce something with a pulse when a human with actual taste is steering it. The real story is Benja's honesty about the process, not the AI itself; that kind of transparency should be the baseline, not the exception.
Read more about this at: The Verge