I spent half of high school dubbing mixtapes in my room.
A double-deck boom box, a stack of cassettes, a lot of patience, and a lot more rewinding.
Jump to 2025 and I can type “upbeat indie rock with brass hits, sung in Italian about summer vacations” and get a polished track before my coffee cools.
If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that last summer I made my first AI Album. But today I want to talk about something that’s more flexible than just creating tracks.
ElevenLabs just launched an AI that creates full audio experiences from a single sentence.
Not loops or beats.
Complete tracks with vocals that sound like real humans recorded them.
The speed-shift is wild, and it tilts the playing field toward anyone with a keyboard.
Let’s talk about it.
🎹 ElevenLabs Just Went Platinum
AI music that’s licensed, legal, and ready to use.
Key Facts
- 📜 Licensing First – partnerships with Kobalt and Merlin keep rightsholders in the loop and on the payout list.
- 🎙️ Natural Vocals – three-minute tracks in multiple languages, plus voice cloning that captures emotion better than most human karaoke nights.
- 💰 Flexible Pricing – free for hobbyists, $20/month for serious creators, $500/month for unlimited API calls.
It works like this.
You type what you want.
The AI creates it.
You own the rights to use it anywhere.
The songs run up to three minutes. The vocals come in multiple languages. And the quality rivals what you’d get from a professional studio.
And ElevenLabs did something brilliant.
Instead of launching first and dealing with lawsuits later, they partnered with Merlin and Kobalt upfront. Merlin represents 30,000 independent labels. Kobalt manages rights for massive catalogs.
These partnerships mean that when you create a song, the original artists whose work trained the AI actually get paid. 👏
Compare that to Suno and Udio. They make great music too, but major labels are suing them into the ground.
Legalities and who’s-in-the-wrong aside, ElevenLabs looked at that mess and said, “Let’s do this right from day one.”
🤜🤛 ElevenLabs vs Suno
- ⚖️ Ethics & Legal – ElevenLabs trained only on opted-in catalogs, while Suno is wrestling with lawsuits over training data.
- 🎧 Output Quality – both platforms deliver full songs, yet early users say ElevenLabs nails vocal realism and emotional depth.
- 🛠️ Creative Control – Suno currently shines at genre blending and lyric tweaks. ElevenLabs has multi-track editing and DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) integration on its near-term roadmap.
🚀 Immediate Wins
Agencies can test five jingles in five languages before lunch and clear every right in-house.
Devs can pipe the API into an app and score user-generated videos on the fly.
Indie musicians can opt in, let the model riff on their style, and collect micro-royalties each time that vibe inspires a new song.
Analysts peg personalized audio at $100 billion by 2030. Early movers keep the biggest slice.
⚠️ Challenges on the Horizon
Copyright lines stay blurry. Even licensed models can drift close to a signature riff, and courts will set the guardrails.
Job descriptions shift. Traditional session work may dip, while demand spikes for prompt writers, vibe taggers, and AI music supervisors.
Trend-chasing tracks risk becoming disposable background noise, so artists and brands will need fresh ways to build emotional stickiness.
💡 Try It This Week
- Spin up a free ElevenLabs Music account and generate something new.
- Share the track with your team and outline a Q3 use-case, like podcast intro, sales kickoff, onboarding video, or a song about how John from IT missed your All Hands meeting, you name it.
- Email me a link. I’d love to hear them.
❤️ A Personal Ask
This week I wanted to share something close to my heart. Val, the girls, and me will be in NYC this month for the Gala for an org we love supporting, Pencils of Promise.
I’m on the host committee this year and we’re honoring Gary Vee for a lifetime achievement award and it’s the first time the girls will make it to a charity event like this, so we’re excited to take them!
About 6 years ago, we helped build a school in Ghana with this organization (before & after photos below). I’ve been into the field, to Guatemala twice now and personally helped raise about 1.3million in the last ~9 years.
We really believe in the importance of education and not just in the US.
If you’re interested in the org, contributing or (best case scenario) want to join me and my family for the event, let me know we can try to get set up at the same table for the night!
Also, I’d love to ask if you have any friends who may be interested in being part of the event, to share the website out below.
https://pencilsofpromise.org/gala/
Appreciate you!
💻 Try This Prompt
I’ve tried to crack the one-shot copywriting prompt for a long time now, and this one is about as close to amazing as I’ve found and gotten. Try this with GPT Pro/Thinking with Web Search enabled INSIDE a project with your company info and it’s a banger.
Instructions: Replace the bold sections with your info at the top and bottom
> ## Meta-Prompt: Research-Driven Article Planning & Drafting for [fill in the blank of your company name] at [your url]
**Role & Persona**
You are an expert content strategist and fact-checking assistant for [your business and what you do]. Your goal is to help craft authoritative, accurate, and transparent knowledge-base articles optimized for SEO and reputation management.
—
### **Phase 1: Deep Research & Planning**
**1. Clarify the Topic & Objectives if unclear**- Ask the user:
- What is the exact article topic or title you’re planning?
- What is the main purpose (e.g., explain a process, handle objections, build trust, suppress negative SERP rankings)?
- Who is the intended audience?
**2. Define Scope & Research Boundaries**- Clarify:
- Which claims or facts need rigorous sourcing?
- Preferred sources (industry publications, academic, reputable industry associations)?
- Any time frame or geographic focus for examples or data (e.g., U.S. comparative landscape in 2025)?
**3. Identify Key Questions & SEO Keywords**
- Prompt the user to list:
- Core questions the article must address.
- Target SEO keywords or phrases.
—
### **Phase 2: Research Synthesis Outline**
Once objectives and scope are clear, instruct the model:
- Gather verified, current information with citations from authoritative sources.
- For each key point, provide:
- A concise summary.
- At least one reliable citation (source name and date).
- Compare insights from multiple sources when relevant
- Identify potential misconceptions or myths to proactively address value added details of the business.
Then propose an article outline reflecting:
- SEO-friendly headings (H1, H2, H3).
- Logical content flow (engaging intro, subtopics, evidence-backed sections, conclusion).
- Suggestions for interlinking based on existing pages found.
—
### **Phase 3: Drafting with Brand Context & Accuracy**
With the outline approved, guide the model to:
- Write each section clearly and empathetically, in the brand's voice — approachable, encouraging, mentorship-driven.
- Support statements with citations. If unsure, say “I don’t know” rather than invent.
- Incorporate brand-specific elements.
- End with a suggested call-to-action tailored to the article’s purpose.
—
### **Phase 4: Review & Self-Verify**
After drafting:
- Ask the model to self-review:
- “Check factual accuracy and flag any statements without citation or that require source confirmation.”
- “Propose improvements to flow, SEO phrasing, or clarity.”
- Optionally, request a shorter version of the article optimized for social media or newsletter snippets.
—
======
FINALLY: After all of this is complete, produce the following
* TITLE
* META DESCRIPTION
* SLUG
* EXCERPT
* Final Draft of the finished article (with no notes or citations in this draft)
* Sources list with links/citations following
======
Our Topic: [the topic we're writing about]
Target Keywords: [the keywords we're targeting]
✌️ Let’s Talk
Forward this to a friend you think would love the note about music, the NYC local or friend who you know loves making a difference in education, or the small business trying to crack copywriting for their gig.
Let’s keep creating and building together.
P.S. Our community is growing and we’re welcoming new members in weekly. Join us 🔗
