There’s a number that’s been sitting with me all day.
According to new research from the Dutch music industry, more than three-quarters of people in the Netherlands now want AI-generated music to carry a label on streaming platforms.
Two years ago, that figure was 59 per cent.
Today it’s past 75. And in the same stretch, the share of people who say it matters that music is made by a real person climbed from 68 to 78 per cent.
I read that and thought: finally.
Not because I want to win an argument.
Because it means I’m not shouting into the void.
If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know my line in the sand: 100% Human, Zero AI.
Every word, every melody, every imperfect take.
I’ve never treated that as a marketing slogan.
It’s the whole point.
So watching the country I was born in arrive at the same instinct — that authenticity is worth protecting — feels less like vindication and more like company.
Here’s the scale of what we’re up against.
One major streaming service says roughly 75,000 fully AI-generated tracks get uploaded every single day.
That’s nearly half of everything new arriving on the platform.
Half.
Think about what that does to a listener trying to find something real.
You’re not browsing a record shop anymore.
You’re wading through a flood, and most of it was never touched by a human hand.
The people pushing for change put it better than I could.
Transparency matters. Listeners have a right to honest information — to know where the thing they’re feeling actually came from.
That’s it. That’s the ask. Not a ban, not a witch hunt.
Just a label, so you can choose with your eyes open.
What moved me most wasn’t the AI part, though. It was the vinyl part.
The same research found people are buying records again — not chasing the newest release, but returning to music they already love, so they can experience it again.
Hold it. Put the needle down. Sit with it.
One spokesperson framed it perfectly: the more we live online, and the more AI rises, the more we crave something real.
The more we want to actually feel a thing, rather than have it fed to us by an algorithm that’s optimising for retention.
That’s the deepest reason I do this the way I do.
A song isn’t a product I’m trying to scale.
It’s an attempt to hand you something true — written at a kitchen table, second-guessed, rewritten, sung until it was right.
When you press play on a ‘Julience’ track, a person was there.
I was there.
So if you’ve ever wondered why I make such a stubborn fuss about the human thing, this is why. Three-quarters of my birth country just said the quiet part out loud.
You want to know what you’re listening to.
You deserve to!
And with me, you always will.
Stay human.
— Julience
