I Have Seen the Future of Music, and It’s Bolted to the Ground at Chuck E. Cheese

This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #186. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.

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Ruminations on the power of the riff.

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When I’m exploring an unfamiliar musical genre, I like to start at the beginning of the style’s history, tracing the progression from its roots to the branches of its modern era. The best way to understand where a scene is going is often to understand where it has been, to start from the roots and extrapolate where its collective creative trajectory may lead from there. It is a critic’s job to develop a holistic understanding of the subject of their critique, so they may speak with authority. To do otherwise is to do a disservice to our readership.

So, when tasked with writing this column about the emergence of AI-generated “music,” I knew exactly where to go: my local Chuck E. Cheese to see Mr. Munches Make Believe Band. They are a long-time staple in the animatronic rock scene and one that arguably paved the way for automating the life and soul out of music. I haven’t seen them since my nephew’s fifth birthday but seeing that they were playing (as they do every day, being that they are literally bolted down into the stage), I did what I must, for the sake of journalism.

I don’t know what I expected this experience to be like. Stepping foot into a Chuck E. Cheese is a little like slinking into a seedy dive bar, but without all the hope. Replace the slot machines with ski ball and the ambiance is about the same. Did you know you can get a whole pitcher of beer here? Like everything else about the place, it feels wrong. I hoped not to encounter anyone that I knew, lest I need to explain why I was there.

It’s a fitting venue for Mr. Munch’s Make Believe Band to be permanently affixed to the stage, inviting the audience into a hell that these musicians never have the luxury to escape. It’s cliche to say that one must suffer for their art, yet I saw nothing to the contrary. There is no joy in this space, only the last gasps of capitalist excess wheezing through the avatars of Mr. Munch and his entourage. Peering over the top of my first pitcher of Colorado Kool-Aid (which is both a more family-friendly way of saying Coors Light and a literary tip of the hat to Johnny Paycheck, God rest his soul), I took in the sights and sounds of what Mr. Munch had to offer, and arrived at an unexpected conclusion.

I had seen the future of music.

I’m undecided whether the band’s stiff renditions of classic hits were worse than their original material. Credit where credit is due, kids can smell a fake, and none seemed impressed with the performance. Having directed their attention toward more important matters, like racking up $75 worth of tickets at ski ball to buy three pieces of gum, it was like there was no one else there. Just me, Mr. Munch, Mr. Cheese himself, and whoever the other characters were. Locked into a dead-eyed stare with one another as the sinking realization settled in my gut that this is where the automation of music production ends.

There are many lessons that I, a grown man, probably should have taken away from this experience. The one that is first and foremost in my mind, that will haunt me for the rest of my days, is that one day, this is just what music will be. A hollow shell of itself, all humanity stripped away, a sad diversion from the main event. Background noise for the disinterested. Indeed, this craven display of automating away musical expression left me feeling as hollow and uninspired as the establishment’s overpriced interpretation of pizza. It’s easy to dismiss Mr. Munch’s creative vision as a dusty relic of the past. Yet as they say, there is nothing new under the sun, and in this instance, I believe the past truly is prologue.

If there is one positive takeaway I can share from whatever all of this was (and I do not recommend attempting to recreate this experience), it’s this: at least they’re not Gorillaz.

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Ben Sailer is a writer based out of Fargo, ND, where he survives the cold with his wife and dog. His writing also regularly appears in New Noise Magazine.