Remember back in the day, when there was a non-zero percent chance that the song you downloaded on Napster or Limewire was mislabeled and you ended up inadvertently listening to someone’s pet project? Well, those days are back on the peer-to-peer network Soulseek. According to a report from Vice, the site has quietly been flooded with thousands of songs that have had the vocals stripped out and replaced with lead vocalist Homer Simpson.
Back in piracy’s heyday, users uploading fake tracks would target popular songs. That’s not really the Soulseek audience. The platform is typically used by people tracking down underground and rare releases. Which makes it all the more ridiculous to have a search for your music holy grail undermined by the voice of Mr. Plow.
According to Vice, at least 2,000 songs uploaded to the platform currently feature vocals from Homer Simpson. The publication also warned that because of how Soulseek works—users who seed music can share directly from a folder, and lots of leechers download full directories of content—means that whoever is behind the Homer-ification of music could effectively upload as many Homer cover songs as their heart desires.
The situation would be a pretty good bit if Dan Castellaneta were in the booth recording Homer’s takes on these songs, but of course, the project is an AI-generated effort. For those who would rather skip the risk of downloading a file from Soulseek, there is a 24/7 streaming platform called D’oh FM that plays nothing but AI-generated Homer Simpson songs. Users can also send in requests for songs, which presumably leads to the system creating the track and adding it to the queue.
The internet’s unofficial national anthem, Homer Simpson performing “Starlight” by Muse while The Transformers dance in the background, was the breakthrough hit that is likely most responsible for the trend, but this has actually been going on for a while. Homer’s take on the Arctic Monkeys’ ‘R U Mine?’ got people’s attention relatively early in the generative AI boom, and an AI Homer rendition of The Libertines’ “Don’t Look Back Into the Sun” made its way back to the band itself, who seemed moderately amused by the take. Since then, the covers have flowed freely.
For what it’s worth, Soulseek users on Reddit are not particularly amused by the whole thing, though less about the Homer Simpson of it all and more about the publicity being pointed to Soulseek itself. So uh, sorry folks.
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