Seeing Music – A New Series

Arts

I am sure all of us who love music to any reasonable degree like to create a mental image of the music that is being played. Great music does this instantly, and it creates the same image every time. This is different from the memory anchors that we all have – of songs reminding us of a certain time in the past. This is about the music’s own visual setting. How this setting gets created can be an interesting thought experiment. Music videos have been around for a long time. Once you see a music video, it is tempting to associate it with the band’s musical style. But the truth is that there are many terrible music videos, especially from the 70s and 80s. A lot of them exist simply because it became necessary at one point to have a music video in order to remain in people’s minds, thanks to MTV. Dire Straits famously sang about it in Money For Nothing.

True music image goes beyond the music video. It goes beyond the album artwork. Partly because videos and artwork are also producer’s opinion of what will work. Partly because the image gets created in the listener’s mind, free from production considerations and artist’s own eccentricities. But is it possible that there are certain defining visual characteristics of a song (or artist) that are imagined by most of us? Since generative AI tools (LLMs – Large Language Models) have become very good at explaining things, I decided to ask them what they felt about my favourite bands and artists, and if it was anything even remotely similar to what I imagined. I started off with Dire Straits, a band that I have been listening to the since the early 90s. In my imaginary world, Dire Straits has a particular sound that I am just not able to describe. There are other artists like that – Fleetwood Mac, Toto and Led Zeppelin to name a few. To start with let’s see how well AI did with Dire Straits.

ChatGPT

Dire Straits’ music has a very visual and atmospheric quality — Mark Knopfler’s guitar tone, the storytelling lyrics, the blend of rock, blues, and a touch of jazz all paint scenes. If I had to translate their music into a physical setting, I’d imagine it like this:

The Setting

  • Time of the day – Early evening, golden hour fading into night. A dusky sky with city lights just beginning to glow
  • Location – A quiet riverside cityscape or coastal town. There’s a neon-lit pub on one corner, a smoky jazz bar on another, and a long road stretching out of town
  • Atmosphere – Languid, slightly melancholic but never hopeless. The air feels cool, carrying both the buzz of nightlife and the solitude of open roads

Textures & Surfaces

  • Polished wood and brass (like the warmth of Knopfler’s guitar tones)
  • Soft leather booths in a dim-lit bar (echoing the smooth, restrained vocals)
  • Neon signs flickering (the slightly urban, modern pulse in their sound)
  • Wide open highways and bridges (the expansiveness of their instrumental sections)

Movement & Energy

  • Unhurried pace: People walking without rush, conversations spilling from bar doors.
  • Occasional bursts of intensity: A car roaring past on the highway, a sudden cheer from a club — like Knopfler’s soaring guitar breaks after long, restrained verses.
  • Fluid rhythm: Like waves against a dock, matching the band’s groove — steady, rolling, hypnotic.

Lighting

  • Low amber light indoors, warm and nostalgic.
  • Streetlamps outside, casting long shadows (like the narrative feel of their lyrics).
  • Moonlight on water, for the dreamy, spacious quality in tracks like Brothers in Arms

So if Dire Straits’ music were a setting, it would be a noir-ish riverside city at dusk, full of warm bars, open roads, and moments of loneliness softened by beauty. A place where stories happen quietly, and the night stretches on like one of their guitar solos.

I quite like that description. Except for the noir part, I am happy that the way I imagined their music is also how others imagine it. I still feel there is something missing. Something that ChatGPT could not capture and is integral to their sound. I thought of trying more LLMs. But before I moved ahead, I decided to put ChatGPT’s image generation capability to use. I asked it to generate an image that goes with the description. This is what it came up with initially…

I thought this was too dark. I asked it to change it. This was the second iteration:

I liked this one even less. I think ChatGPT was focusing too much on the noir element. Moreover this looked like a European setting. I decided to give it one more shot. In my imagination, Dire Straits always sounds American rather than British. Maybe it is the cinematic sound or Knopfler’s soulful guitar solo which I somehow don’t associate with British music. I prompted ChatGPT to add some American element to it. I remained quiet about what American touch to add, as I have never been to the US myself and only seen it in movies. This was the result.

I felt this was the best among the 3 images. The bar captures the melancholic element and the ferris wheel captures middle class escape from daily routine. At this point I decided I had had enough of Chat GPT and decide to get Claude’s opinion.

Claude

I’d envision Dire Straits’ music as a weathered industrial waterfront at dusk – somewhere between a working-class dockyard and a dimly lit blues bar on the edge of town

The physical elements:

  • Crumbling brick warehouses with rusted iron fixtures – that sense of manual labor, craftsmanship, and honest work that permeates their sound
  • Rain-slicked cobblestones reflecting neon signs and streetlights – capturing that melancholic shimmer in Mark Knopfler’s guitar tone
  • A long, empty road stretching toward horizon – the traveling, storytelling quality of songs like “Telegraph Road”
  • Worn leather bar stools and scratched wooden tables – intimate, unpretentious, real
  • Steam rising from grates, amber streetlights cutting through fog – atmospheric, moody, never quite bright or dark

The Atmosphere

  • Perpetually golden hour or blue hour – that bittersweet, reflective light
  • Neither past nor present – timeless, like the music itself bridges eras
  • Working-class poetry – beautiful in its ordinariness, finding elegance in the everyday
  • Solitary but not lonely – space to think, room for stories to breathe

The setting would have Mark Knopfler’s guitar tone as its texture – smooth but slightly gritty, warm but with an edge. Everything would feel tactile, lived-in, earned through experience rather than constructed for show.

It’s a place where every surface tells a story, where romance and realism coexist, and where you can hear echoes of both American roots music and British working-class grit.

I think Claude nailed it in the ‘physical elements’ bit, especially this bit:

Crumbling brick warehouses with rusted iron fixtures – that sense of manual labor, craftsmanship, and honest work that permeates their sound

Claude cannot generate images so I moved on to Gemini

Gemini

If the music of Dire Straits were to be translated into a physical setting, it would be a sprawling, rain-slicked city at the edge of dusk, a place of quiet contemplation and smoldering stories. This urban landscape, captured in the transitional light between day and night, mirrors the band’s signature blend of melancholy and resilience, grit and grace.

The architecture of this city would be a mix of weathered brick and gleaming steel, representing the band’s roots in traditional rock and blues while also reflecting their polished and sophisticated musicianship. You’d find yourself on a street corner, the neon signs of late-night cafes and dimly lit bars just beginning to flicker to life, their colors bleeding into the damp pavement. This is the world of “Sultans of Swing,” a place where unnoticed musicians pour their souls into their craft in the corners of unassuming pubs.

The air itself would carry the clean, crisp tone of Mark Knopfler’s Fender Stratocaster. It would be a cool evening, the kind that makes you turn up the collar of your coat. The sound of a distant saxophone, a mournful yet beautiful cry like the one in “Your Latest Trick,” would drift down an alleyway, weaving through the ambient city sounds. This is a setting for introspection, for walking and observing the lives unfolding in the windows above.

The narrative quality of Dire Straits’ lyrics would manifest in the stories you’d glimpse in this city. A solitary figure in a tenement window might evoke the lonely soldier in “Brothers in Arms,” while a passionate argument overheard from a passing car could be a scene from “Romeo and Juliet.” The epic, cinematic scope of songs like “Telegraph Road” would be reflected in the grand sweep of a long, straight avenue stretching towards an industrial horizon, a testament to dreams built and sometimes broken.

The lighting would be key. Not the harsh glare of noon, but the soft, diffused glow of streetlights on wet asphalt, the warm, inviting light spilling from a doorway, and the cool, blue tint of the fading daylight. This interplay of light and shadow mirrors the dynamic range of their music, from the gentle, finger-picked melodies to the soaring, anthemic guitar solos.

Underlying it all would be a steady, unhurried rhythm, the heartbeat of the city. It’s the confident, in-the-pocket groove of John Illsley’s bass and the subtle, precise drumming of Pick Withers. This rhythmic foundation provides a sense of movement and journey, the feeling of being on the move, whether by foot, car, or train, through a landscape rich with untold stories. It’s a setting that is at once vast and intimate, a place to get lost in thought, much like losing oneself in a classic Dire Straits album.

I don’t have the paid version of Gemini, so I could generate only one image. But I think it did a fantastic job in one attempt. This has the slight industrial, steely feel that I had in my mind.

It was now time for Mistral, the European LLM ! I don’t use it much, but since it can generate an image or two in the free version, I decided to milk it.

Mistral

A Weathered Riverside Tavern at Dusk

The air is thick with the scent of aged wood, damp earth, and the faintest trace of whiskey. Outside, a slow-moving river glides past, its surface reflecting the golden hues of a setting sun. The walls of the tavern are lined with faded photographs, yellowed maps, and the occasional guitar leaning against a chair—each telling a story of journeys taken and roads yet to travel.

A single, dim lantern casts long shadows across the room, flickering in time with the smooth, bluesy riffs of a guitar. The notes hang in the air like smoke, curling around the rafters before dissolving into the hum of conversation. The rhythm is steady, unhurried—like the footfalls of a traveler who knows the road but isn’t in a rush to reach the end.

Through the open window, the distant wail of a harmonica drifts in, carrying the weight of nostalgia and the promise of something just out of reach. The crowd is a mix of weary souls: a trucker nursing a beer, a couple lost in a slow dance, and an old man tapping his fingers on the bar, humming along to a melody he’s known for decades.

Outside, the first stars begin to prick through the twilight, and the river carries on, indifferent to the stories unfolding on its banks. The music doesn’t demand attention—it simply is, like the wind or the tide. It’s the sound of longing, resilience, and quiet triumph, wrapped in the

Hmm. I thought this was just ok. I found the language too ‘LLM-like’, you know the kind that can very easily be identified to be generated by AI tools by other AI tools. By now some common themes are emerging – bar, evening time, riverfront, storytelling, slowing down of life’s pace. In Mistral’s imagination I couldn’t find any mention of an urban setting, something I always associate with Dire Straits’ music. So I decided to see what was going through its mind in an image

This was completely different from what I have imagined their music to be. This is a country setting, far removed from the city, which is an integral part in my imagination. I specifically asked it to create imagine Dire Straits’ music as an urban being and remove people from it.

I think this is fantastic. There are too many lights and cars for my liking, but it will do. As a last attempt, I asked DeepSeek to join the conversation. It cannot create any images, so description only:

DeepSeek

The Primary Setting: A Vast, Twilight American Landscape

The core of Dire Straits’ sound, especially Mark Knopfler’s guitar work, is best described as a sprawling, semi-arid basin at the magical hour of duskd roads yet to travel.

  • The Sky: The sky is a deep, bruised indigo, bleeding into fiery orange and violet on the horizon. It’s not a peaceful sunset, but a dramatic, transient one—full of longing and the promise of night. This is the reverb and the vast emotional space in songs like “Why Worry” and “Your Latest Trick.”
  • The Ground: You are standing on a cracked, dry lake bed, its geometric patterns stretching to the foothills. The ground is firm yet dusty, representing the steady, unflashy rhythm section of John Illsley and Pick Withers. You can feel the coolness of the evening starting to rise from it
  • The Road: A single, black two-lane highway cuts a perfect, straight line through the center of the basin. It’s empty, but you can feel the memory of travel, of stories and people who have passed through. This is the narrative drive of songs like “Telegraph Road” and “Romeo and Juliet.”
  • The Structures: On the side of the road, about a mile away, sits a low-slung roadhouse bar. The neon sign (perhaps a “B” for “Boom, Like That” or just a simple “Sultans”) is flickering on, humming with electricity. Through the smoky windows, you can see the warm glow of a jukebox and the shadows of people inside. This is the home of the storytelling, the characters, the bluesy roots

The Key Sensory Details:

  • The Air: The air is cool and clear, with a slight bite. You can smell desert sage, distant rain, and a faint hint of gasoline and warm oil. This is the scent of Knopfler’s Fender Stratocaster—clean, sharp, but with a raw, mechanical warmth
  • The Soundscape
    • The crackle of neon from the roadhouse sign is the crisp, percussive click of a pick on new guitar strings
    • The low, mournful whistle of a distant freight train is the signature, lyrical lead guitar—not screaming, but singing a story of loneliness and movement.
    • The murmur of conversation and the clink of glasses from the bar are the Hammond organ pads and the subtle piano lines that fill the space.
    • The murmur of conversation and the clink of glasses from the bar are the Hammond organ pads and the subtle piano lines that fill the space.
  • The Light: There are two primary light sources. The cool, blueish twilight from the sky represents the more introspective, cinematic instrumentals. The warm, amber and red glow from the bar’s windows represents the blues-rock numbers, the songs about love, money, and rough characters.

This is really good. I am pleasantly surprised. I have never used DeepSeek for anything outside of coding, so my impression of it was that of a disciplined Asian worker excelling at STEM subjects. I don’t quite agree with the “sprawling semi arid basin” and the highway location, but the description of weather is quite apt. I also like this bit here:

The cool, blueish twilight from the sky represents the more introspective, cinematic instrumentals. The warm, amber and red glow from the bar’s windows represents the blues-rock numbers, the songs about love, money, and rough characters.

So there I have it! From not knowing how to describe one of my favourite bands, to having 4 competent summaries along with images. This is the part about LLMs I really enjoy. This is not content I have to send out to someone so I don’t worry how ‘AI’ it may sound. This was an explanation to myself, and I am quite satisfied. On an aggregate I would give 9/10 to the text and 7/10 to the images. Next in line is Toto. A very different sound and mood. I am told they are quintessential studio musicians. We will see what that means.