The coming of widespread AI usage by the masses has allowed humanity to fulfill many of its long-held creative dreams, most notably “What if all human artwork looked like the aftermath of a Vaseline explosion at the bullshit factory?” But it’s also paved the way for even more exciting and specific fantasies, like “What if The Rolling Stones could look like they did in the 1970s, but still sound like they’re all in their 80s, and also somehow the South Park guys were involved?”
This dream has now come to soft-focus fruition with the band’s new music video, “In The Stars,” which has, as both the beginning and end of its premise, a fulfillment of every long-time Rolling Stones fan’s desire for it to just please be fuckin’ 1978 again. Per THR, the video employs body doubles for Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Woods—in a rare upset victory for the forces of good taste, late drummer Charlie Watts is spared—who have then been altered by deepfake technology from tech firm Deep Voodoo to create the illusion of youth and vitality. (For those who’ve forgotten, Deep Voodoo was founded by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and then spun off of their Park City production company, and was used in part for some of the show’s recent Trump deepfakes.)
The comments for the video—which also features Actual Young Person Odessa A’zion dancing with, and occasionally licking, the Digital Stones—are a chorus of people resolutely refusing to memento mori, crowing factually untrue statements like “Stones will live forever!” Despite the boisterous energy—and a song that is, y’know, listenable on a scale of late-era Stones songs—it’s all pretty relentlessly grim, as an aging generation pours vast resources into producing an illusion of youth that is no longer even skin deep. And also the South Park guys were there!
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