Back to Projects
complete 2023 web-applications

Hootenanny Barbershop Quartet

An AI-generated parody barbershop quartet with nine studio albums and fictional chart success.

Visit Website
Screenshot of Hootenanny Barbershop Quartet

Hootenanny Barbershop Quartet is a completely fictional barbershop quartet with an impressive discography of nine studio albums, including hits like “Harmony Beginnings,” “Celestial Harmonies,” and “Symphony of Shadows.”

The Concept

The site showcases AI-generated album artwork and fictional band history, serving as both a creative experiment and a gentle parody of musician biography websites.

Every band bio follows the same formula: humble beginnings, creative differences overcome, artistic growth, critical acclaim. Hootenanny follows this arc faithfully, except none of it happened because none of them exist.

(The albums are real in the sense that they have titles, release dates, and cover art. They’re fictional in the sense that there’s no music. Whether that makes them more or less real than most Spotify playlists is left as an exercise for the listener.)

The Discography

Nine albums of non-existent close harmonies:

  • Harmony Beginnings (2023) - The debut that started it all
  • Echoes of Elegance (2023) - The difficult second album
  • Serendipity Serenade (2023) - A return to form
  • Mystical Crescendo (2023) - The experimental phase
  • Celestial Harmonies (2023) - Going cosmic
  • Timeless Odyssey (2023) - The concept album
  • Symphony of Shadows (2023) - The dark one
  • Eclipsed Reverie (2023) - Peak artistry
  • Harmonic Odyssey (2024) - Still going strong

Why This Exists

I was experimenting with AI image generation and needed a consistent theme to test different prompts and styles. Album covers turned out to be perfect—they have clear compositional rules, recognizable genres, and enough creative freedom to test the limits of what the AI could produce.

The fictional band emerged organically. Once you have nine album covers, you need a band to have made them. Once you have a band, you need a history. The project became a meditation on how much “realness” comes from presentation rather than substance.

Also, hootenanny.ca was available.

Technical Notes

The site is a simple static page showcasing the AI-generated artwork. Each album cover was generated through iterative prompting, selecting the best results and regenerating until the aesthetic felt right.

Note: No actual barbershop quartets were harmed in the making of this website.

See Also