Suno just rolled out v5 of its AI music generator, and honestly? It’s a solid technical upgrade wrapped in the same fundamental problem that’s been plaguing AI music since day one. The new version delivers noticeably cleaner audio separation between instruments (no more muddy bass-guitar-synth soup), fewer artifacts, and generally more professional-sounding output. But here’s the thing that keeps nagging at me: it still sounds like… well, AI music. Look, I’ll give credit where it’s due. The jump from v4.5+ to v5 is genuinely impressive from an engineering standpoint. Where the previous version would sometimes smush all the melodic elements together into an indecipherable mess, v5 gives each instrument room to breathe. The mixes are cleaner, the separation is clearer, and you can actually distinguish between the guitar and bass lines now (revolutionary stuff, I know). But here’s where we hit the wall that every AI music tool keeps running into: technical proficiency doesn’t automatically translate to that ineffable thing we call “soul.” Yeah, I know how that sounds – like some old-school musician complaining about kids these days. But there’s something to be said for the human messiness, the intentional imperfections, the creative choices that come from lived experience rather than pattern recognition. This isn’t just me being a romantic about human creativity (though I probably am). It’s about what happens when you optimize for technical quality without understanding what makes music actually move people. Suno v5 can generate a perfectly serviceable pop song, but it’s unlikely to give you that moment where a melody hits you in a way you didn’t expect. The real test isn’t whether AI can make music that sounds good in isolation – it’s whether it can create something that sticks with you, that reveals new layers on repeated listens, that feels like it came from somewhere specific rather than everywhere at once. That said, if you’re looking for background music, commercial jingles, or just want to mess around with musical ideas without needing to know how to play instruments, v5 is probably the best option out there right now. The quality leap is real, even if the emotional connection still feels like it’s buffering. Read more from The Verge Want more than just the daily AI chaos roundup? I write deeper dives and hot takes on my Substack (because apparently I have Thoughts about where this is all heading): https://substack.com/@limitededitionjonathan