Billboard’s number one song on its “Country Digital Song Sales” chart is called “Walk My Walk” by a band called Breaking Rust, and, according to Billboard, Breaking Rust was created by artificial intelligence (AI).
Welcome to the future, baby…
This is only the beginning.
“In just the past few months, at least six AI or AI-assisted artists have debuted on various Billboard rankings,” wrote Billboard just last week. “That figure could be higher, as it’s become increasingly difficult to tell who or what is powered by AI — and to what extent.”
“Many of these charting projects, whose music spans every genre from gospel to rock to country, also arrive with anonymous or mysterious origins.”
One week later—AI scores a numero uno hit:
Breaking Rust, an AI “band” that appeared on the internet in the middle of October based on its presence on Instagram, topped the chart last week with a song called Walk My Walk. Look at Breaking Rust’s social media pages and you’ll find nothing to indicate there’s an actual human involved in the music-making portion of the band’s songs – just a chiseled-jawed, clearly AI-generated cowboy, and video clips featuring folksy people doing folksy things or slow-walking away from the camera. To say the various songs are similar would be an understatement: They’re practically identical down to their bland, hollow lyrics.
…
“Breaking Rust, an AI-powered country act, debuted at No. 9 on the Emerging Artists chart (dated Nov. 1),” the music publication said. “The project, credited to songwriter Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor, has generated 1.6 million official U.S. streams.”
Billboard.com
Not being a country music fan, I won’t comment on the quality of the song. To me, it sounds like a lot of country songs. It’s certainly catchy and you can see people singing along while doing that Urban Cowboy line-dance thing.
But that’s not really the point, is it?
No, the point is that there are thousands and thousands of country singers out there, a few famous, many obscure, and they are losing to AI in the free market, and that’s gotta hurt.
The story here is what the story has been since AI first peeked over the horizon to announce its intent to storm popular culture, and that’s this: There’s nothing anyone can do to stop this. Nothing. AI is coming, and it’s coming for all of us, and while I don’t believe it is as serious threat as James Cameron made it out to be in Terminator, nor do I think it can replace the soul (or whatever that indefinable spark is) that makes us human. No way can a computer do anything but copy what it has been taught, and there is something about the human spirit that can never be taught—inspiration, the muse, that kind of thing.
At the same time, so much of our popular culture today is soulless, generic, corporatized, and lacking in inspiration that AI is a real threat. You trying to tell me AI couldn’t make one of those lousy Marvel or Disney Star Wars movies? And…
Several country stars like Darius Rucker and Old Dominion frontman Matthew Ramsey have spoken out against AI, fearing the tech could replace songwriters and wreck the middle-class of the music industry. Rucker said AI-powered music is “scary.” “I don’t want to wake up one day and have a robot standing over me. It’s scary, but technology can be that way,” Rucker said.
Country superstars Randy Travis and Martina McBride have denounced unauthorized Ai-generated deepfakes, as Congress debates legislation aimed at protecting creators’ image and visual likeness. Last year, hundreds of the world’s biggest musicians from Billie Eilish to Stevie Wonder signed a letter asking tech firms to not develop AI tools to replace human creators.
Something like “Walk My Walk” is obviously reachable. Ah, but could AI ever come up with “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” or how the great George Jones interpreted and delivered it?
I don’t think so.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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