America’s No. 1 Country Song is AI Generated

“Walk My Walk” by AI-generated act Breaking Rust has reached Number 1 on Billboard’s “Country Digital Song Sales” chart. It’s the first time an AI generated track has topped a US chart.

What we know:

• At the time of writing, Breaking Rust has 2.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify and 40K followers on Instagram.

• The only bio information on its Instagram account contains the descriptor “music for the fighters and the dreamers.”

• There is no bio information on its Spotify profile.

• Newsweek contacted the ‘artist’ via social media but has yet to receive a response.

AI issue:

• The news comes as Deezer reveals 50,000 fully AI-generated tracks are uploaded to its platform every day.

• This accounts for more than 34% of the total daily delivery.

• Deezer also commissioned the world’s first survey on perceptions and attitudes to AI music.

• When presented with three songs – two created by humans, one by AI – 97% of the 9,000 respondents were unable to identify which was the AI-generated track.

Combating AI artists:

• Deezer’s AI music detection tool can detect 100% AI-generated songs. The service removes them from algorithmic recommendations and bans them in editorial playlists.

• Streaming/social platform Coda Music has also introduced an AI identification tool.

• In September, Spotify announced it had deleted 75+ million “spammy tracks” from its platform over the past year, while announcing its approach to managing AI-generated content.

What they said:

• Josh Antonuccio, Director of the School of Media Arts and Studies at Ohio University (to Newsweek): “Whether it’s lyrical assistance, AI-assisted ideation, or wholesale artist and song creation, AI-generated content is going to become a much more common reality and will continue to find its way into the charts. The real question starts to become 'will fans care about how it’s made?'”