An AI-generated country track has hit the Number One spot on a US Billboard singles chart.
‘Walk My Walk’, released by AI artist Breaking Rust, is currently at the top of Billboard‘s Country Digital Songs sales chart, after gaining over three million streams on Spotify in less than a month.
The track also tops Spotify’s ‘Viral 50’ chart in the US, while another of the “band’s” tracks, ‘Livin’ on Borrowed Time’, has reached Number Five in the same chart, with over four million streams on the platform.
The creator of Breaking Rust has yet to reveal their identity, but an official TikTok page for them has garnered close to 200,000 followers, with ‘Walk My Walk’ featuring in over 150,000 videos on the platform.
News of AI-generated artists garnering huge streaming figures has become increasingly common. Earlier this year, an AI-generated ‘band’ called The Velvet Sundown made headlines after gaining around 400,000 monthly Spotify listeners – despite only existing for less than a month. A ‘spokesperson’ for the viral act later admitted that he was running a hoax aimed at “the media”.
As for how The Velvet Sundown got so many listeners on Spotify, he said: “I know we got on some playlists that just have like tons of followers, and it seems to have spiralled from there.”
Meanwhile, AI-generated artist Xania Monet has been in the headlines for signing a multimillion-dollar record deal and becoming the first AI artist to chart on the US Billboard rankings.
The creator of Monet, Mississippi poet and designer Telisha “Nikki” Jones, has since spoken out in her first interview, saying she looks at Monet “as a real person”.
Jones also addressed the controversy surrounding Monet’s success, saying: “Any time something new comes about and it challenges the norm and challenges what we’re used to, you’re going to get strong reactions behind it”
Kehlani has previously hit out at the success of Monet, telling fans on TikTok the proliferation of AI in music was “so beyond out of our control.” She went on to highlight the power of AI to create fully formed songs without users having to “credit anyone” involved in making the copyrighted works on which such generative music systems are trained.
“Nothing and no one on Earth will ever be able to justify AI to me,” she added. Other critics of the tech include Mac DeMarco and SZA, while ABBA‘s Björn Ulvaeus called AI “such a great tool”.
Elsewhere, back in September, Cardiff rock group Holding Absence hit out at an AI ‘band’ which had overtaken their streaming figures on Spotify. Frontman Lucas Woodland wrote on Twitter/X: “So, an AI ‘band’ who cite us as an influence (ie, it’s modelled off our music) have just overtaken us on Spotify, in only TWO months.”
The vocalist continued: “It’s shocking, it’s disheartening, it’s insulting – most importantly – it’s a wake up call.”
Meanwhile, audiences are reportedly finding it difficult to distinguish between “real” and AI music, with a new report from French streaming service Deezer finding that 97 per cent of people “can’t tell the difference” between the two.
The “first-of-its-kind” survey also found that only 19 per cent said they felt that they could trust AI, while another 51 per cent said they believe the use of AI in music production could lead to low-quality and “generic” sounding music.
The new stats come during a period of continued controversy for AI technology in the music industry, with a recent study sharing the stark warning that people working in music are likely to lose a quarter of their income to Artificial Intelligence over the next four years.
In September, Spotify confirmed that it was cracking down on AI by removing 75million “spammy tracks” and targeting impersonators. The statement, titled ‘Spotify Strengthens AI Protections For Artists, Songwriters, And Producers’, added: “AI technology is evolving fast, and we’ll continue to roll out new policies frequently.”
This followed a report claiming that AI-generated songs were being uploaded to dead musicians’ Spotify profiles without permission.
Paul McCartney, Kate Bush and Elton John are among the big British artists to have urged Keir Starmer to protect the work of creatives back in September. This came after the Prime Minister told NME: “It’s very important we protect creativity, and we’re brilliant at creativity in this country – we punch well above our weight within the country and globally, and we’re all very proud of that.
“We need to get the balance right. That’s why we did a long and important consultation, and we’re going through the responses of that consultation now. So it is a question of getting the balance right.”
His comments followed a call on the UK government from various major acts to change copyright laws to combat the tech as it progresses rapidly. Elton John claimed in January that AI would “dilute and threaten young artists’ earnings”, while backing criticism from Paul McCartney.