This was inevitable and now it's here. The top song on the country charts right now is a song written and sung by artificial intelligence. The "artists" name is Breaking Rust and the song is called "Walk My Walk."
It's official: "Chartificial intelligence" is here.
Breaking Rust, a new artist on the scene, is topping charts ... but he's not a real person. He's a computer-generated outlaw blues-country singer.
"Walk My Walk," a song from Breaking Rust's October EP "Resilient," is the No. 1 song on Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales Chart, a list of the most-downloaded tracks in the U.S.
Breaking Rust isn't the only AI artist in the charts at the moment.
Following Rust's song on the chart is Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas," and coming in third is "Don't Tread On Me" by Cain Walker, another AI artist.
There is a real person collecting money for this song but no one seems to know who he is.
The writer of Walk My Walk is credited as Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor, but they have not stepped forward and claimed credit for the song’s success. They might not even exist themselves. The name though, is associated with another musical venture called defbeatsai, which kind of gives the game away.
Still, significant proportions of US music consumers don’t seem to mind. Breaking Rust already has 2 million monthly Spotify listeners. And just look at the YouTube comments on the above video and weep – ‘masterpiece’, ‘My god, his voice is awesome. Beautiful yet heartbreaking’, ‘The greatest song ever!!!’
Not everyone is impressed with the song.
Speaking to Newsweek over email about the song, Jason Palamara, an assistant professor of music technology at Indiana University said “Despite the “stomp, clap, hey” rhythms and acoustic-y sound, this song is heavily laden with some very techy production techniques.”
“After listening to “Walk My Walk” one time, it was pretty obviously the product of AI,” Palamara noted.
Palamara described Breaking Rust’s music as an improvement to other AI bands like The Velvet Sundown, adding: “This is an advancement for agentic AI: the creation of a consistent vocal “character” that can be reused again and again for multiple songs.” However, he described the lyrics as a vague and meaningless...
Pointing to how people have connected with Breaking Rust’s music, Palamara said: “The fact that this is happening with country shows that even country music is susceptible to being faked without any sincerity. Perhaps this means a significant number of modern country fans have drifted from loving real human artists who have real stories to merely being sucked in by flashy production and vapid lyrics.”
I'm not a country fan, personally, so I don't feel strongly about this. But I do wonder how it would feel if some similar AI crafted song were topping the rock charts. On one hand, most of the stuff on the rock charts these days is pretty awful. Maybe it's already being written by AI. On the other hand if AI did come up with a catchy tune that sounded like it was written by peak 70s Led Zeppelin, what then? It would still be fake music but what it was a really good fake?
This is far from the first time this issue has come up. Two and a half years ago there was a song circulating which was allegedly a collaboration between Drake and The Weeknd. It almost became a hit.
As Monday began, “Heart on My Sleeve” was racking up enough listens and views that it appeared to be on track to become a charting song when this week’s chart results are released next Monday. However, DSPs began deleting the track during the day, presumably under pressure from Universal Music Group. After initially disappearing from Tidal and Apple Music, it also became invisible in Spotify search results and was “greyed out” as unplayable on a bookmarked page.
The company who represented the real artists had it pulled down even though they didn't own the AI song. They made an impassioned plea to stand with "human creative expression."
…in a statement this week, the company spoke to the broader stakes, asking “which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation.”
But Breaking Rust doesn't sound exactly like anyone else. Will UMG still feel as strongly about human creative expression when they realize they could own this hit music without paying royalties because the artist doesn't exist? I guess we'll see. This is the first time AI has hit the top of the charts (that we know of) so the amount of money involved becomes more tempting to the industry as that happens.
Country really isn't my thing and this song in particular just sounds dumb to me. It's like the stomp clap hey country version of Sinatra's "My Way." Hearing it once was enough for me, but sooner or later AI is probably coming to all of the charts. Have you listened to what the AI generates stuff is going up against lately? The bar for a hit song is pretty low these days.
Editor’s Note: After more than 40 days of screwing Americans, a few Dems have finally caved. The Schumer Shutdown was never about principle—just inflicting pain for political points.
Help us report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member