This week, Breaking Rust landed the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart for the second week in a row with the song “Walk My Walk.” But Breaking Rust is not a real person or a real band. It’s an AI project credited to songwriter Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor, but the mysterious “artist” has over 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Another AI-generated country singer, Cain Walker, also dominated the Country Digital Song Sales chart this week with tracks in the third, ninth, and eleventh spots. Billboard distinguishes both Walker and Breaking Rust’s music as “virtual acts,” which offers some degree of transparency that the artists and/or the art is AI generated.
We really don’t have to do this.