this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2025
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AI country singer Breaking Rust tops Billboard with ‘Walk My Walk’ (www.sfchronicle.com)
submitted 12 hours ago by tal@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 21 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I think it's worth clarifying that it's #1 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales. That's a specific category.

According to https://tasteofcountry.com/breaking-rust-explained-ai-country-song in order to reach number one would only take ~3,000 purchases.

That's a shockingly low number, so if anyone can confirm that or has better numbers, I'd love to know.

But last time I brought a digital song, they cost $1. So for a couple thousand dollars any song could be number one in this category.

If I were an AI company swimming in money, that's a drop in the bucket for some free publicity.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

The Billboard chart in question is behind a paywall.

Someone on a Reddit discussion on the same song pointed out that it could be bypassed with:

https://open.bolha.tools/ and plugging in the Billboard URL https://www.billboard.com/charts/country-digital-song-sales/

That being said, while I can see the chart, I don't see any numbers, so I'm assuming that they must be coming from somewhere else, though I don't have any reason to doubt them; it sounds like tasteofcountry.com is reputable.

That article does point out that there are a substantial number of Spotify users listening to the song, though if I remember, there was some past discussion about how various people had tried trying to game Spotify's recommendation system to try to get more people listening to their songs, so maybe someone could just be leveraging that hard?

kagis

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/11/05/spotify-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit-alleging-discovery-mode-is-a-pay-for-play-scheme/

I'm not sure if this is what I'm remembering. I wasn't super-interested at the time, but I thought that it was talking about how some artists had been gaming the system to be more-frequently-recommended, whereas this is talking about Spotify apparently taking money to increase recommendations.

EDIT: I can't find any news story that seems to fit what I thought I remember reading. I do see a LinkedIn page talking about tactics to attack Spotify's recommendation algorithm:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/advanced-techniques-legally-hacking-spotifys-algorithm-nicolas-rabaud-eawve

So I imagine that there are probably people out there working hard to game it, though I suppose that that's probably something of a given.

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago

The little info (i) box on Billboards website actually cites their data, "The week's most popular downloaded songs, ranked by sales data as compiled by Luminate." Which I assume refers to luminatedata.com

Sadly their data (the numbers specifically) aren't publicly available.

[–] Zippygutterslug@lemmy.world 53 points 11 hours ago

Country music is so low talent and meaningless this is to be expected I guess

[–] popekingjoe@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago

We're so cooked.

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

more proof that country music peaked in the 90s

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 hours ago

9/11 ruined country music.

[–] Prox@lemmy.world 33 points 11 hours ago (5 children)

Here's the track for the curious.

It's pretty basic with lyrics that are pretty pandering. Not exactly a good song, but here we are.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 39 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Country music lovers should feel stupid by letting this become a hit. I mean is AI going play the Grand Ole Opry?

[–] tal@lemmy.today 13 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

is AI going play the Grand Ole Opry?

Virtual bands playing human-composed and -recorded music predate present music from generative AI, and they've done performances.

I imagine at some point, probably someone will pair virtual bands with AI-generated music, and do performances of it, if they haven't already.

[–] Cybersteel@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Isn't hatsuni miku also ai though and people seem to like that.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 13 points 9 hours ago

But like…that requires work. The whole point of an AI band is to not do any work.

This is a spray and pray approach. Generate 200 songs. Hope one gets popular, make money off that from Spotify. Move on. Switch genres.

[–] rozodru@pie.andmc.ca 19 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

sounds like one of those free use songs that youtube provides when you upload a video so you don't get copy striked. people actually LIKE this drivel? wow.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 8 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure the lofi music streams on YouTube are majority ai-generated. But I just put it on for background music, I don't actually listen to it.

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

I feel like "ai generated" music when it's not lyrical isn't such an awful thing - ambient sound and the like. I mean, music may not be mathematically solved yet, but we've certainly had music-generation algorithms for decades, and there's no real harm in that. There's a time and a place for a human to create art, and times for artificially created pleasant sound.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

It's always interesting seeing the line people will draw between what they see as art vs product. I would be disappointed by anyone who tricked me into listening to theft-generated music, whether people consider it legitimate art or not

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

art vs product

product vs process

How something is made may become the new curiosity, especially when novel approaches and instruments are used.

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I like to split it into the art and the craft. AI can execute the craft of drawing or creating music or lyrics, but only a human can exercise and elevate a medium to something that really speaks to people on anything more than a superficial level.

[–] Cybersteel@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't hatsuni miku also ai though and people seem to like that.

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 1 points 51 minutes ago

It's perfectly fine to like something that isn't art. Hell, it's perfectly fine to have a definition of art that can include AI, that's just a framing for talking about the things AI does well vs. the things it doesn't. I find that where a human can mix different things together in a way that enriches the whole, AI mixes things together in contradictory ways because it lacks human experience. It's why, AI pictures usually come out flat and lifeless or includes nonsense details that don't fit or includes requested details in incongruous ways.

That said, I only know about Hatsuni Miku through my kids. I don't really know anything about that specifically.

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

Obligatory fuck Spotify!

[–] khepri@lemmy.world 24 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

"I could sing in Mandarin, you'd still know I'm panderin'" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7im5LT09a0

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 15 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

This is exactly it.

The lyrics are basically just the "I'm a piece of shit and won't change" genre, and apparently that resonates with a lot of people somehow.

The only time I've had an enemy in my life I was 6 years old, I don't get these songs man.

side note: I'm heterosexual but I did not know that Bo Burnham is low key fuckable.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 7 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I'm not really familiar with Spotify, but at least for me

I don't have a Spotify account

it only plays the first bit.

I think that this is the same song, but on YouTube Music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx3OirkhX0g

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 16 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Well at least he’s memory safe

[–] RalfWausE@blackneon.net 2 points 2 hours ago

He is breaking Rust, so i would not be that sure...

[–] HailSeitan@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

But it’s not copyrighted if it’s AI-generated, right? Or are there human co-writers and/or performers?

[–] RalfWausE@blackneon.net 1 points 2 hours ago

Perhaps, if anything, i think the prompts for creating the song MAY be copyrightable.

I mean, the song is not BAD, but somewhat.. generic, "beige" i would call it. Something that can play in the background in a shopping centre.

[–] db2@lemmy.world 11 points 11 hours ago

So just gross on all counts then.

[–] SnoringEarthworm@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago

Here before this becomes the backing track for a million conservative TikToks.

[–] khepri@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

It's the same guy who's behind https://www.youtube.com/@defbeatsai which is just...the best