Billboard Says AI-Powered ‘Artists’ Are Increasingly Hitting The Charts

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/10/29/billboard-says-ai-powered-artists-are-increasingly-hitting-the-charts/

42 Comments

  1. “Billboard says a wave of AI-created music has debuted on its charts over the past month—one “singer” even scored a record deal—as some of these fake personas rack up millions of streams, a stark new trend that has raised some alarms in the music industry.

    Over the past four weeks, a new AI creation has debuted on a Billboard chart in each week, Billboard reported, including the AI country music product Breaking Rust, that debuted the songs “Livin’ On Borrowed Time” and “Walk My Walk” on the country song sales chart this week.

    The Christian AI-generated Juno Skye debuted on Billboard’s emerging artists chart last week, while the AI act Enlly Blue’s song “Through My Soul” hit the rock sales song chart earlier this month, Billboard reported.

    The outlet said it cross-checked the songs with Deezer, a platform that offers an AI-detection tool, to verify whether the songs were artificially generated.”

  2. As bad as it feels, it will come for all of us. Music, movies, any computer job. Blue collar will last the longest but by then you will have 1000 applications per job. It’s going to get uglier than any of us will admit.

  3. creaturefeature16 on

    The charts have always been filled with the most vacuous, soulless, and generic music in the first place, so this makes sense. 

  4. I’ve never been one for overregulation but the lack of it in this industry is maddening. I think all AI images, videos, music, etc. should come very clearly displayed.

  5. Ironically, it will bring back live music since the unique selling proposition will be real humans performing from soul to soul.

  6. CitronBeneficial2421 on

    I didn’t know how good AI music would be. I looked up the first one – the Breaking Rust, living on borrowed time… and it’s good. I really like it. Well shit.

  7. Pretty sure that robots, AI and similar are supposed to take over the mundane bullshit of life so we, human beings, can concentrate on art and music and progress. Of course, as soon as the fucking business men get involved it’s all “blah blah economy blah blah, you’re fired, now enjoy your similar-to-copyrighted-material-but-technically-distinct song, you fucking prole.

  8. I’ve watched videos on this. Country music is especially soulless and ripe for AI. It’s just the same beats and words about beer, guns, grandmas house, etc. Especially bro-country.

  9. The_Observatory_ on

    This is why I go to concerts by bands who allow their fans to record audio of their shows. (To be clear, these are artists actually playing instruments and singing songs they wrote.) I record my audio, put it on my phone, laptop, cd, or iPod and listen to that instead of the radio. 

  10. 0shadowstories on

    I seen people hyping up some AI rock and metal songs but I swear every single one sounds exactly the same, like the AI has one vocal, one instrumental, one lyric set up, and it just repeats that across 100s of songs and these dummies are like “YO THIS SOUNDS LIKE THIS OTHER BAND” while the guy making em with AI is just copying the real bands music lmao

  11. I fell for an AI song this year. My music player was just throwing random songs at me and this nice funky tune comes on. I thumbs up it and move on only realizing it was AI later. We are definitely over the tipping point.

  12. Can we use blockchain to track AI created content and the queries used to generate it? This was the process is transparent?

  13. The industry has been pretty well f’ed since the business managers took over from A&R, or worse, venture capitalists. AI is the perfect extension of that mindset. Go see local musicians in bars and clubs, that’s still real.

  14. I’ve been disturbed for several weeks over the fact that I recently found out one of my top songs from this quarter of the year is AI. Kind of just went with it because I’m not about to drop a good song for being slop, but it’s really made me wonder on the nature of art and how much artist intention vs. recipient matters with different types of art, say, music or visual or written. Out of these, written art drags behind the most, because writing is inherently a conversation and requires thought and understanding and planning behind it, which AI lacks – but for music and visual art, much of that exists entirely inside the recipient’s brain, and taking away artist intention… doesn’t destroy the meaning that is created internally.

    As per the song I’ve liked, I always did think it’s cringeworthily generic, but that didn’t stop it from hitting right. Kind of explained that part when I found out. Now just waiting for the AI-synthetised recreational drugs next, I guess.

  15. So all the people saying that AI art will never matter because it lacks “soul” and that’s what people connect to: What gives? I thought everyone really cared about the human connection and intent with art?

  16. Stepfordhusband69 on

    This is funny that people are freaking about this.  We’ve been here for some time. What do we think auto tune is?  A person who can’t sing has a machine (ai) modulate their voice so now the can sing. Not a big leap to get rid of the talentless person in the first place.

  17. I think AI in music is the best proof that people are unable to distinct between whats real and whats AI. Even though most people think different. Following years are gonna be interesting, people are gonna call out real artists for using AI and other people are gonna defend AI saying that they are real.

  18. bloodoftheseven on

    I don’t have artistic talent and mainly use AI to visualize story ideas. Is that the proper use for it.

  19. Companies will push AI art slop because it’s cheap, and they’d rather pay advertisers than artists.

    Maybe some of it gets popular, maybe it stays limited. It’s hard to say, because it’s highly dependent on the listener. And pop music has always tried to have mass appeal over emotional depth. Great songs have both, good songs will get forgotten, bad songs forgotten quicker.

    I would like to believe that I would know if I was listening to real artist vs a machine. But I’m only human (pun intended)

  20. Livid_Zucchini_1625 on

    perfect for “christian music.” it’s the most trite copycat dreck one can listen to. not a creative note in the bunch

  21. Country and Christian AI music slop is being lapped-up by its audience?? Color me surprised.

  22. That’s cool or whatever; I found a polish dude on youtube who can play guitar like Buckethead while wearing a moon mask, Billboard and the wider culture can have fun drinking shit smoothies and calling it delicious, I’ll be over here eating actual food, thanks.

  23. Slapping a prompt together is like asking a weather app for a forecast and then claiming you’re a meteorologist. While there is something to be said about putting a prompt together to get your desired result before you run out of tokens, that does not make you an artist.

    It is also not copyrightable since it is was created using stolen *actually copyrighted works.* I can’t wait to see that particular hammer land.

  24. I’m going to continue to shame anyone that uses AI in their business and life. Losers the whole lot.

  25. r2k-in-the-vortex on

    As an electronic music fan, I dont give a shit how it was made as long as the beat is good.

  26. Ok, I’m going to admit it, it’s hitting the charts cuz some AI music is amazing. Rap songs turned into jazz and blues? Straight fkin fire.

  27. Billboard removed Lady Gaga from the hot 100 because she was too popular and on the charts for too long.

    Billboard’s charts are worthless, is my point.

  28. I mean sure thats expected when theyre doing everything to push those via marketing and advertising and such.

  29. MkPapadopoulos on

    The number of times I’m being pushed clearly AI music in my Discover Weekly is scary. At the very least it’s making me more discerning about what I’m listening to, but it’s crazy that there’s no easy recourse to report fully AI-generated songs.

  30. Wait until they start touring too. Playing at several different cities on the same night, at the same time. I’ve just depressed myself.

  31. I love that we’re automating humanity out of the arts in every medium. Really the best use for the technology for sure.

  32. manwhowasnthere on

    Reminds me of the old joke about country music – “With the advent of self-driving vehicles, we are now close to a country song where a man’s truck – leaves him”

  33. Serious here, I knew that slop often hit the  charts and that was before AI even existed. I have witnessed great talent never, ever be recognized, while absolute turds of a song float to the top.

  34. Pepperonidogfart on

    I think at this point the listens are because of the novelty. People listening because its an ai song, not necessarily because they enjoy the “artist.”

  35. Cool, I guess I’m right at sticking to bands I’ve been listening to for decades and not branching out.

  36. If I remember correctly, ai images can’t be copyrighted. What about ai generated music? Does this mean it’s public domain?