Three songs generated by artificial intelligence topped music charts this week, reaching the highest spots on Spotify and Billboard charts.
Walk My Walk and Livin’ on Borrowed Time by the outfit Breaking Rust topped Spotify’s “Viral 50” songs in the US, which documents the “most viral tracks right now” on a daily basis, according to the streaming service. A Dutch song, We Say No, No, No to an Asylum Center, an anti-migrant anthem by JW “Broken Veteran” that protests against the creation of new asylum centers, took the top position in Spotify’s global version of the viral chart around the same time. Breaking Rust also appeared in the top five on the global chart.
These three songs are part of a flood of AI-generated music that has come to saturate streaming platforms. A study published on Wednesday by the streaming app Deezer estimates that 50,000 AI-generated songs are uploaded to the platform every day – 34% of all the music submitted.
Volume aside, I find Billboard charts equivalent to JD Power awards as they’ve always been rigged via payola schemes and the fact that nearly the entire nation’s radio stations are owned by a single company iHeartRadio/Clear Channel. The music industry is picking winners and losers not the listening public.
This may be different with streaming but that platform makes it really easy to rig the system with bots.