It sounds a lot like everything else
AI slop has reached a new level of ascendancy, as a country song by an AI artist has hit number one on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart.
Breaking Rust, an AI “band” that appeared on the internet in the middle of October based on its presence on Instagram, topped the chart last week with a song called Walk My Walk. Look at Breaking Rust’s social media pages and you’ll find nothing to indicate there’s an actual human involved in the music-making portion of the band’s songs – just a chiseled-jawed, clearly AI-generated cowboy, and video clips featuring folksy people doing folksy things or slow-walking away from the camera. To say the various songs are similar would be an understatement: They’re practically identical down to their bland, hollow lyrics.
Hang on a second, you may be wondering: Doesn’t Breaking Rust sound like every other so-called “bro country” band that’s come to dominate the genre over the past decade by singing soulless, cookie-cutter songs about trucks, beer, American flags, and scantily-clad women? Absolutely.
If so, why should we assume Breaking Rust is an AI band? Well, because Billboard said it is in a story about AI artists just last week.
“Breaking Rust, an AI-powered country act, debuted at No. 9 on the Emerging Artists chart (dated Nov. 1)”, the music publication said. “The project, credited to songwriter Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor, has generated 1.6 million official U.S. streams.”
Taylor has almost no internet presence, appearing only in association with Breaking Rust and a decidedly dirtier act called Defbeatsai.
