Opinion

An AI-generated song has topped the country charts in the US. Barry Willis, who grew up reading comic books warning of a dystopian future, knows exactly where this is headed...

Science fiction was a genre of choice when I was a kid. Among my favourites was a comic book called Magnus – Robot Fighter, 4000 A.D., published by Gold Key Comics. The premise was that future North America had become one giant city controlled by robots. Led by a charismatic hero, human rebels struggled fiercely to overthrow their electro-mechanical masters and to restore some semblance of natural order. That concept has since fuelled innumerable books and movies. The authors of Magnus perhaps didn’t anticipate the computer revolution, but they would not be at all surprised by the emergence of Artificial Intelligence.

Breaking bad

In the last week of November 2025, the No 1 country song on the Billboard digital music sales chart was ‘Walk My Walk’ by Breaking Rust [pictured above], a ‘recording’ totally generated by AI. Melody, chord progression, arrangement, lyrics, etc – all emanated not from musicians in a studio but from a computer program. The online song even featured a photo of a rugged, black-bearded cowboy, presumably the gravel-voiced singer. This was also completely fake.

The comical aspect of this is that country music fans pride themselves on keeping it real and honouring tradition. What’s not so comical is that simultaneously with the chart success of ‘Walk My Walk’ came press releases from Warner Music Group (WMG) announcing partnership deals with several AI companies.

These announcements paid lip service to ‘human creativity’ and ‘artist empowerment,’ but it’s clear the agenda is to remove pesky people from the production process as much as possible. The goal is to maximise profits by reducing human involvement – ironically, for an art form essential for humans.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the epicentre of the AI tsunami, and regularly hear cheerleading from technology executives about the brave new world they are ushering in. Sometimes their enthusiasm gets the best of them, as when they predict that AI will eventually obviate 90% of human labour. Such predictions were commonplace during the Machine Age, too. The nature of work changed, but the need for it did not. Evolving technology altered the delivery of music – mics, amplifiers and loudspeakers changed everything – but did not affect the human need to make or enjoy music.

That fundamental need still exists, of course, obviously recognised by WMG and its AI partners. AI music is already available, surprisingly prominent, and easy to identify once you know what to look for. It’s the sonic equivalent of what nutritionists call ‘empty calories’ – ultra-processed food with superficial appeal to taste but next to no nutritional value. Sensation without substance! Such food is now a recognised health risk.

Pop pickers

Some 20 years ago, a service called Hit Song Science offered to predict the chances of success for any new composition by comparing it against a massive database of popular songs from the previous century. Ratings were based on every aspect of each song – lyrics, tempo, arrangement, melody, and so on.

Purveyors of AI music hope to build skyscrapers on the foundation laid by Hit Song Science. Delve into the retro-jazz genre on YouTube and you’ll land on channels offering nonstop Chicago Blues or endless 1940s jazz, all of it seemingly familiar but disturbingly unrecognisable. You’ll hear voices echoing Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, even Amy Winehouse, but you won’t be able to identify them because they’ve all been cooked up by AI to reside forever in ‘the cloud’.

AI music is only the beginning of psychic enslavement to come. This opinion was 100% human generated.