AI Hits Country: Breaking Rust and Cain Walker—Both Completely AI-Generated Country Artists—Are Suddenly Charting on Spotify, Shazam, iTunes, and Billboard

Photo Credit: Breaking Rust

We’ve covered AI artist Xania Monet becoming the first AI artist to receive serious traditional radio play. Now get ready for more charting AI artists—Breaking Rust and Cain Walker—who are both making waves on a number of major platforms.

This week, Breaking Rust landed the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart for the second week in a row with the song “Walk My Walk.” But Breaking Rust is not a real person or a real band. It’s an AI project credited to songwriter Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor, but the mysterious “artist” has over 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

Another AI-generated country singer, Cain Walker, also dominated the Country Digital Song Sales chart this week with tracks in the third, ninth, and eleventh spots. Billboard distinguishes both Walker and Breaking Rust’s music as “virtual acts,” which offers some degree of transparency that the artists and/or the art is AI generated.

Both artists are charting on iTunes and racking up streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, and other DSPs. Also worth noting is that both have high-ranking tracks on Shazam, which indicates that people are hearing the AI-generated songs and wanting more.

Earlier this month, DMN covered the news that AI artist Xania Monet was getting enough radio play to become the first AI artist to debut on a Billboard radio chart. Monet, credited to songwriter Telisha “Nikki” Jones, had songs appear on multiple Billboard charts since debuting over the summer.

But Billboard reports that at least one AI artist has debuted in each of the past month’s worth of chart weeks. Signs are now pointing to Breaking Rust becoming “the next big thing” following Monet’s success. Curiously, many of these AI-generated artists to have music chart on major platforms like Billboard fall into either the Country or Gospel genres.

And it’s not as if people don’t realize these are AI artists. Despite the fact that only 3% of adults can tell the difference between AI-generated and human-created music, many of Breaking Rust’s listeners, for example, seem to enjoy that the music is machine-generated.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help what I like,” wrote one user in the YouTube comments on Breaking Rust’s biggest hit. “I like the song, no matter who created it.”

“I don’t know if this is a real guy, but his songs are seriously some of my favorite in life,” wrote a fan on Instagram.

But fear not, die-hard fans of real country artists. While “Walk My Walk” is the most downloaded country song in the U.S. right now, it’s not the most popular. That honor is held by Morgan Wallen, whose hit “I Got Better” is leading Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.