An entirely AI-generated country song titled "Walk My Walk" by the mysterious artist Breaking Rust has hit No.1 on the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales chart - despite no human singer behind it. This is, without question, the most interesting thing that has happened in country music since Garth Brooks tried to become Chris Gaines, except this time nobody is embarrassed.
There's something deeply unsettling about realising that the music genre most obsessed with realness, the one constantly positioning itself against the perceived plasticity of pop - is actually reducible to a set of predictable patterns. It's like finding out your deer-hunting libertarian Uncle who refuses to use Google Maps has been moonlighting as a sensitivity reader for Teen Vogue. AI has effectively said: "I can manufacture authenticity better than your authenticity manufacturers". The human connection that supposedly makes country music special has been completely removed from the equation, yet the equation still somehow balances.
Nashville's last bastion of red-blooded, flag-waving Americana just experienced the quintessential American business story: being rendered obsolete by a software product that performs the same function with better quarterly projections and no bathroom breaks.
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