America's most-downloaded country artist? AI

The most-downloaded country song in America is written and sung not by a human, but by AI alone.Why it matters: This is twilight-zone stuff, folks. For the No. 1 and No. 3 paid downloads, the artists, the music, the lyrics — the songs — aren't by real people. But real people are lovin' 'em.The big picture: Artists of all types should be rattled that early, deeply flawed, work-in-progress AI is already cranking out country hits ... and knocking humans down the music charts.The success of "artists" Breaking Rust and Cain Walker pits AI technology against humans who earn their living as songwriters, artists and music business professionalsBreaking Rust, a computer-generated outlaw blues-country singer, has the No. 1 song on Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales chart with the single "Walk My Walk."Cain Walker, an AI R&B singer, is No. 3 on the same chart with "Don't Tread On Me."Threat level: The AI chart invasion is ringing alarm bells in Nashville — Music City! — one of the songwriting capitals of the world.Songwriting and music publishing are the cornerstones of the city's music industry. Countless singer-songwriters flocked to Nashville over the decades.By the numbers: Breaking Rust boasts 2.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Cain Walker has over 842,000.By comparison, ascending singer-songwriter Jackson Dean, whose single "Heavens to Betsy" is climbing the country radio charts, has 1.6 million monthly listeners.Reality check: Billboard's country sales chart only tracks paid downloads — a small piece of the music market today. It doesn't reflect streaming and radio airplay, which are factored into Billboard's more influential Hot Country Songs chart.Zoom out: "In just the past few months, at least six AI or AI-assisted artists have debuted on various Billboard rankings," Billboard reports. That figure could be higher, as it's become increasingly difficult to tell who or what is powered by AI — and to what extent."Many tracks, spanning every genre from gospel to rock to country, arrive with anonymous or mysterious origins, sometimes with AI elements mixed into rerecordings of old school hits, Billboard adds ($).Sign of the times: Billboard uses an AI tool to sniff for AI fingerprints!And there's a London producer who "humanizes" AI tracks.Get Axios Nashville ... Get Axios Local: Newsletters in 34 cities.

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