Nick Arter spent years trying to become a professional musician. He recorded hip-hop tracks as a teenager and sold mixtapes at local shows. But a full-time music career never materialized. Then, late last year, he started using AI to create songs. Within months, his tracks were earning hundreds of thousands of plays on streaming platforms.
AI Songs Top the Charts
According to The New Yorker, AI-generated music is now a full-blown phenomenon. This month, an AI country song called „Walk My Walk“ hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart. The track passed three million streams on Spotify. Its performer is a digital avatar named Breaking Rust.
In September, Xania Monet landed a multimillion-dollar record deal. The R&B singer is an AI creation made by a young poet in Mississippi. Earlier this year, a band called the Velvet Sundown passed a million plays on Spotify. The creators later admitted the group was synthetic.
Apps Make Music Creation Accessible
Most AI-generated tracks come from two apps: Suno and Udio. Arter writes his own lyrics and creates text prompts describing the sound he wants. He feeds these prompts into both apps and generates dozens of versions of each track. He picks the best results and uploads them to streaming services.
Arter has produced about 140 songs in the past year. His music includes tracks like „I’m Letting Go of the Bullshit“ and „Healthy Hoes At Trader Joe’s.“ One song has nearly 900,000 plays on Spotify. Justin Bieber has used Arter’s songs on Instagram posts. Rapper Young Thug adopted lyrics from an Arter track for his hit „Miss My Dogs.“
The Quality Question
Spotify does not mark AI-generated content. In one recent study, listeners could identify AI music only 53 percent of the time. The platform has removed more than 75 million spammy tracks in the past year. But countless unmarked AI songs remain.
Ahmed Kordofani, a musician in London, notes that AI songs often lack structure. They have no discernible hook or climax. „There’s this element of sterileness to it, this emptiness at the bottom,“ he said. Kordofani now helps musicians humanize their AI-generated tracks by patching in real voice recordings.
Arter quit his consulting job and now works full-time as an AI musician. He makes money from more than 50 streaming platforms. He also creates custom songs for clients at 500 dollars each. „I think there’s a genuine opportunity with AI to get rid of the gatekeepers,“ he said.
