An AI-generated country artist named Breaking Rust has made history by becoming the first entirely artificial act to top Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart with the track “Walk My Walk.”
The achievement has sparked conversation about the rapidly accelerating trend of AI musicians breaking into mainstream charts, with Joe Rogan and comedian Jeff Dye discussing the phenomenon on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.
Breaking Rust represents a new frontier in music production, with every element of the song—vocals, instruments, and lyrics—created entirely by artificial intelligence without any human performance involved.
Despite its origins, the act has accumulated over 2.1 million monthly Spotify listeners and tens of thousands of Instagram followers, though significant portions of the engagement appear to be bot-driven.
The song “Walk My Walk” has already surpassed 3 million plays on Spotify. The account credits a human named Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor as the creator behind the AI prompts that generated the music.
The rise of Breaking Rust follows similar AI acts like Xania Monet, reflecting a rapidly accelerating trend of artificial musicians penetrating mainstream charts. This development comes even as platforms like Spotify attempt to implement safeguards against AI-driven impersonation and spam, raising questions about authenticity and the future of the music industry.
During their conversation, Rogan acknowledged his fascination with AI-generated music, noting its quality and accessibility. “I love listening to AI music,” he said, explaining how the technology draws from all the best sounds ever recorded.
Jeff Dye then talks about the AI band, saying: “I know there’s one going viral. It’s not officially number one. That’s like a weird designation, but there’s a song that’s number one on the country digital sales chart by a completely AI band.”
The discussion touched on how AI music samples and remixes elements from the entire history of recorded music, creating compositions that can rival human-produced tracks.
Breaking Rust’s chart success represents an important moment for the music industry, forcing artists, labels, and fans to confront the reality of AI-generated content competing directly with human performers.