AI-generated songs are topping Spotify charts. This isn’t about the ‘democratization’ of art – it’s about scale

Making music is hard. Well, at least it used to be. I remember the old days, when you had to spend hours and hours honing skills, coming up with something clever or personal to say, then actually recording sounds that people would want to listen to. But that’s the past. In our sparkling future, a pre-teen can dump a bunch of words into a machine and out comes a catchy tune. In 2025, a robot can be a pop star. (Although Data from Star Trek did drop an album back in the 90s. How soon we all forget.)

Three AI-generated songs recently topped Spotify’s “Viral 50” charts. One of the “creators” responsible for these songs, Broken Veteran, who squirted out a track about immigration policies, told the Guardian that AI is “just another tool for expression, particularly valuable for people like me who have something to say but lack traditional musical training”. It used to be that if you didn’t know how to do something, you wouldn’t do it.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist