Colorado artist reacts as AI-generated “country singer” reaches No. 1 on digital chart
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - While the CMA Awards celebrated the biggest names in country music Wednesday night, the song currently sitting at No. 1 on the country digital download chart wasn’t performed on the show, and it wasn’t performed by a human at all.
The chart-topper is written and sung by an AI-generated synthetic artist, sparking a growing debate across the music industry about whether a song can still be considered "country" if no one actually lived the story behind it.
Pueblo native Cody Cozz, now a signed country artist in Nashville, says the rise of AI-generated music has the potential to reshape how real musicians make a living.
"If you really kind of listen to the lyrics - it’s not a good song. It’s not very well crafted. It’s not really a great story," Cozz said. "Songwriters are cutting tooth and nail every day to get their songs heard, and something like this can take that away."
The conversation isn’t limited to Nashville. At UCCS, music students studying composition and performance say artificial intelligence can reproduce the sound of country music, but not the human experiences that define it.
"One of the best parts of country is the lyricism and the ability to take personal life experiences and twist them in certain ways to make it unique," student Sembatya Magoye said. "The problem with AI is there is no personal story."
Faculty members say AI has been used in experimental music for decades and can serve as a creative tool, but it isn’t likely to fully replace trained musicians.
"In the end, it’s really about the human ears and critical listening and human decisions that are going to make or break good music," says Professor Glenn Whitehead, Chair of the UCCS Visual and Performing Arts Department.
Still, many in the music world worry about what happens if AI sounds become indistinguishable from real singers.
Student Jean Cook says the future of music may depend on what listeners choose to value, "I don’t want technology to rob me of what it means to be human."
Because of copyright restrictions, KRDO13 cannot air the AI-generated chart-topping track. To listen to the full song and learn more about the controversy, click here.
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