When the Music Isn’t Human…
This week, the No. 1 song on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart wasn’t written by a Nashville songwriter or sung by a rising country star. It was created by AI.
Say what?!
The track, “Walk My Walk” by Breaking Rust, just made history as the first AI-generated country song to hit No. 1. Earlier this year, Xania Monet became the first AI artist to reach the top of Billboard’s R&B Digital Song Sales chart. Other AI acts are climbing fast.
In other words: algorithms are now out-singing, out-streaming, and out-selling humans. The industry isn’t celebrating. In fact, AI models trained on real musicians’ work without consent are feeling more like identity theft…
Beyond the ethics, there’s something deeper at stake.
If machines can now mimic the sound of emotion, what happens to the meaning of it?
Music entwined in memories.
When I think about music, I don’t think about charts or algorithms.
I think about moments.
Like taking my son to his first concert. Admittedly, I was mostly there to make sure that if someone handed him something…anything, I could step in and to keep him out of the rowdy stuff…although I failed miserably at that thanks to the mosh pit that he seemingly couldn’t resist. Bless this mother’s heart.
Or the memory of my own youth…seeing Tina Turner strut those seemingly six-foot long gams of hers across the stage, electric and untouchable. Or scaling the fence at Saratoga Performing Arts Center to see the Grateful Dead, ripping half my leg open in the process and not caring one bit because… well, it was the Dead.
Fast forward a few decades to my 50th birthday complete with a party bus filled with tequila and girlfriends headed to see the very aged Go-Go’s singing and reminding us we’ve still got it! Or the time I gifted my husband front row seats to Chicago, his favorite band, only to have him propose later that year to the song “You’re the Inspiration.”
Those moments are deeply human.
They’re messy, emotional, connected, alive and possible because I saw the sweat fall off the face of the actual singer who sang the song. No AI-generated “artist” could give me that.
AI can learn to reproduce sound. It can write lyrics that rhyme and melodies that move.
But it doesn’t feel anything. It’s never pressed its way to the front of a crowd just to see the light catch a singer’s face. It’s never lost its voice from singing too loud. It’s never fallen in love mid-song.
Music isn’t just something we hear. It’s something we live.
That’s why in this era of AI everything…music, art, leadership, communication…staying deeply human isn’t nostalgic. It’s necessary.
Because the future won’t belong to the most efficient creators.
It will belong to the most deeply human ones.
And the same is true for companies.
Finding balance.
With the rapid AI advancement we are experiencing, the organizations that will thrive aren’t the ones that automate the fastest, they’re the ones that balance innovation with humanity. The ones that use technology to enhance what people do best, not replace it.
Because bold leadership isn’t just about adopting new tools. It’s about having the courage and wisdom to value what only humans can bring: empathy, intuition, creativity, judgment, humor, and heart.
The best leaders are building cultures where AI amplifies efficiency and humans elevate everything else.
That’s Bold Leadership in the age of AI.
