If Video Killed the Radio Star, AI Will Kill the Pop Star.
The great AI disruption in music hasn’t happened yet. But it's coming.
We’ve seen the gimmicks, the deepfake Drake tracks, AI-generated lo-fi playlists, “virtual” artists in Spotify with hundreds of thousands of plays. None of that is the real threat. Those are just warm-up acts.
The real disruption, the one that changes everything, is still coming. And when it hits, it won’t feel like a revolution. It’ll feel like comfort.
Here’s what it will look like:
And now we meet in an abandoned studio…
You sign up for a new app. It asks for your favorite songs, artists, memories, moods. You fill in a few fields. Maybe connect your Spotify. Maybe answer a few psychological prompts. You think you’re giving it preferences.
What you’re actually handing over is your emotional fingerprint. The system spins for a moment.
Then… a world appears. Not a playlist. A universe.
Entire bands generated just for you. Names you’ve never heard because they didn’t exist until sixty seconds ago. Custom profile pictures. AI-crafted biographies. A fully-formed aesthetic.
And the music? It’s perfect. Too perfect. A blend of everything you love. The voice timbre that gives you chills. The tempo that matches your heartbeat. Lyrics that sound like they were pulled straight from the hardest night of your life. It’s like discovering your favorite band, over and over again.
Only one problem: None of it is real. No studio. No conflict. No story. No blood in the ink. Just frictionless content, built in real time, for one person: you.
Rewritten by machine on new technology...
You start liking songs. The system adapts. It introduces new “bands”, each more dialed in than the last. You build a relationship with these artists. You follow them. You feel connected. But you’re not discovering. You’re training a simulation.
You’re not joining a fandom. You’re wandering in a garden built by code, for an audience of one. No licensing. No royalties. No egos. No delays. Just infinite content with zero cost and 100% retention. It’s everything the industry has ever wanted.
And yet…
Pictures came and broke your heart…
What happens when your favorite artist only exists for you? What happens when there are no more breakout albums? No more anthems of a generation? No more world tours, autograph lines, or interviews that go off the rails? What happens when every listener is sealed inside their own sonic echo chamber?
This is the death of shared meaning.
This is the death of the messy, flawed, communal human art form we once called music. This isn’t about AI replacing musicians. This is about AI making audiences forget they ever needed them. You won’t need connection.You won’t need story.
You’ll just get what you want. Instantly. Infinitely. Passively. And most people will love it.
We can’t rewind, we’ve gone too far…
Make no mistake, the business model is irresistible.
Unlimited music, tuned to the listener’s brain.
No licensing headaches.
No risk of scandal.
No arguments over royalties.
No shelf life. No fatigue.
Just content that feels like art…without any of the trouble it takes to make it.
But here’s the cost:
When the only songs that move you were built by something that can’t feel… what happens to you?
Art is the negotiation between the creator and the audience. It lives in the space between what you meant and what I needed. It’s flawed. Slow. Irrational. But that’s exactly what makes it human.
Remove the artist and you remove the humanity. Remove the humanity and you remove the meaning.
And you remember the jungles used to go…
This future is inevitable. And it will be popular. But beneath the surface, a hunger will grow. A hunger for friction. For surprise. For something that wasn’t made for us and still moves us. Real art will become a counterculture. Human-created music won’t be “mainstream.” It’ll be an act of rebellion.
The new punk won’t be loud, it’ll be real.
And when that happens, when the pendulum swings back, it won’t be because AI failed.
It’ll be because we finally remembered:
We don’t need more songs. We need something to believe in.
Until then, enjoy the perfect track. Just know: it was never sung for you.