PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting You had to know this was coming.

Like it or not, AI as a songwriting tool is here to stay.
To everyone who says "real songwriters wouldn't use AI" ..... Well it seems like they are, and have been. This is a story about the writers in Nashville.

Story by Joe Wilkins (12-7-25)



The Country Music Industry Has Discovered That AI Can Crank Out Hits Like Crazy
What do small towns, cold beer, and fast-talkin' algorithms have in common?


Country music producers in Nashville are increasingly turning to AI tools like Suno, following a long pattern of industrialization.

For decades, the country music industry has billed itself as the rough-hewn, rural cousin to the effete sounds of the city. That appears to be going out the window, as more and more country producers embrace San Francisco’s AI over Nashville’s homespun troubadours.

In a detailed reporting on changes in the country music industry, The Verge spoke to a number of professional song-writers, producers, and artists about the rise of AI in country music. Their responses point to a scene that’s changing fast — and leaving human artists in the dust.

The songwriter Trannie Anderson, for example, called the tech “ubiquitous” throughout Nashville, the epicenter of the country music industry. Anderson, who’s written for artists like Reba McEntire, said everyone’s using it: “from entry-level songwriters to the top dogs.” (Sources who talked to The Verge confirmed big wigs like Jelly Roll and Dustin Lynch are being sent song demos with their own voices digitally synthesized.)

Eric Olson, a publisher interviewed by The Verge, encourages country song writers to use AI to come up with song samples, saying it saves tons of time in the work day. “If I can give Suno the last 20 percent and spend more time with my kids, that’s huge,” he said.

While AI tools like Suno can generate just about everything a music producer needs — lyrics, backup vocals, melodies — they’re mainly being used for demo production, according to reporting.

When up-and-coming singer-songwriter Maggie Reaves got a contract from a “major artist” with a one-day turnaround, for example, she wrote the song on paper before throwing it into Suno, according to The Verge. Her publisher told her it was “perfect.”

“This is going straight to her,” her publisher said. In the country music scene at least, demo recording is an important source of revenue for working musicians. Still, though it’s an integral part of the country music ecosystem, it can be expensive. AI offers a cost efficient alternative. “I immediately saw this [AI] could replace that,” Reaves told The Verge.

Considering country music’s history, it’s a rather fitting turn for the industry. As folk music journalist Kim Ruehl observed, contemporary pop-country came to prominence as the commercial arm of American folk music. “The difference is the involvement of big business in the development of the careers of country stars,” Ruehl wrote on the question of country’s folk origins.

That being the case, the drive for efficiency with AI — cutting production costs and increasing profit — is best understood as the next logical step for the industry, not a freak departure from the norm.

There are numerous examples of “industrial advancements” throughout pop-country’s lifespan. Consider the “Countrypolitan era” of the 1960s, in which producer Billy Sherrill refined the process of pumping out chart-topping pop ballads, or the “Hat Act” era of Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson, defined by thematic conformity and the massive consolidation of country radio.

One of the prime examples of this — and arguably commercial country’s point of origin — was the “Nashville sound,” which came to replace bawdry, blue-collar honky tonk with mechanically-produced pop hits. Instead of AI, producers in this era turned to “the A Team,” a stable of reliable session musicians in Nashville, to maximize studio time and streamline popular songwriting formulas. Together, the A Team has contributed to tens of thousands of tracks, laying the groundwork for country music as a commercial industry.

So, while AI might be taking country music to a dark place, it’s really par for the course for a business constantly striving for mass market appeal above all else. Just ask any honky tonk fan.

Yep, Joe's saying out loud what everyone is thinking. Years from now (maybe not too many years) my son will be saying to his friends, "My dad used to sit around the basement and write songs without AI. Isn't THAT SO weird?"

Be careful about using this to justify using AI to write your songs.
It's not about that - at all.

I have yet to see (hear) an AI write that wouldn't get ya shown-the-door if you put your own name on it.
(But the melodies are top-notch - so that - using the melody - could be happening. You still have to be capable of a pro-level lyric to put on top of it.)

This is posted in the wrong forum.
This is about production. Mostly demo production.
I sincerely wish I'd had SUNO for production while I was in Nashville. Demos (in the 90's) ran $400 a pop (for truly "competing" demos).
And when everyone is writing multiple songs a week, SUNO must be a godsend (demo production-wise).

Man, this was just so interesting. Thanks for posting that article.

Ron - embrace the weirdness!
Andrew

Ron, you mean like the kids today saying "What's a record player"?

Floyd, I'm pretty clear regarding your viewpoint on AI with what you said about not commenting on anything I put in the showcase that you suspect contains AI whether it's the music or the vocals.
This article simply says the pros are using it whether they admit to it or not. Maybe even some of the songs on your deep dive list have AI origins.

If you haven't seen any top quality lyrics from an AI / human collaboration, you're not paying attention or it's actually so good that you didn't even realize or recognize it as AI.

And no, this is the exact forum this post needs to be in. The topic is writing songs using AI assistance, and how that's being done by professional songwriters in Nashville. It has nothing to do with production and everything to do with writing.

And then you close by saying you sincerely wish you had Suno back in the day when you were trying to get a cut while you were in Nashville.

I'm puzzled. Are you still adamant about not using it or are you considering going to the dark side


Edit to add: maybe you should consider working with AI on your songs. It will open doors, let you see possibilities, and help you break out of the old patterns. If it doesn't, just grab your pad and pencil and keep on going.

I believe floyd jane was focusing on Suno for creating pro-level demos, which is what most of the people in the article are doing. Songs they had written themselves, with lyrics the had written themselves, and then quickly create pro-level demos of.

Speaking for myself, I'm on this forum to not only share music, but see what people can do with BiaB. It's fine if people want to use other tools, but I don't think this is the forum to do that in. YMMV.

That's not what I got from the article that AI was being used solely for production by the Nashville songwriters. A reading of the article again before I replied here certainly seems to imply that AI is being used by the writers in Nashville for everything. Sure, they mentioned that one writer wrote the lyrics and then Suno created the finished version. Did it do the melody? The article doesn't actually say.
But it did mention that AI is assisting with lyrics, music and production.... The last 20% is quoted in the story. But it's never defined. Is the 20% finishing the lyrics that has someone stuck? Is it tweaking the melody or structure? Or is it the production part?

The story does seem to imply that AI is being used to help with everything.

A friend recently attended a songwriting workshop in GA that was hosted by some heavy hitters.

One of the things discussed was using AI for Demos to speed up the process and help a publisher evaluate and decide whether to take a song further.

But they also mentioned that the future studio musicians and producer aren't allowed to hear the AI Demo so as not to influence their creativity.

Interesting. I can see pros and cons to that process.

At a songwriter seminar in LA I got to hear the demo submitted for a very popular hit country song and then the artist version was played. The artist and his band had used every single lick and fill from the demo. For all intents and purposes, it was an exact duplicate except for one thing.... The singer.

By not allowing the musicians to hear the demo, the final version could effectively be so different it doesn't sound anything like the writer had intended on the demo. But it's also possible that the artist version is better than the demo. If it's an AI generated demo, that can indeed be a steep hill to climb.

Generally, in these kinds of threads, I try to say what I feel needs to be said simply, succinctly, completely...a be done with it.
But, holy cow!!!

Seems a reading comprehension problem. Let's review...

Country music producers in Nashville are increasingly turning to AI tools like Suno, following a long pattern of industrialization.

... as more and more country producers embrace San Francisco’s AI...

...big wigs like Jelly Roll and Dustin Lynch are being sent song demos with their own voices digitally synthesized...

While AI tools like Suno can generate just about everything a music producer needs — lyrics, backup vocals, melodies — they’re mainly being used for demo production, according to reporting.

... she wrote the song on paper before throwing it into Suno

... In the country music scene at least, demo recording is an important source of revenue for working musicians.
... it can be expensive. AI offers a cost efficient alternative. “I immediately saw this [AI] could replace that,”


... the drive for efficiency with AI — cutting production costs and increasing profit ...

... Instead of AI, producers in this era turned to “the A Team,” a stable of reliable session musicians in Nashville




I never said anything about vocals. Stop making [*****] up and trying to put it in my mouth.


The article never said "...whether they admit to it or not." This is your commentary being added to it to promote your narrative.


Pure conjecture on your part. Again, to promote your narrative.

WHERE, exactly, are these amazing lyrics I haven't been paying attention to????.....

Please provide one example of these wild proclamations...



NO. IT IS NOT.
Please.... show us where the article says that. I can't find it. Anywhere.

The fact that you think that is disturbing on many levels.

Yes. For producing studio-quailty demos. I was poor at the time. The studio demos I did have were all paid for by the established Nashville writers I was co-writing with. They had all made a LOT of money from songwriting, so they could afford it. That was a HUGE advantage for the guys (and gals) writing hits. They made ridiculous money from songwriting and could afford to demo everything they wrote. It is one of the reason they keep getting cuts. But they deserved that - because they had the talent to write hits in the first place.

I have no desire to present work of a machine as my own. Or to copy a machine's work and call it my own.
I do not need AI to write my songs or produce my songs. I take great pride in my work.



Anyone can go back and review the 200+ songs I have posted in the Showcase and see what a ridiculous statement this is.
No one has posted more variety or made more of an effort to stay current, while still respecting the past.

Floyd.... Wow! That must have really hit a nerve for you to quote practically everything I said with your rebuttal.

Just do what you think is best. Have a good life.

Is there a link to the actual article? I couldn't see it.
I've heard some Suno stuff...built from a song written by a songwriter/singer.
Some of it was okay. Nothing I'd want to own in the main.
I'm old - I don't use my phone for the internet & I don't like using things such as the melodist in BIAB.

Ray, this looks like the article. Possibly country restricted?

I was just fixin to go look for it but yep...that's it

Okay,
The article in FUTURISM, (by a chap who covers transport, infrastructure & some tech), discussing A.I. is almost entirely based on another article in The Verge that interviewed people plus a lot of editorializing along with a brief reference to a folk article at Liveabout dotcom. The label “industrial advancements” is used to cover a section about broad eras or fads in modern country.
It's not a good construction from solid sources really and, I suppose, is in line with the mastheads general thrust. It's generic enough to have been A.I. written.
What I took from it is that some producers like to get "completed" demos, some song writer/pluggers give producers what the want. It is what it is: a new machine with fewer cogs, fewer jobs and fewer $$$s spent is the current fave of folk who want to churn out stuff...the usual.
The discussion of opinions about generic country becoming, while A.I. generated, even more homogenous, is another matter.
I'm not inclined to use online A.I. due to the resources "borrowed" for learning and because of the climate/power/noise impact of the "data centers" required to run it.

My AI query Re: SUNO

This is quicksand, pure and unadulterated quicksand.

In 2025, the music industry in Nashville is intensely debating the ethics and legality of AI "songwriting" via platforms like Suno. While many creators feel as you do—that claiming authorship is deceptive—the current landscape is shaped by specific legal rulings and industry shifts.
Legal and Ownership Realities in 2025
• Copyright Restrictions: As of early 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office maintains that AI-generated works without "meaningful human authorship" cannot be copyrighted. Merely providing a text prompt is considered insufficient for human authorship.
• Commercial Ownership: While you cannot copyright a purely AI-made song, Suno’s terms for paid subscribers "assign" the rights to the output to the user. This means that while the law may not recognize you as the "author," the contract allows you to sell or distribute the music as your own.
• Nashville's ELVIS Act: Tennessee's ELVIS Act (2024) specifically protects an artist's voice and likeness from being cloned by AI without permission. However, this law focuses on protecting established artists rather than defining who "wrote" a song generated by a tool like Suno.
Nashville Industry Perspectives
The Nashville community is currently divided into three main camps regarding this issue:
• The Purists: Many local songwriters and organizations, such as the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), strongly advocate for human-only creative credits. They view AI-generated hits as discouraging to human talent who "put their stories and pain" into their music.
• The Hybrid Users: Some professional publishers and writers now use Suno as a "demo tool" to quickly hear how a melody or lyric might sound, saving time and money on studio productions. They argue that if they refine the lyrics or modify the arrangement, they are still the primary creative force.
• The "Work-for-Hire" Argument: Some users view Suno as a digital "ghostwriter" or a session musician. Under this mindset, the person who "directs" the AI (choosing the prompts and selecting the best outputs) considers themselves the producer or songwriter in a managerial sense.
Recent Major Developments
• Warner Music Settlement: In November 2025, Suno reached a major settlement with Warner Music Group, agreeing to license WMG's catalog for training future models. This move signals that the industry is shifting from fighting the technology to incorporating it into a licensed, commercial framework.
• Chart Success: Tensions reached a boiling point in late 2025 when AI-produced songs like "Walk My Walk" reached the top of Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales chart, leading to calls for stricter transparency in how AI music is labeled.

In 2025, the Nashville music industry and the U.S. legal system have established clear distinctions between legal ownership of AI outputs and the ethical claim of being a "songwriter."
1. Legal Ownership vs. Copyright Protection
Under current law, while you may "own" a file generated by Suno, you likely do not own the copyright to it:
• Human Authorship Required: The U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) and federal courts reaffirmed in 2025 that only works created by humans are eligible for copyright protection.
• Prompting is Not Authorship: The USCO explicitly stated that "mere provision of prompts"—no matter how detailed—does not constitute authorship.
• Commercial Rights: Suno’s terms of service generally grant commercial use rights to paid subscribers. This means a person in Nashville can legally sell or stream a Suno track, but they cannot prevent others from copying it since they lack a valid copyright.
2. Industry Standards in Nashville
The Nashville songwriting community largely views AI tools as assistive rather than creative:
• The "Demo" Exception: Many Nashville publishers and writers use Suno specifically for demo production—creating a quick sample to show how a human-written song might sound—rather than as the primary songwriter.
• Pushback on "Deceptive" Claims: The Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and other groups have successfully advocated for the ELVIS Act in Tennessee, which protects against AI voice and likeness theft, emphasizing that "human authors and their copyrights must be valued".
• Authenticity Concerns: Local artists have expressed that AI-generated hits reaching the charts (such as "Walk My Walk" in late 2025) are "discouraging" because they lack the human experience and "pain" inherent in traditional songwriting.
3. Recent 2025 Developments
The landscape shifted significantly in late 2025 due to major industry deals:
• Licensing Settlements: In November 2025, Suno reached a landmark settlement and licensing deal with Warner Music Group (WMG) to use its catalog as training material.
• New "Licensed" Models: Starting in 2026, Suno will release models trained only on licensed content. This shift aims to move AI-assisted music toward a more legitimate, opt-in ecosystem for human creators.
In short, while someone in Nashville can claim they "produced" or "made" a Suno track for commercial purposes, claiming the title of songwriter in a legal sense usually requires proof of significant human-authored lyrics or melody that wasn't just "interpreted" by the AI from a text prompt.

David Snyder... Good post and pertinent information for anyone keeping up with the AI debate and progress towards becoming legitimate and mainstream. That describes the current situation perfectly.

As with any new technology, it tends to be held at bay until it gets adopted by the majority. People used to use wax cylinders before tape and once tape was seen to be the better way, wax cylinders disappeared. And then came digital which was called "sterile and lifeless" by the tape aficionados. Sound familiar?

At some point, I don't know when, there will be a bonafide hit song that is revealed to either be partially or fully written, music and lyrics, by AI and a human. There will likely be some sort of legal action and a resultant lawsuit and a judgement handed down and legal precedent set that will open the way for AI to become more the norm than an abberation. It'll happen one lawsuit at a time

It's simply a matter of time.

So, you used AI to compile this list. The tells are the redundancies and repetition.

I’m in the trenches with this issue. NDAs prevent me from going into detail other than the overriding goal of AI tools, providers and users is simple:

Money for nothing

Let AI do all the work while we reap the rewards. This is true on all sides. For companies like Suno, “How can we make this happen without being responsible for the work we steal?” For the consumer of the tools: “How can we use these tools to get paid for songs that we didn’t write?”

Shakespeare put it best, IMO: “A pox on both your houses!”

Herb,

I'm going to give you a secret squirrel secret tip and this is high level, top security level 5.

The note that I posted to you was derived from an AI search. Only top secret high level security agents will ever be able to identify this because in the first sentence of my post I said the information below comes from an AI search.

I know you have to be on another level, almost some kind of divinely intelligent super being, to ascertain such a thing.

But now I'm onto more secret matters.

Herb, you and I are being sent in on the front lines undercover, in the shadowlands, to fight this AI battle with the largest publishing companies on the face of the Earth in hand-to-hand combat alone, just you and me.

We will be crawling through the tunnels from New York to Nashville on our hands and knees with flashlights strapped to our heads but we can't tell anybody what we're doing or how we're doing it. Your code name is the monkey man. Don't whisper a word of this to anybody not even on the band in a box forum. It's completely hush hush.

Will be working closely with the people whose names we have read on websites at ASCAP, BMI, Netflix and Warner Brothers, using only a borrowed version of Cakewalk Pro Audio from 1999 to guide our way.

When we get to tunnel 12, I want you to unleash the secret code that will turn these AI robots into dust, and then we'll sign a couple of secret papers and meet up with the chairman of the board of the sinister organization, Dark Underworld Media Inc.

And then we're going to cut a deal down in the trenches to take on this musical Antichrist all by ourselves out in the monkey field, where only the dead men die.

Totally hush hush.

You can't tell anybody what we're doing Herb but we're going to save the world from AI, just you and me, in country down range, against all odds, flying into the eye of the tiger.

One last time.

And we're in it to win it.

But don't tell anybody.

Don't tell them anything.

Ssssshhhhhh......

David Snyder....

That was a hoot.

With an imagination like that you should try songwriting.

I must admit it was quite an entertaining read.

early 1990s...
Imagine someone is coming to a painting studio and saying:
Hey, I got this amazing 600dpi inkjet printer at Circuit City and I can print fantastic "artwork" within minutes, and you sit here sweating for days / weeks, producing single picture. Losers! Get with the flow!

AI is breakthrough technology, but so as many other revolutionary technologies that co-existed with Arts throughout the centuries. Yes, it is a "present" disruption and without a doubt will cause pain to whole lot of people who are making a living from certain creative work, but in a long run, humans are resilient. Those who want to create will continue to create. They created in times of famine, censorship and war... Just because that is who they are. An interesting fact: Most musicians that I ever knew/know made money on live performances, not records or streaming. This includes artists across the spectrum from opera to electronic music.

With the same passion we can talk about chem fertilizers and GMO's vs traditional farming using good old manure.

Rusty,

Yes, I think you are quickly adapting. Elon and Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg promise than within a year Fembots and Manbots will be available to provide all of our romantic needs.

There will be no need to ever learn how to speak or talk nicely to a real woman or real man ever again. You can buy one on special at Best Buy! And they will never talk back to you!

Sure some grumpy old men will sit in rocking chairs drooling on themselves, saying, "Yepper, I remember back in the good old horse and buggy days when you used to be able to git yer arms 'round a real women and they smelled right purty. But now all the young hipsters tell me all you need is a robot woman, and they're cheaper. I don't think I want me a robot woman though."

Those old crankpots need to get with the program!!!

Geez!

Progress y'all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Survival of the fittest!!!!!!!

Wait, can robot women have kids?????

Nooo ... there are hundreds, maybe thousands of different genders of bots.
Well, so I'm told, anyway.
YMMV.

My contribution to this thread is this BiaB accompanied demo track that I might finish up seeing as how life is imitating art and all...

Move aside, Suno.

She Was a Robot

Man I don't know what to say.

I've listened to Paul McCartney's Yesterday, Your Song by Elton John, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by the Police, and I Just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder.

But those songs dwindle and disappear into nothing when I listen to this, which is perhaps the greatest and most heart-wrenching yet beautiful and immaculately cheesy flavored love song that I've ever listened to, and so Whitney Houston is going to have to give up that title The Greatest Love of All. That title needs to be the subtitle of this song.

This has to have been done by AI, it is just that good, no human being could have done this.

And no human woman could have ever loved a man this good.

Wow.

I cannot wait for the future to get here as fast as it can.

Then my work here is done. Peace on earth, goodwill to men...

Wow, lot's interesting feedback on this, obviously, controversial topic. Great overview of the legal aspects by David Snyder. I was recently introduced to Suno by a long time writing friend of mine. Definitely knew it was coming, but had no idea what the beast looked like, until I took a close look at it. We had discussed it as a writing tool, a way to demo songs from our catalogues that we never had in the past. In Suno you can upload a basic demo, piano-vocal, guitar-vocal, the lyric and then in the Remix/Edit mode, select "Cover". You add a prompt, providing some guidance on style, instrumentation, etc, and within a few minutes you have a surprisingly solid demo, true to your lyric and melody.

But as the posters have noted, it goes way beyond that. Dropping a professionally written lyric into Suno, using good prompts, will spit out a pretty decent song. The system is built on millions of songs being analyzed, and following long established successful patterns of melody, structure, harmonies, etc.. As some have argued, it's not that different than what pro writers do, creating songs out of their past musical influences, what they have cultivated over the years. That's what the WBM was about, that Suno had used millions of copyrights without permission to create songs. Suno convinced the courts, it was not stealing exact lyrics & melodies, only analyzing patterns. It looks like the best WBM and others music companies will be able to do, is get a fee to allow access to catalogues for "model" building.

Getting back to my imaginary Suno song, produced from just a lyric. This, IMO, is where it can get slippery. Everyone is so desperate to get their music used commercially, how many people will run with that AI generated song and claim total authorship, lyric & music. As the article suggests, some writers, stuck for a good chorus, because what they have isn't working, will dump some of their lyric into Suno and may end up using a good portion of the chorus that was generated. Kind of like having a writing partner in the room, but it's a machine. As David Snyder pointed out, if the music or lyric was generated by AI, the copyright office will not issue a copyright (now), but if the song get's cut, a mechanical license will be granted and now that record has copyright protection.

The cat is out of the bag, AI music generation will only continue to improve, especially the fidelity of what they are generating in the country genre. Hopefully, it will be a while before a machine can generate a top notch lyric, but that also is probably coming. Publishers, artists, AR people have probably already been getting some very "cutable" product.

Outside of country/pop, the rest of what I heard on Suno was nothing short of amazing. I imagine the majority of what I have listened to is AI generated, maybe some original lyrics, hopefully some songs based on original lyrics and melody. Makes you think, outside of the inner circle who write with artists and get cuts, artists who write their own material, all the other songwriters, if they are looking to make a living, better learn a trade. Of course it's kind of like that now. If you aren't teaching other people how to write songs or you aren't writing with artists, there's not a lot of money to be made.

As a final thought. Maybe down the road the music industry companies buy the best AI music generating companies and generate the vast majority of commercial music, with actual human artists and maybe a few writers or would they be better described as "prompters". The rest of the masses can have access to a less "robust" AI platform, for those people who want to pick a genre, ask the AI to write a song about a cat, who falls in love with a dog, only to find out the dog is seeing other cats. It will spit out a cute little ditty, but nothing that threatens the real music industry. Oh I just though of a title without AI, "You Dog".

AI generated gobbledygook is making this forum less enjoyable by the day...

Well Ron, I hope there will continue to be enough of us in the User Showcase that will continue to post ‘exclusively human’ music with the transparency of info that accompanies our posts. We might soon be called ‘The Remnant’.
Andrew

I will be one of the 'exclusively human’ posters.

Andrew, sad but true enough. I was also referencing the long essay on AI music just above my post. In the good old days pre-AI I would have been surprised but impressed that a first time poster included that much apparent thought and detail. But after reading it I'm thinking it's just a Suno (or similar) prompt response. Color me jaded...

Happy to be one of The Remnant for now though.

Howdy Mario....
Yep.
I'll remain there too.

I've just started a new song called "A.I" after not contributing anything new recently.
Lots to think about lyrically so it's coming a bit slowly.
I only have the chorus at this moment.

Hope all are doing well.
A good weekend to everyone.

Bottom line is this. No one will go to a Bluegrass Festival and watch a computer give a concert.

Remnants rule in our music bubble.

Janice and Bud (who this week joined the octogenarian club.)

Probably not, because at some point it will be inevitable that some of your audio software will have some form of AI.
If this is not already the case...

Yes and a couple of my effects and sounds have some AI assistance. By exclusively human means that I will be creating the music, playing, arranging, etc the music and not some AI robot. I think that using BiaB to generate backing tracks already is a form of AI in that the user did not generate the parts, just the chord progression. YMMV

AI isn't ever going away.
I think that many can hold their hand on their heart and say "this was all my work". To the others, put your hand down.
There will be more AI, much more, but we can hold our own if we want to believe and genuinely contribute with originality.