Mysterious new blues singer Eddie Dalton — who made the iTunes Top 100 singles chart 11 times this month — is actually a fake singer that’s entirely AI-generated.
“Dalton” is the work of content creator Dallas Ray Little, who’s based in Greenville, South Carolina, Showbiz 411 reported. Little reportedly owns a company called Crunchy Records that’s producing AI music and videos under different fictional artists’ names.
Little gave a statement to the outlet after “Dalton” reached the No. 3 position on the iTunes Top Albums chart with “The Years Between,” and responded to the backlash he’s received for making AI-generated music under a fake artist.
“I don’t appreciate how my work has been characterized,” the statement reads. “Referring to it as a ‘content farm’ and suggesting people are being misled is inaccurate; it presents opinion as fact rather than reporting.”
“Every social media video is clearly labeled as AI-generated, and many listeners are fully aware of that and enjoy the music for what it is,” the statement continued. “All of the songs are written by me.”
“Dalton” currently has six songs out on iTunes — “Another Day Old,” “Running to You,” “Cheap Red Wine,” “Stay a “Little Longer,” “She Don’t Stay Long,” and “Somewhere Along the Way.”
The music is being described as “soulful” and “smooth,” and the official lyric video for “Another Day Old” has over 1.4 million views on YouTube.
Although it’s unclear if the video comments are real or generated by bots, the response is overwhelmingly positive.
One comment about the song “Another Day Old” reads, “I think everyone listen to this song can relate with it one way or the other. For some reason this song just hit me and made me realize how blessed I am to have reached the age of 52. Not everyone are blessed to grow to see 50. Am I just being lucky or blessed ? Whatever it is the song has made me to appreciate that there is nothing wrong being another day old.”
Another comment reads, “I just found this song and another by Eddie and omg I love them.”
“This is captivating soulful music,” yet another gushing comment reads. “I never heard of Eddie Dalton till I came across this song yesterday, I am now an official fan.”
But the viral success of “Dalton” on the iTunes chart has also raised questions about the authenticity of the chart as a metric, since the music of “Dalton” isn’t actually all that popular once track sales and Spotify streams are factored in.
According to Yahoo, iTunes heavily favors downloads, which can distort whether or not music that tops their chart is actually generating genuine fan engagement.
