Like many technologies, generative AI developed slowly — then suddenly, all at once. That’s how it looks from a music business perspective, anyway. One day a few top executives at UMG were telling me about it as a future issue — then next “Fake Drake” made news and now AI-assisted artists account for a third of the top 10 on Billboard’s Nov. 15 Country Digital Song Sales chart. Breaking Rust and Cain Walker, the names credited with the songs, are about as country as a server farm.  

So where did those songs come from?  

The assumption is that the kind of generative AI software that created them was trained on copyrighted songs and recordings, presumably without a license, since few have been granted. That’s probably going to change soon. On Nov. 11, German rights group GEMA won its infringement case against OpenAI (which only involves song lyrics, but the principles are the same and it is also suing Suno). And after all three major labels sued Suno and Udio in the U.S., Universal Music Group announced a settlement with Udio in late October.  

The nature of these deals could shape the music business of the future — or could be remembered as something music executives thought was important for some reason they can’t recall. Although little is known about the UMG deal, its unexpected provision is that it restricts the music “output” created by AI by removing the ability of users to download it. That’s a fundamental shift in expectations, and it suggests that UMG envisions AI music as existing apart from music on streaming services — more of a hobby akin to an amateur garage band than a professional product. Obviously, there’s no stopping the flood of AI music, and Udio users who want to “free” their creations can play them and record them to another device — but it’s interesting to note how Udio and UMG think this will work. 

The UMG-Udio deal is opt-in for artists and songwriters, so it will take time to see what they think and whether they sign. But the deal casts Udio as “the good guy,” eager to work with the industry’s biggest company, less combative in its public statements and more willing to talk, according to two sources. Suno was already on its way to becoming “the bad guy,” responding to the label lawsuit by accusing the majors of reverting “to their old lawyer-led playbook,” hiring Timbaland to create some space between labels and artists and taking a more oppositional stance, according to one source. (It seems worth noting that the line about the “lawyer-led playbook” may not have aged as well as Suno CEO Mikey Shulman thinks: Anyone who is 30 today was five when the major labels sued Napster and 10 when the Supreme Court ruled in the Grokster case.) 

It’s hard to know what the better strategy is in the abstract: Udio scored the first deal, but Suno is said to be raising money at a $2 billion valuation, although it’s also facing a GEMA lawsuit that Udio isn’t. Now that Udio has gone legit, though, Suno has a big incentive to do the opposite, just to differentiate itself. In tactical terms, it will be both more powerful and more vulnerable. If Suno loses its big court case in the U.S., it could get stuck settling its lawsuit under terms worse than Udio’s. If the decision has limited scope or splits, which seems more likely than some executives realize, it could have to make some of the same feature-set compromises as Udio, but under pressure. If it wins the case completely, though, it ends up with a product that is superior to the competition, with a much better cost structure.  

Making the first big deal also gives UMG the power to set a pattern that could influence later agreements, at least in structure if not specifics. So far, the big issue executives are talking about is the split between labels and publishers. The latter, which customarily get half of synch rights revenue, want the same deal, and this is one of the few cases, along with synch licenses, where rights to a song might be useful without a recording. (In the case of synch, the song can be played by another artist; theoretically, an AI could be trained on a written composition.) The major label groups all own publishing businesses but have an incentive to favor the recorded music side, since they have more financial exposure to it and the financial model is more favorable. As is generally the case, though, the majors aren’t saying anything about the issue.  

Finding the right balance between recording and publishing rights is tricky, and I would bet the publishers end up with a much higher percentage of revenue than they make on streaming, but less than 50%. But will that be all? The opt-in structure of the UMG deal implies that either the biggest company in the industry is feeling especially nice or that it may also need likeness or personality rights from artists. (It’s also possible that those rights are not needed for training purposes — just specific uses of prompts.) But it suggests some other questions. Most important, will artists with especially distinctive voices want a better deal than the standard one on offer?  

Then — and here I’m really getting ahead of myself — what happens when artists have recorded for multiple labels or released the same album on different ones in different territories? If you want to use the voice of Johnny Cash, do you want young Cash (from his Sun Records work), prime Cash (Columbia), late Cash (Mercury), or very late Cash (American)? More complicated, what happens if you don’t much care — and how does that affect the structure of licensing? I am offering more questions than answers, but in this case I don’t think anyone has all the solutions. But we should know more soon — and the one thing we know for certain is that it’s going to be very interesting.

Whether you’re a fan of pop, hip-hop, R&B, Latin, country, dance, metal, K-pop or just a demon hunter in your spare time, there’s something for everyone on this year’s Billboard 200 leaders.

Since the beginning of 2025, 22 different albums have led the Billboard 200. Two of them, SZA’s SOS (a deluxe edition of her 2022 album) and Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, were released in prior years. Seven have spent more than one week at the summit: the aforementioned albums, plus Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos, Playboi Carti’s Music, Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem, the Kpop Demon Hunters soundtrack and Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl.

As of the latest tracking week, dated Nov. 22, Wallen and Swift are the leaders in the category with 12 weeks and six weeks at No. 1, respectively. Benito’s latest release sits with four weeks, Playboy Carti and SZA each have three, while Lamar and the Kpop Demon Hunters have two. And of course, this was the year that Showgirl shattered the single-week record for equivalent albums sold with 4.002 million, besting the 2015 numbers put up by Adele’s 25 (3.482 million).

In addition, six of the albums boast a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Lady Gaga’s Mayhem has her duet with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile” (five weeks on top); GNX features “Luther” with SZA (13 weeks); I’m the Problem boasts “What I Want” featuring Tate McRae (one week); Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend with “Manchild” (one week); Demon Hunters with “Golden” (eight weeks); and Showgirl with “The Fate of Ophelia” (six weeks).

Interestingly, two artists who climbed the Billboard 200 chart also have No. 1 Hot 100 hits–but not on their own release. SZA teamed up with Lamar on “Luther” and Tate McRae (So Close to What earned the singer-dancer her first Billboard 200 leader in March) joined Wallen on “What I Want.” Plus, Travis Scott – whose Jackboys 2 collaboration debuted at No. 1 on the 200 in July – led the Hot 100 with his single “4X4” back in February. K-dot also spent one week at No. 1 on the Hot 100 this year with his non-album track, the Grammy-winning “Not Like Us.”

See a list of all the No. 1 albums in the order that they first topped the Billboard 200 below and vote for your favorite now. The winner of this fan-voted poll will be revealed on Dec. 9.

In the book Silence of the Lambs, author Thomas Harris opens by describing the Behavioral Science department of Quantico — where the FBI studies serial murder — as being on the bottom floor of the building, “half-buried in the earth.” Symbolically, it establishes that the darkest behaviors of the human psyche are explored almost in a subterranean bunker, as if the floor is a pipeline to the underworld itself.

This imagery is what partially inspired In The Earth Again, the haunting collaborative album between Oklahoma City metal band Chat Pile and Texas guitarist Hayden Pedigo that dropped on Halloween. The album is bound by this post-apocalyptic vision of the earth slowly decaying into cancerous piles of waste (which thematically makes sense considering the origin of Chat Pile‘s name), where all we can do is helplessly watch our shared reality dissolve away — with no relief in sight.

“I feel like we all exist outside of reality,” Chat Pile’s lead singer Raygun Busch explains to me over Zoom. He takes intermittent breaks throughout our conversation to cuddle his dog, Goose. “Our phones have fully taken us and removed us a step from reality. This [album] is more like returning to just realizing that we are in nature and a part of an ecosystem.”

Alternatively, the way this album came together was out of neighborly and organic fondness for each other. Pedigo had moved from Amarillo, Texas, to a house in OKC and messaged the band’s Instagram page just out of fandom. The band responded quickly, and a few days after his move, Pedigo met the group at a local tiki bar. The idea came up of them working on a single together, but Chat Pile raised the stakes and offered up an album instead. The end result is one of the year’s most interesting metal releases, one that somehow perfectly balances Pedigo’s acoustic background with Chat Pile’s explosive noise rock.

Below, Chat Pile discuss Sleep Token, working with Hayden Pedigo — who only chatted with Billboard long enough to give the album’s origin story before poor cell reception ultimately doomed the call — and what it feels like to be creating metal in the “golden era of heavy music.”

How did you guys approach making this album?

Stin: The first session was kinda like, “How do we mesh our two styles together?” So I was just like, ‘Ok, everyone grab a guitar and start noodling around. We gotta find the sequence to this somehow.” Once I started hearing something working, I was like, “Ok, everybody stop! Keep doing that over and over again.”

You can hear that aspect of the album in the album’s sequencing. It sounds like you guys are just jamming out in someones garage. How did you figure out where to separate Hayden’s songs from yours?

Stin: It was kinda organic. The songs “Inside” and “Outside” come from that initial jam session, but the rest of the songs are a bit more plotted out. Hayden would come over one day and just lay a guitar track down. Then the rest of the band would stack on top of that, or the opposite would happen! Luther would have an idea and we’d track some basic stuff, then everybody in the room would figure out what to do with the track and add it together.

Tell me about the post-apocalyptic vision of the album.

Raygun: Well the title of it was actually supposed to be In the Earth but that felt a little too close to [the Chat Pile album] This Dungeon Earth, so we added “again.” It’s sort of taken from the first line of Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, about Quantico being half in the earth. I wanted it to evoke being in a bunker, but also environmentalism… In terms of fear of nuclear — like, I write all the lyrics. So whatever I write about begins to take a theme.

Did writing these songs help you feel more connected to the earth and quell those scary thoughts about the state of things, or not really?

Raygun: I mean, I was just trying to make a statement. I am totally sucked into my phone like anyone else, but I try to be off of it and go outside. I like to go outside a lot. I don’t know, I don’t wanna position myself as some environmentalist. But, I don’t know, I guess I am an environmentalist. I’m very interested in transcendentalism too, like Harrison and Thoreau. I really love Annie Dillard’s books.

Does making such dark and heavy music ever take its toll on you? On songs like “The Magic of The World” and even your older music like “Why,” you are exploding with frustration and emotion the entire time.

Raygun: I feel like everyone’s afraid — and it is horrifying — we’re seeing more and more. We can actually see genocide happen on our phones every day. I look, I think you should look, but it’s a lot to take in. We’re all adults but the time for us to be like: “I don’t wanna see this I wanna enjoy my life” that s—t doesn’t…

We’re past that.

Raygun: In my opinion, y’all need to look at this stuff. Get angry about it, demand change. One way or another we need change to happen. These are U.S. bombs blowing up women and children, people, you know? I don’t know, anyway.

When you’re making music from that place then what does it do for you emotionally?

Raygun: I mean, it’s not easy but life isn’t — seeing all this stuff isn’t easy. You gotta reflect. In a way, it makes me feel good that I can reflect on this kind of stuff. I wish more artists would take it upon themselves to do…It’s just so sad that we’re one of the few bands addressing climate change or genocide or anything like that. Like, climate change is the most pressing issue! All of this other s—t is happening, but meanwhile the earth is cooking! We’re just f—king in trouble. So to me, it doesn’t help me necessarily, but I’d be remiss to not express these view points, especially when so few are. People are listening right now, but I’m gonna do it even if they aren’t.

Tell me more about that. What are your thoughts on the state of metal and the lack of artists not speaking out about this stuff? Why are we at this point?

Stin: I still think there’s plenty of punk and hardcore music addressing that kind of thing, even in the metal world there are more underground bands that seem to be addressing that as well. But I definitely think it’s cooked into the artier side of the metal world, but I think the problem is there’s this monolithic corporate metal that — I’m so detached from it, I’m only half aware of what’s going on in that world — but that seems to be where nothing is being said. It just seems to be this suburban, white, lifestyle music.

It’s just for guys to work out to and stuff — but this isn’t a problem just for now! For the most part, this has been the history of popular music. Most people don’t wanna be confronted by any type of reality of negativity, they want music to be passive entertainment. The ’80s and ’90s, you had U2 and Rage Against the Machine, but for the most part corporatized mainstream music has no interest in addressing that type of stuff. I think if they did, they’d do it in such a ham-fisted and terrible way that the messaging would be all wrong anyway.

Rock music did have a moment on the charts this year with Sleep Token and Ghost topping the Billboard 200 albums chart. Both bands also nabbed Grammy nominations. That kind of mainstream crossover is inherently exciting, right? Curious what your thoughts on this?

Stin: I mean, I think something important to keep in mind is mainstream metal is always going to be its own thing. So getting mad about the quality of Sleep Token and the quality of Ghost or whatever, and people get really mad about it, but it’s whatever. I’m happy that there’s just guitar music that’s popular in some way, so that’s kind of a positive. I just think it’s not really worth anyone’s time who’s into heavy music to be upset about that type of thing being popular.

Luther: There’s just so much stuff coming out that’s good.

Stin: Like, if you scratch slightly below the surface there’s endless amounts of some of the most forward thinking, incredible heavy music being made. It’s impossible for me to keep up — and I got my head firmly in that world. So what on the surface feels like kinda a shallow time, because of some of these bands that have risen to the top — I think in 10 years people are gonna look back at this time and see it kinda like a golden era of heavy music, once all these lost classics start bubbling up from the underground. There’s so much right now.

Why do you think all this unique metal is coming out now?

Stin: We just kinda live in a time where genre-wise and musically speaking there just aren’t any rules anymore. You can do whatever you want. It’s not like in the ’80s, where if you put an acoustic guitar on your record, you’re not metal anymore. Because of technology, it’s democratized the ability to make music, too — so I think in those two regards you’re seeing hyper-fast evolution of heavy music happening. It’s a combination of technology and freedom.

Luther: The technology side of it has made it where, I don’t know, like a band like us. Maybe we’re not able to be a full time band 20 years ago, but we are able to now. Even if we’re not gonna be the biggest metal band, it felt like you really had to break through in the ’80s and ’90s to have a career. Now that people can find their niches, there’s now all these pockets of stuff. We’re not gonna be a Sleep Token band, and I don’t even know if this type of music can be that popular, but for mainstream music in general it’s also just a whole other thing. When you’re independent — like, we’re not making video content. It’s a whole other world.

Stin: Those bands operate in a world that would be so foreign to us, in terms of how we approach art and the end goal of our music. It’s like, comparing Sleep Token to Chat Pile — it’s just too much of a difference of what those two acts are trying to achieve.

Yeah, I mean regardless of how you feel about Sleep Token, the band’s sound is a lot cleaner and crisper since signing with a major label. It’s undeniable that mainstream acknowledgement just has a way of seeping into heavy music. But on the other hand, Sleep Token are incredibly successful, which is great for them.

Stin: I mean it’s good for that one dude who’s in it.

Luther: Yeah, I mean when we started this band we played music for fun and to be fulfilled. We never started this band to become successful or quit our jobs or anything like that. That’s all happened just cause it kinda snowballed. We weren’t trying to go viral online or anything, where I feel like for a lot of bands that is the goal! And I understand that. That’s good for a lot of people to be determined, but I’m from Oklahoma City, man! That’s not a reality. I’m a highschool drop-out, I worked a s—y job. I liked my life, but yeah.

Stin: You can hear it in the music of the bands that do that though. The kind of careerist and insincere quality of it just immediately seeps through. It’s such a turn off for me. Some people either don’t notice, or they’re more interested in the pastiche of whatever these people are making. But for me, I hear it immediately and it’s like poison to me.

Luther: Like, look, if you’re trying to do art full time, I get it. But the reason our band is our band and we sound the way we sound is cause we didn’t start this from a place of wanting to do this for our jobs. We started it cause it’s fun to jam with your friends… We’re gonna definitely have a different sound and perspective with that then these bigger modern metal bands. A lot of it is very meticulously crafted and stuff, like we try our hardest, but there’s just —

Stin: We’re not catering to an audience.

Luther: We’re just writing what we wanna write, for better or for worse.

How does the reality of being a full-time band measure up to the dream of it?

Stin: Really it’s kinda exactly the same, but the one difference is that there are deadlines that dictate your life. But that’s kinda true of any job to a certain degree.

Luther: On the other hand, we have so much time to work on it. Like we wrote God’s Country when we had day jobs. It took us months and months of working on it an hour or two at a time after work, or when we can. Now we simply have more days and hours to throw at it. So now even though we have deadlines, we have more time within those deadlines to work on stuff. So it’s definitely a luxury you don’t really get unless you’re doing it full time. Like after this call, I’m going over there and we’re gonna work on some stuff. Definitely having more time has helped, but also it’s for better or worse. It’s easy to sit here, play video games and smoke pot all day, which I do end up doing a lot.

So keeping all this in mind, what does success look like for Chat Pile?

Raygun: As far as success goes, you’re looking at it. This is with Billboard, right?

Luther: Yeah, talking with you. Doing this in the middle of a Friday and not having to go to my job after this.

Stin: [Success looks like] us geeking out in middle class existence just doing music full time. I mean that’s really what it comes down to. Maybe finding a way to have cheap insurance would be nice.

Luther: Yeah, maybe we can find a union somehow? Maybe that’ll become a thing.

Audio entertainment and satellite radio company SiriusXM Holdings said on Tuesday its chief financial officer Tom Barry will step down by the end of the year.

Zac Coughlin, currently CFO for Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein owner PVH Corp, was named to succeed Barry. Coughlin previously held CFO titles at the Nike shoe subsidiary Converse and spent a decade in finance at Ford Motor Company.

“Zac brings significant experience as a financial leader at public companies and a proven track record of driving sustainable, profitable growth – making him an ideal leader for our finance organization as we advance our renewed strategic focus in a complex and dynamic market environment,” Jennifer Witz, SiriusXM CEO, said in a statement.

SiriusXM has struggled with a challenging market for ad revenue, reporting lower subscriber revenue and higher customer acquisition costs in its most recent quarterly earnings. However, Sirius raised its 2025 financial target by $25 million across revenue and earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation (EBITDA), and is targeting free cash flows of $1.5 billion by 2027.

During Barry’s term as CFO, the company cut costs through staff layoffs and reduced marketing spend, as it worked to update its internal tech systems, pilot a streaming app and ultimately renew its focus on its in-vehicle subscribers. Witz thanked Barry for overseeing “strong financial discipline across the organization.”

Coughlin will begin the job on Jan. 1. In a statement, he said he is eager to “execute on the capital allocation priorities that are key to the company’s strategic focus and help guide SiriusXM through the next phase of its transformation.”