In Segment 4, Bill Bernardoni welcomes Johnathon Eltrevoog, morning show co-host and assistant program director at WBGL in Champaign, Illinois — and a musician himself — to talk about one of the strangest music stories of the year: an AI “Christian artist” topping the iTunes chart despite not actually existing. Bill asks how it landed with someone who works in radio and performs music for a living. Johnathon’s first reaction was indifference. The technology was impressive, the song sounded fine, but it felt synthetic instead of authentic. Having worked around music long enough, he could hear the AI “voice” — catchy, clever, and artificial — even before he knew what he was listening to. Johnathon notes that some musicians are experimenting with AI as a tool — feeding their own songs into it to hear what comes back — and sometimes even he couldn’t tell the difference. But as a creative form, he and his colleagues are unanimous: it doesn’t connect. An industry publication surveyed Christian radio programmers, and almost all rejected the idea of AI-generated music having a place on Christian stations. They also point out that the “#1 chart” was iTunes, not Billboard or radio play. Very few people buy downloads anymore, which means a small number of purchases can briefly spike a song into a chart category, creating a headline that doesn’t reflect audience impact. What concerns Johnathon more is the future. Deepfake technology opens the door to synthetic versions of real artists, which is why Congress is considering the No Fakes Act to protect voices, likenesses, and copyrighted work. AI has fun applications — like Frank Sinatra covering modern songs — but without guardrails, the line between real and imitation could disappear.
Do you care if the music you listen to is made by a real human — or is a catchy song simply a catchy song? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
The Bernardoni Brief 
Leave a comment