Is this Billboard Hot 100 hit AI slop?
Is this Billboard Hot 100 hit AI slop?
这首登上 Billboard Hot 100 的热门单曲是 AI 垃圾吗？
We can’t be 100 percent sure, but probably. 我们无法百分之百确定，但很有可能。
Fenix Flexin is best known as a member of Shoreline Mafia, a rap duo from Los Angeles. But he’s recently found solo success with the track “Rubberz,” which has climbed to number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100. Almost immediately, though, questions were raised about the song’s origins, with many speculating that it was largely, if not entirely, generated by AI. Fenix has denied those accusations, but done little to dispel them. Fenix Flexin 最广为人知的身份是洛杉矶说唱组合 Shoreline Mafia 的成员。但他最近凭借单曲《Rubberz》获得了个人成功，该曲已攀升至 Billboard Hot 100 排行榜第 58 位。然而，几乎在歌曲发布的同时，人们就开始质疑其创作来源，许多人猜测这首歌在很大程度上（如果不是全部的话）是由 AI 生成的。Fenix 否认了这些指控，但并未采取什么行动来消除疑虑。
Part of the suspicion is certainly due to the fact that the song is a dramatic left turn. Fenix has primarily trafficked in trap-influenced West Coast rap. “Rubberz,” on the other hand, is heavily influenced by ‘80s UK synth pop. The vocal melody is clearly influenced by Morrissey, with Fenix even adopting a fake British accent. But artists are allowed to evolve and experiment. That alone doesn’t prove anything. 这种怀疑的部分原因无疑是因为这首歌风格突变。Fenix 此前主要从事受 Trap 风格影响的西海岸说唱。而《Rubberz》则深受 80 年代英国合成器流行音乐的影响。其人声旋律明显受到莫里西（Morrissey）的影响，Fenix 甚至还模仿了虚假的英国口音。但艺术家有权进行演变和实验，单凭这一点并不能证明什么。
Perhaps more telling is the simple quality of the recording. Close inspection reveals a number of artifacts and anomalies that are commonly found in AI-generated music. Hi-hats have a certain brittle quality, the chorus vocals sound like a low-bitrate MP3, and reverb tails haphazardly cut off. 也许更具说明性的是录音本身的质量。仔细检查会发现许多 AI 生成音乐中常见的伪影和异常。踩镲（Hi-hats）有一种脆生生的质感，副歌人声听起来像低比特率的 MP3，混响尾音也显得断断续续。
Speaking with The Verge, songwriter and co-host of the Switched on Pop podcast, Charlie Harding, highlighted the giveaways. “Ghostly backing vocals duck in and out unexpectedly. The drum reverb is full of unnatural digital artifacting reminiscent of a 64kbps MP3 downloaded off of Napster. Because most generative AI companies have trained their model on low-quality MP3s of unlicensed copyrighted material, we hear audibly degraded instrumentation.” 词曲作者兼《Switched on Pop》播客联合主持人 Charlie Harding 在接受 The Verge 采访时指出了其中的破绽：“幽灵般的背景人声出人意料地忽隐忽现。鼓声混响充满了不自然的数字伪影，让人想起从 Napster 上下载的 64kbps MP3。由于大多数生成式 AI 公司都是用未经授权的版权材料的低质量 MP3 来训练模型的，所以我们听到的乐器音质明显退化。”
Feeding the song into an AI music detector doesn’t deliver a smoking gun. I ran the track through five different tools, and they all said that there was between 20 and 30 percent chance that it was AI or at least AI-assisted. But those sorts of tools are not necessarily super reliable and advance much more slowly than music-making models themselves. 将这首歌输入 AI 音乐检测器并不能提供确凿证据。我通过五种不同的工具运行了这首曲目，它们都显示该曲目由 AI 生成或至少由 AI 辅助的可能性在 20% 到 30% 之间。但这类工具并不一定非常可靠，而且它们的进步速度远慢于音乐创作模型本身。
Some of the supporting materials, however, have tripped up AI detectors. The single’s cover art and a post celebrating its success were both flagged as being AI-generated with over 97 percent certainty by multiple AI image detectors. Similarly, I fed the lyrics into multiple AI writing detectors and Gemini, which agreed they appeared to be written by AI. Producer and YouTuber Curtiss King dropped the lyrics into Claude, and it also flagged multiple signs that the lyrics appeared to be AI-generated. 然而，一些辅助材料却让 AI 检测器露出了马脚。该单曲的封面艺术和一篇庆祝其成功的帖子，被多个 AI 图像检测器以超过 97% 的确定性标记为 AI 生成。同样，我将歌词输入多个 AI 写作检测器和 Gemini，它们也都认为歌词看起来是由 AI 编写的。制作人兼 YouTuber Curtiss King 将歌词输入 Claude，Claude 也标记出了多个歌词疑似由 AI 生成的迹象。
The lyrics are the sort of logical near-gibberish that AI often spits out. The rhymes are simple and clean in a way that you wouldn’t expect from someone who is a reasonably accomplished rapper. There are no near rhymes or internal rhymes. Instead, everything sticks to a basic AA, BB format that clearly prioritizes the rhyme scheme over actual meaning or narrative development. 这些歌词属于 AI 经常吐出的那种逻辑近乎胡言乱语的内容。押韵简单而整齐，这与一位相当有成就的说唱歌手的水平不符。歌词中没有近韵或内韵，相反，一切都遵循基本的 AA、BB 格式，显然将押韵方案置于实际意义或叙事发展之上。
Swipin’ cards and stackin’ chips, I saw you sinkin’ ships Left me standin’ in the pourin’ rain, now I bought a heavy diamond chain （刷着卡，堆着筹码，我看见你沉船，留我站在倾盆大雨中，现在我买了一条沉重的钻石项链）
Who is sinking ships? Are we the sinking ships? No clue, this idea never comes back up. Similarly, the individual lines of the chorus might make sense, but when combined are meaningless. 谁在沉船？我们是沉船吗？毫无头绪，这个想法再也没有出现过。同样，副歌的单行歌词可能说得通，但组合在一起就毫无意义。
Bankrolls on the table Watchin’ local cable Hatin’ that I’m able Hatin’ that I’m able （桌上的钞票，看着本地电视，讨厌我有能力，讨厌我有能力）
Ignoring the “local cable” bit, which is just awkward (and nearly sent King into a rage spiral), what is Fenix able to do? Why does he hate it? The lyrics raise more questions than they answer. 撇开“本地电视”那句不谈，那简直太尴尬了（差点让 King 陷入愤怒），Fenix 到底能做什么？他为什么要讨厌它？这些歌词提出的问题比回答的问题还要多。
The way the lines are delivered is also odd. Verse three seemingly ends mid-thought on the line, “Not the jewelry.” Harding noted that it has a “complete lack of flow.” He says that, “No half-competent rapper would ever sing the title line ‘I just let the rubber band snap’ in such an awkward manner. The syncopation is highly unusual, emphasizing all the wrong syllables.” He goes on to explain that, “by smashing so many syllables together, it forces the word the onto the downbeat, instead of the word rubber, forcing all of the subsequent syllables to accent with unnatural syncopation.” 歌词的表达方式也很奇怪。第三段歌词似乎在“Not the jewelry”这一行中途戛然而止。Harding 指出它“完全缺乏流动感”。他说：“没有一个稍微称职的说唱歌手会以如此尴尬的方式唱出标题行‘I just let the rubber band snap’。切分音非常不寻常，强调了所有错误的音节。”他进一步解释说：“通过将如此多的音节挤在一起，它强迫‘the’这个词落在强拍上，而不是‘rubber’这个词，从而迫使所有后续音节以不自然的切分音进行重音处理。”
Live “performances” of “Rubberz” haven’t done Fenix any favors. The first couple of in-studio appearances featured the rapper awkwardly lip-syncing. At times it seems like the awkwardness of the flow and the lyrics trip him up, as if he can’t remember his own song. Honestly, he’s not even trying that hard to convince anyone that he’s actually singing. 《Rubberz》的现场“表演”并没有给 Fenix 加分。最初几次录音室亮相中，这位说唱歌手尴尬地对口型。有时，这种流动感和歌词的尴尬似乎让他绊倒了，就好像他不记得自己的歌一样。老实说，他甚至没有努力去说服任何人他是在真唱。
Things only get worse when Fenix actually does sing. It’s abundantly clear in multiple clips that he is incapable of recreating the vocal range and accent from the recording (and that he doesn’t know the lyrics). In many of the clips of live performances, even when he’s singing, they’re simply playing the original vocals over his. His real vocals are kept extremely low in the mix, and the DJ strategically drops out the backing track briefly in an effort to prove the authenticity of the song, but fails. 当 Fenix 真的开口唱时，情况只会更糟。在多个片段中，很明显他无法重现录音中的音域和口音（而且他根本不记得歌词）。在许多现场表演片段中，即使他在唱，也只是在播放原始人声。他真实的人声在混音中被压得极低，DJ 试图通过策略性地短暂切断背景音轨来证明歌曲的真实性，但最终失败了。
Fenix has defended himself, saying the difference between the recorded version and any in-the-flesh performance is down to vocal processing, including AutoTune. However, multiple people, including Harding, King, and Anthony Fantano, have disputed this assertion. King compares AutoTune to spellcheck, and that’s not a bad analogy. While yes, it can be pushed to its limits to create unique robotic textures, it’s designed to clean up errors — it would not extend a performer’s vocal range or introduce an accent, as Fantano points out. Fenix 为自己辩护称，录音版本与现场表演之间的差异归因于人声处理，包括 AutoTune。然而，包括 Harding、King 和 Anthony Fantano 在内的多人反驳了这一说法。King 将 AutoTune 比作拼写检查，这个比喻很贴切。虽然它确实可以被推向极限以创造独特的机器人质感，但它的设计初衷是纠正错误——正如 Fantano 所指出的，它不会扩展表演者的音域或引入某种口音。