It's a funny time to be a musician, to put it lightly. On top of the glut of epoch-defining news, endless social media feeds, and streaming services that seem to multiply by the hour, musicians are now fighting AI bots for their listener's attention — and the humans don't always win.

Tyler, the Creator’s ninth studio album, Don’t Tap the Glass, was set up for a massive summer impact. But the album release has been overshadowed by an AI song with the same name on TikTok. Teasers for the album included cryptic social media posts,