ROOTS Worst of 2025: Metal’s A.I. Nightmare | on SiriusXM
Week of December 6, 2025
Sat 12/6, 6PM ET
Sun 12/7, 1PM ET
Mon 12/8, 9AM ET
Tues 12/9, 4PM ET
Thurs 12/11, 9PM ET
Welcome to the Worst of 2025! As A.I.-generated tracks have recently reached the #1 position on Christian and Country music charts, ROOTS faces the uncertain future of auto-generated metal with a current menu of A.I. metal slop. The first half of the show was made by host Ian Christe in less than a half-hour. How will flesh-and-blood metal musicians maintain the animalistic edge? Will metal emerge as a last bastion of human music? Listen and leave your comments below…
Read about past challenges to heavy metal in SOUND OF THE BEAST: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal and other fine books on rough music at BAZILLION POINTS BOOKS.
PLAYLIST:
VAPOROUS GRAVE – “Dolls in the Shadows” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
AT THE WASTE – “Echoes of the Damned” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
NOTHINGHAM – “Savage Pursuit” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
SILENT SHRIEK – “Frenzy of the Hunt” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
A FALSE PROMISE – “Echoes of Dread” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
EPIC WHALE – “Whispers of the Abyss” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
FAKEDOWN – “Digital Destruction” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
GUTLESS – “Chaos in the Emerald City” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
FOG INHALER – “Echoes of Ancestral Shadows” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
AWKWARD INCOUNTER – “Synthetic Reign” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
KNUCKLE DRUGGER – “Chaos and Craft” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
ALIEN INVADER – “Echoes of Resistance” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
ROOTSTALLICA – “A.I. Must Die” from METAL’s WORST NIGHTMARE
ARTIFICIAL STEEL – “The Battle Has Begun” from STREAMING FOR VENGEANCE
T.Y. – “Thrash Metal!” from METAL MACHINE
FREE CONTENT LAB – “Slayer Style Thrash Metal” from FREE CONTENT LAB
ALGORITHMIC AI AUDIO – “Thunderous Rage” from ALGORITHMIC AI AUDIO
STEI CAMEL – “The Necromancer” from STEI CAMEL
HAIL DARKNESS – “With Horns Of A Beast” from DEATH DIVINE
FROSTBITE ORCKINGS – “Guardians Of Time” from GUARDIANS OF TIME
Bloody Roots is Sound of the Beast author (and Bazillion Points publisher) Ian Christe’s heavy metal history show on Sirius XM Liquid Metal channel 40. Since June 2004, each weekly show has examined another subgenre, band, movement, country, or theme in metal, punk, and heavy rock. The show is available on-demand online from SiriusXM.com.
Don’t even get me started on AI, Ian Christe. Fuckin AI. I’m an artist (brushes, ink, paint), AND a writer and editor. So I’ve been watching AI come for all my jobs over the past couple years. Now I get Editor job offers up the ass to help AI become better at writing like humans – but I can’t found a job editing human writing to save my life anymore. I DONT WANNA HELP AI get better, it can kiss my ass! So I guess I can go flip burgers now.
So I havent heard this episode yet, but looking forward to it.
Even the AI animation promos I see online for metal shows really bother me – e.g., animated demon exploding onstage into a tornado of guitars, in front of audience of thousands (for a tiny club that’s lucky if it gets 100 people) and blasting epic death metal that the promoted tribute band doesnt even play…. Shit that right there sets up some ridiculous expectations for a live show that will just have humans on stage, no demons, and playing their own (or trib) music live and imperfectly like humans do.
But also I think LIVE MUSIC is a big factor for the metal audience. Even if AI manages to write any decent songs, there’s no live component – unless they plan to put an AI band projection on stage? Oh gods plz let me die before we get to that! (I know, Whitney Houston and MJ are in Vegas, but at least that’s a trib to the deceased).
So yeah I can see metal being the final frontier for music – becuz I’m skeptical as to whether the real hardcorps metalheads will tolerate that fake bullshit. We famously don’t care for bullshit. AI is automated plagiarization in general – – in relation to music, it is what we thrashheads have always called humans trying to fake their way into our church with their bullshit: POSERS! Yeah fuck that AI shit