technology
Stick Figure’s 6-Year-Old Song Tops iTunes Charts in Six Countries Thanks to Viral AI Remixes
California reggae band Stick Figure saw “Angels Above Me” rocket to the top of iTunes sales charts this week, but the surge was driven by viral AI-generated versions. The band and its label, Ineffable Records, have issued takedown notices with mixed success as they receive no royalties from the remixes.
May 7, 7:00 AM·2m read1 source
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A six-year-old song by the California-based reggae band Stick Figure reached number one on the iTunes sales charts in six different countries this past week, including the United Kingdom, Austria, and Canada. ” The surge, however, stemmed not from the original recording but from unauthorized AI-generated remixes that spread rapidly on TikTok and YouTube. “It was exciting,” Scott Woodruff said.
8 million plays on YouTube in five days. Stick Figure, active for 20 years with eight albums to its name, has seen its albums repeatedly hit number one in the reggae category and its hit singles amass hundreds of millions of streams.
The band’s label, Ineffable Records, has sent copyright takedown notices to major streamers and contacted individual account owners posting the remixes. 8 million plays has been removed. Adam Gross, president of Ineffable Records, said it is a game of whack-a-mole.
When contacted by the label, one remix purveyor told them the song was a cover and offered to share royalties, but the band views the tracks as unauthorized remixes that do not properly credit or compensate Stick Figure. The episode reflects a broader rise in AI-generated music. According to Deezer, the amount of AI songs it detects daily jumped from 18 percent in 2025 to 44 percent in 2026.
Deezer detects over 2 million AI tracks per month in 2026 and estimates that 85 percent of detected AI tracks are fraudulent. Chris Dalla Riva said in the TikTok era songs blow up that have nothing to do with the artist or are remixes the artist did not make. Steve Lacy’s 2022 song “Bad Habit” had unauthorized sped-up remixes uploaded to TikTok that became popular.
