Australia's Most Played Song on Radio This Week Draws AI Criticisms

By Mawunyo Gbogbo

Topic: AI

Fri 10 Jul 2026 at 2:49pm

Madonna has released a new album called Confessions II, but a cover of her hit song Like a Prayer is at the top of the charts in Australia.

In short:

Josh Fawaz's cover of Like a Prayer is the number one song on Australia's radio airplay charts.

The cover of a Madonna hit is also climbing numerous ARIA charts.

Fawaz has been criticized by those in the music industry who believe he is using AI to make music.

Madonna has released a new album, but none of her new songs have made it onto Australia's charts yet.

Instead, a cover of her 1989 song Like a Prayer is one of the country's hottest tracks.

The track, released by Queensland-based DJ and producer Josh Fawaz, has angered some in the music industry who believe it was produced with AI-powered audio engineering software.

ABC News has contacted Fawaz multiple times to seek his response to the criticism, but he has not responded.

Confessions II is expected to debut strongly on the Billboard charts and will likely chart in Australia too.

Professor Samantha Bennett can see the irony that Like a Prayer is at the top of the charts in Australia instead of one of Madonna's new songs.

Samantha Bennett says it is ironic that a cover of Like a Prayer is at the top of the charts.

Professor Bennett said that Madonna's new album has complex and deep material, but a 40-year-old track is getting more attention through a cover version.

And yet a track that is now 40 years old for her is now, through a cover version, getting a lot of views on YouTube.

Chart topping

Fawaz's cover of Like a Prayer is the No.1 song on the national radio airplay charts in Australia.

Josh Fawaz's Like a Prayer is on numerous charts.

These charts measure song data from all 54 commercial radio stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and other cities.

It is also No.1 on the RCS Media Monitors Top 10 National Songs chart.

The song has reached the No.4 spot on the ARIA Top 20 Australian Singles chart and No.4 on the ARIA Top 20 Dance Singles chart.

His album Dance Like Nobody's Watching is No.19 on the ARIA Top 20 Australian Albums chart.

The ARIA Charts are determined by how Australians consume music each week.

They combine physical sales, digital downloads, and streaming activity from all major platforms into one view.

'Feels like cheating'

Music producer Mitch Thomas has been criticizing Fawaz's suspected use of AI music production tools on social media.

Music producer Mitch Thomas does not believe artists should use AI.

The most popular web-based workstations allow users to create songs from text prompts or uploaded audio.

He told ABC News the biggest issue was how AI music was made.

'The software isn't just generating music out of nothing,' Thomas said.

'It's been trained on a dataset of music and that music is going to comprise copyrighted material by artists who didn't consent for their music to be trained upon.'

Thomas does not believe there is space for AI music in the ecosystem.

'It just kind of feels like cheating,' he said.

'We dislike when people use steroids and cheat in competition because we acknowledge that that's unfair and I think the same is true in music.'

'The best books I've ever read in my life were written by human beings.'

'The artwork they hang in the Louvre in France is painted by humans, not by machines.'

Fawaz responded to a social media post by Thomas, saying he used AI 'as a tool' and 'it's not that deep'.

'I've been releasing music way before AI was invented,' he wrote.

Who is Josh Fawaz?

Fawaz is an Australian DJ and electronic music producer who has been active since his debut release Bubble Goose in 2015.

DJ and music producer Josh Fawaz is at the top of the charts with Like a Prayer.

He has released club-focused versions of well-known songs and produced dance and electronic music.

Fawaz has been celebrating his success in videos posted online.

In one, he writes that he almost gave up music two months ago.

'Posting my songs online for years and nothing really happened,' he writes.

'Told myself I'll give it one last try, then I'll quit.'

'On the verge of giving up I posted Like a Prayer and went to sleep that night.'

'But I woke up and my life was changed forever.'

Madonna will still get royalties

A spokesperson for music right management organisation APRA AMCOS has confirmed that Fawaz has been a member of APRA and AMCOS since 2021.

Local musician Aidan Sammut says he was disgusted after a live music event included an artist who used AI-generated content.

But the spokesperson said Madonna and her co-writer would still get publishing royalties.

'The song Like a Prayer is a remix/cover of a musical work written by Madonna L Ciccone and Patrick R Leonard,' the spokesperson said.

'As the original human rights holders of that musical work, they will be entitled to be paid all performance royalties in the usual manner.'

According to APRA AMCOS, a recorded song has two forms of copyright.

'Outrage' justified

Chief scientist at UNSW's AI Institute Toby Walsh said the music industry had a right to be 'outraged' about AI-generated songs.

Toby Walsh says AI-generated songs steal human artists' work.

'It adds salt into the wound,' Professor Walsh said.

'Because, of course, how did these AI tools that make the music get created?'

'They got created by stealing everyone's work and ingesting them and building the new AI models based upon all of these human artists' work, much of it taken without consent or compensation.'

'So, we should continue to be outraged.'

Calls to label AI music

Professor Bennett said AI-produced songs were now a fact of life in popular culture.

'I think that AI music needs to be clearly labelled as such,' Professor Bennett said.

'If radio stations are going to play music generated by AI, then it needs to be announced so that people know.'

'I think there needs to be a different labelling process for AI-generated music so that people actually know what it is that they're listening to.'

She said, however, that the horse had bolted and that AI being in musical workflows was not a new idea.

'You can automatically blend different musical instruments and musical tracks into a cohesive whole.'

Fri 10 Jul 2026 at 2:49pm

Fri 10 Jul 2026 at 2:53pm

See more ABC coverage in your search results

Promotion

Práctica de escucha

Práctica de escucha