The hottest new band on Spotify might not actually exist – are The Velvet Sundown the first AI-generated band to go viral?

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I wonder where they got that idea?. | Credit: The Velvet Sundown

Update, Thursday July 3: In a further twist to the story of The Velvet Sundown, we've been contacted by a representatives of the band who claims that "Over the past days, a number of impersonator accounts have surfaced across social media platforms, publishing fabricated statements and AI-generated imagery falsely attributed to us. Unfortunately, some of this material was cited in your recent article."Since the same information is contained in the Spotify bio for the band, we are taking this new information on good faith and have updated the social media link in this article to reflect this. The new information in no way contradicts the suspicion put forth in the article that the band's music is AI-generated.

Update, Monday June 30 : We’ve been contacted by Deezer, the global streaming music service, to say that it has flagged The Velvet Sundown’s albums as AI-generated content together with the message: “Some tracks on this album may have been created using artificial intelligence”.

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This stands in contrast to Spotify and Apple Music, which have not flagged the content as AI-generated. Deezer uses an AI detection filter on all it albums, “with the ability to detect 100% AI generated music from the most prolific generative models – such as Suno and Udio, with the possibility to add detection capabilities for practically any other similar tool as long as there’s access to relevant data examples.”Meanwhile The Velvet Sundown’s X.com account has responded to this article with a denial that the band uses AI, saying: “Absolutely crazy that so-called “journalists” keep pushing the lazy, baseless theory that The Velvet Sundown is “AI-generated” with zero evidence.”I have reached out for an interview with the band, and we’ll update you when we have more info.

Original story follows: Dust on the Wind, Drift Beyond the Flame, and End the Pain, are all songs by the hot new band The Velvet Sundown, who are blowing up on Spotify with over 470,000 monthly listeners. There’s only one problem. It doesn’t look like the band actually exists, and the music appears to have been created by AI.

While the band appears as a Verified Artist on Spotify, the bio says an incredible amount of nondescript things about the band, like “There’s something quite spellbinding about The Velvet Sundown. You don’t just listen to them, you drift into them”.

The bio lists the band members as singer and mellotron player Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, Milo Raines, who "crafts the band's textured synth sounds," and "free-spirited" percussionist Orion “Rio” Del Mar. No amount of digging that I (or the music press) have been able to do has persuaded me that any of these people are real.

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The music itself sounds to me like a kind of mash-up of various mellow, country-influenced, rock bands like The Eagles, JJ Cale, and The Allman Brothers. I can also detect an element of another Texas band, Khruangbin, in their sound.

Dust and Silence

The Velvet Sundown already has one album out, Dust and Silence, which you can listen to right now, and another, Paper Sun Rebellion, is set for release in 13 days on July 14, but the signs of AI are all over everything to do with them.

For instance, both album covers look like two versions of the same AI-generated design. Both are surrealism scenes of a floating eye and a staircase in a desert landscape with mountains in the background. It looks like what happens when AI generates two or more versions of an image for you to choose between.

Then take a look at pictures of the band - they look like they’ve been created by ChatGPT to me. If you look at the band’s Instagram account, you’ll see what obviously looks like AI-generated photo of the band.

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With powerful AI music creation tools like Suno available online, it’s quite possible that the particular blend of easy-listening, middle-of-the-road, rock that The Velvet Sundown specializes in is AI-created too. Another giveaway for me is that the singer’s voice sounds slightly different on each track the band plays, and the music has a soulless, generic quality to it, even if it makes for pleasant and inoffensive background listening. There’s nothing cohesive between the tracks that makes me think they’re played by the same people.

Credit: The Velvet Sundown

Hard times

As we reported in February, since 2024, Spotify has demonetized songs that don't get 1,000 streams a year – by some estimates, 86% of music on the platform – making it even harder for musicians to make a living.

In a time when the big streaming services are reaping vast profits and artists who aren't in the top percentage of streamers are struggling, the fact that an AI band is grabbing the ears of listeners away from real human-generated music, while not being labelled as AI, is proving divisive.

Many people are understandably unhappy that what appears to be an entirely AI-generated band is getting plays and being supported by Spotify.

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“Just looked them up, and the description on Spotify doesn't make any mention of them being AI. This honestly is making me lean towards cancelling my Spotify subscription”, said Reddit user blyzo.

“Yeah, that's what people are today; all frauds, and all supporters of the fake. Milli Vanilli came out decades too early!”, commented Reddit user Big-Rabbit9119

However, Reddit user AnyPomegranate4981 said, "ngl the songs are fire".

We reached out to Spotify for comment on how this band had achieved Verified status and if it thought The Velvet Sundown was a real band, despite all the obvious evidence, but they haven't responded. We'll update this article if we get a response.

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One thing that did occur to me was that if it is a real band, then this could be a very clever marketing campaign. Generating controversy by appearing to be a fake AI band would be a great way to get yourself noticed.

If The Velvet Sunset is indeed an AI band, though, one thing is for sure – we’re unlikely to ever see them play live.

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