New Band The Velvet Sundown With Over 550,000 Monthly Listeners Allegedly A Product Of AI
The alleged AI band have released two albums in two weeks, and a third is apparently on the way.
The Velvet Sundown (Source: Spotify)
Controversy has swirled around online music circles in the last week, as a band allegedly created by generative AI has garnered almost 500,000 streams for a single song on Spotify.
The Velvet Sundown have no online footprint—you can’t find anything about its apparent band members on social media or elsewhere on the internet—and seemingly appeared on streaming services just two weeks ago. The group reportedly comprises vocalist Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, keyboardist Milo Rains, and drummer Orion “Rio” Del Mar.
Their music has been described as a blend of “’70s psychedelic alt-rock and folk rock” with flourishes of “modern alt-pop and indie structures.” While Spotify is known for cracking down on bots, AI music has previously made its way onto the platform (and other streaming services).
So far, the band has released two albums: Floating On Echoes on 5 June and Dust And Silence on 20 June. And according to their (very new) Instagram profile, a third album is already on the way. Their most popular song, Dust On The Wind, has amassed nearly half a million streams, while they only have about 400 followers on Instagram.
However, what made internet sleuths wonder if The Velvet Sundown are in fact a product of AI is their photos.
The album art for both albums makes a fair case for being designed with AI, but the yellow-tinted, surreal promo photos on Instagram only fuel the allegations.
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In one photo, the band replicate The Beatles’ iconic Abbey Road picture, but one member is wearing two different shoes, and each band member is the same height.
In another photo, the guitarist is missing a finger, which is mysteriously recovered in a separate shot. Each image showcases the band members with dead eyes, perhaps a dead giveaway that the images were generated using AI.
The Velvet Sundown don’t just appear on Spotify; their music is also on Apple Music, Deezer, and Amazon Music. The Deezer description features this disclaimer: “Some tracks on this album may have been created using artificial intelligence.”
Concerns around AI in music have steadily grown over the last year. Fake songs have appeared on the profiles of Australian acts Pond, Polaris, Northlane, Alpha Wolf, and Thy Art Is Murder. Earlier this year, rapper and producer Timbaland launched a new company called Stage Zero and announced the signing of AI “artist” TaTa.
Artists like James Blunt and Jordan Merrick have argued against the use of AI in music, while Billy Joel, Peter Gabriel, and IDLES have already utilised it in their campaigns.
Two companies fully invested in AI are Spotify and TikTok. The former utilises generative AI for its DJ, Daylist, and Song Psychic tools, while the latter previously launched a beta test of a function that allowed content creators to generate entire songs with AI. In 2023, a study found that 59 per cent of young Australians feel comfortable with the prospect of AI-generated music.
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