Have you come across The Velvet Sundown? While it shares a name reminiscent of The Velvet Underground, the reality of The Velvet Sundown is shrouded in ambiguity.
The images of the band possess an uncanny AI-generated quality—excessively flawless, devoid of texture, strangely unhuman—yet they have garnered over 372,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Their biography depicts them as “quietly enchanting” and employs vague metaphors characteristic of AI-generated narratives, such as likening their music to “an aroma that abruptly transports you to an unexpected place.”
According to their biography, the ensemble was established by vocalist and mellotron performer Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, synth operator Milo Raines, and percussionist Orion “Rio” Del Mar. None of them have undergone any interviews. Furthermore, none possess Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook profiles, nor does the band maintain an online presence. Indeed, the members seem to have no trace on the internet.
The song credits on Spotify also raise eyebrows. Typically, artists have several contributors in the credits, but each track by The Velvet Sundown lists solely “Performed by,” “Written by,” and “Source” as The Velvet Sundown. No producer is mentioned.
“The Velvet Sundown isn’t attempting to resurrect the past,” their Spotify biography states. “They are constructing it anew. Their sound embodies the reminiscence of an era that never truly existed… yet they somehow render it tangible.”
Are they toying with us? Listening to their music does evoke an AI-generated feel—the lyrics possess a lack of detail, and the composition feels shallow. However, it’s rather… agreeable music? Suno and Udio, two prominent AI-driven music generators, have been “producing lifeless noise” for about two years, as noted by Music Radar, and if The Velvet Sundown is utilizing these tools for their creations, it could represent one of the earliest successes in applying the platforms’ capability to “capture public fascination in a manner that many critics of technology had dreaded.”
On YouTube, there exists an entire ecosystem devoted to AI-generated music. A noteworthy channel is AI For The Culture, which reinterprets rap and R&B songs as if they were vintage Motown or blues tracks—complete with fictitious artists and AI-generated biographies to suit. One striking illustration: an AI-generated version of Future’s “Turn On the Lights,” later sampled by rapper JPEGMAFIA on his most recent album.
While the band has not confirmed its AI origins, little has been done to disprove such assumptions. Music Radar remarks it “has the distinctly lo-fi essence of a Suno creation.” A Reddit discussion asserts that there exists not a “scintilla of proof on the internet that this band ever existed.”
Ultimately, there is no definitive evidence that the band is an AI construct, presenting a dilemma. As AI music grows more challenging to discern, who holds the duty to identify it? This situation has led some users to voice their dissatisfaction with Spotify for failing to clarify whether the band is AI-generated. “We ought to be boycotting Spotify by now,” remarked one individual on Reddit, while another noted that the band is also available on Apple Music and Amazon Music.
Spotify did not promptly respond to Mashable’s inquiry for comments.