“There’s not a shred of evidence on the internet that this band has ever existed”: This apparently AI-generated artist is racking up hundreds of thousands of Spotify streams | By Matt Mullen, Music Radar | AI-powered music generators Suno and Udio have been churning out soulless slop for almost two years now, but it seems that AI-generated songs have largely failed to capture the public’s imagination in the way that many of the technology’s critics had feared.
A handful of AI-made tracks have broken through to the mainstream: in 2023, a controversial ‘fake Drake’ song with deepfake vocals picked up millions of streams before being taken down, and more recently, an unsavoury AI-generated track made it into Germany’s charts, stirring up tensions for an entirely different reason.
But, on the whole, the top tier of the music industry has yet to be infiltrated by tracks produced by platforms like Suno, which generate complete songs based on text prompts at the click of a button. That’s not to say that AI-generated music isn’t being listened to, however, as a report from Music Ally has made clear.
Though they’re not yet dominating the charts, disturbingly realistic AI songs are slowly but surely creeping into our headphones – and you may even be listening to them without realizing what you’re hearing. Smuggled into popular playlists and hidden in plain sight among authentic, well-known tracks, AI-generated artists with fake photos, ChatGPT-generated biographies and no genuine fans to speak of are picking up hundreds of thousands of streams.
One such artist is The Velvet Sundown, a band with almost 350,000 monthly Spotify listeners but no discernible online presence or social media accounts. (“There’s not a shred of evidence on the internet that this band has ever existed,” as one Redditor put it.) While we can’t confirm that the band’s music is AI-generated, a glance at their artist image and bio should be enough to persuade even the least skeptical observer.
“The Velvet Sundown don’t just play music — they conjure worlds,” reads the group’s Spotify profile, which we’re about 99% certain has been authored by ChatGPT. “Somewhere between the ghost of Laurel Canyon and the echo of a Berlin warehouse, this four-piece band bends time, fusing 1970s psychedelic textures with cinematic alt-pop and dreamy analog soul.”
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Read more here:
https://www.musicradar.com/music-tech/theres-not-a-shred-of-evidence-on-the-internet-that-this-band-has-ever-existed-this-apparently-ai-generated-artist-is-racking-up-hundreds-of-thousands-of-spotify-streams
Matt Mullen: I’m MusicRadar’s Tech Editor, working across everything from product news and gear-focused features to artist interviews and tech tutorials. I love electronic music and I’m perpetually fascinated by the tools we use to make it.
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AI or Real? The Velvet Sundown’s Mysterious Rise to Spotify Stardom
By Alex Cooper, Happy Mag
In just two weeks, psych-rock band The Velvet Sundown has amassed over 500,000 monthly Spotify listeners—but here’s the twist: they might not be human at all.
With two albums (Floating on Echoes and Dust and Silence) already released and a third (Paper Sun Rebellion) dropping July 14th, their breakneck output has fans—and skeptics—questioning their origins.
AI-generated press photos, untraceable band members (Gabe, Lennie, Milo, and Orion), and a bio describing their sound as “the memory of a time that never actually happened” fuel suspicions.
Despite this, their track “Dust on the Wind” nears half a million streams, landing on major playlists like “Vietnam War Music.”
While Spotify allows AI music without disclosure, Deezer adds a telling disclaimer: “Some tracks may have been created using artificial intelligence.”
Is this the future of music—or just clever marketing? Either way, The Velvet Sundown is here.
https://happymag.tv/ai-band/
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AI and copyright: Music artists protest over AI with release of silent album
Over 1000 music artists have put their names to a new album that consists wholly of complete silence.
The new album, called Is This What We Want? was released to protest against potential changes that may be made to UK law to allow AI companies to train their models on copyrighted works.
Understandably, this hasn’t just caused consternation amongst music artists, given that the results of AI generations come as a direct result of effectively ‘remixing’ subject matter that the AI has been trained on. Although music artists will be one of the biggest groups affected.
The new album features contributions from 1000 artists, including Kate Bush, Cat Stevens, and Annie Lennox, and comprises recordings of empty studio spaces. 12 tracks are on the album, with the individual titles spelling out the phrase “The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies.”
While the potential new legislation will be brought into British law, it would have ramifications across the world. The British government may well see this as a way to draw in AI companies to invest in the UK, but it is a cynical move to say the least. It would mean that any AI could be trained within the UK, and then the resultant model rolled out to the rest of the world, unless counter legislation is made in other countries to outlaw the use of AIs that have been trained in such a way.
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Read more of this very informational article here:
https://www.redsharknews.com/music-artists-protest-over-ai-with-release-of-silent-album
[Our thanks to Jamie Krutz for letting us know about this! Https://www.jamiekrutz.com]
[CBS Morning News on Thursday, July 3rd, presented an article on “the band”, playing one of “their” songs and showing a couple of photos of “the band.” Vlad felt that “art” is human, not computer generated!]