Spotify’s viral charts were never meant to be a stage for a band that does not exist. But The Velvet Sundown managed to float to the top regardless, riding a wave of moody folk rock and mysterious aesthetics. Their music, hazy, Americana-tinged ballads, came with all the trimmings: retro vibes, evocative lyrics, and characters with names like Lennie West and Orion Del Mar. There was only one catch. None of them were real.
Launched in June 2025, The Velvet Sundown appeared like a ghost from the vinyl age, releasing two full albums within a fortnight. A third was announced for mid-July. By early July, they had more than 900,000 monthly listeners and had topped the Viral 50 charts in the UK, Sweden and Norway. But behind the rich vocals and swirling synths was not a troubled frontman or a genius producer. It was Suno, Midjourney, and perhaps a bit of trolling.
The project billed itself as a “synthetic music project guided by human creative direction” and an “artistic provocation.” On its face, it was one of the first AI-generated bands to break through to mainstream streaming success. The music, the lyrics, the band photos, were all built using AI tools. Suno generated the voice. Midjourney rendered the visuals. And Spotify’s own algorithm, unaware or unbothered by the difference between carbon and code, did the rest.
At first, The Velvet Sundown claimed to be human. Tweets from a now-defunct X account insisted the band was recording from a cramped bungalow in California. But when Rolling Stone pressed for clarity, an alleged spokesperson named Andrew Frelon admitted that the vocals were made using Suno’s “Persona” tool. Then, in a twist worthy of a Black Mirror episode, Frelon revealed himself as a hoaxer too. The entire act, he claimed, was a conceptual joke. Art, apparently, was the punchline.
Spotify had little to say. The band received a Verified Artist badge, but the platform does not label AI-generated music nor restrict its rise. Deezer, on the other hand, flagged The Velvet Sundown immediately. According to Deezer, around 20 percent of daily uploads are now AI-generated. That number doubled in just three months.
It is not the first time listeners have been fooled. Other AI acts, Vinih Pray, AI For The Culture, and suspected entities like Appalachian White Lightning, have appeared on platforms with little or no backstory. TikTok, too, has been part of the trend. “A Million Colors,” a Vinih Pray track, became an unlikely viral hit on the app in June, with Kylie Jenner using it in a makeup tutorial. The song peaked at No. 44 on TikTok’s Viral 50 before being quietly removed, possibly due to its AI origins.
The bigger issue is not that these songs exist. It is that streaming platforms are designed to reward them. Human musicians struggling to reach 1,000 streams now face an uphill battle against algorithmically engineered songs with perfect compression, catchy choruses, and no touring costs. Spotify’s 2024 policy of demonetising underperforming tracks only makes it worse. As the system bends towards perfection, imperfection gets pushed aside.
There are copyright concerns too. Many AI tools are trained on existing music without permission. Ed Newton-Rex, the founder of Fairly Trained, has warned that datasets used to train AI models often pull from copyrighted material. Sophie Jones of the British Phonographic Industry has called for updated laws to protect musicians’ work from unauthorised sampling.
There is also the cultural question. What happens when music becomes ambience, a mood to be selected rather than a story to be told? The Velvet Sundown may call itself art, but to some it feels like camouflage, background noise masquerading as meaning. Critics have described the music as soulless, with inconsistent vocals and lyrics that feel vaguely emotional but oddly empty.
The art world has dealt with this kind of prank before, fake exhibitions, pseudonyms, and alter egos are part of the avant-garde tradition. But music, with its reliance on authenticity and emotional resonance, is a different battleground. The Velvet Sundown is not a band, it is an argument. And it is being made loudly, across streaming charts and Reddit threads.
Meanwhile, projects like AI For The Culture are being more upfront. The YouTube channel reimagines modern rap and R&B in Motown style, complete with fake liner notes and backstories. The difference is that nobody is pretending it is real. It is remix culture, pushed through a new tool. There is no deception.
This transparency matters. Listeners are not necessarily hostile to AI music. What they resent is being tricked. If The Velvet Sundown had been honest from the start, it may still have sparked debate, but the outrage might have been muted.
As AI tools become easier to use, expect more synthetic artists to emerge. Some will be obvious novelties. Others may hide in plain sight. The question now is whether platforms will step up with clearer labelling, whether governments will regulate training datasets, and whether audiences will start demanding the real thing again.
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