The Velvet Sundown: The AI band that blew up on Spotify

Success came quickly for the Velvet Sundown. On June 5, they released their debut album, Floating on Echoes, and in fewer than two weeks, it ended up on Spotify playlists with hundreds of thousands of saves. Dust on the Wind, a pro-peace folk rock song on Floating on Echoes, secured the No. 1 spot for Spotify’s daily Viral 50 chart in Britain, Norway and Sweden between June 29 and July 1. In just over a month, the Velvet Sundown had over 1 million monthly streams on Spotify.

There was one only problem: It didn’t seem like the Velvet Sundown was really a band at all. There was no evidence online that any of the listed band members were real people. The photos the band shared were uncannily smooth, the vocals mechanically soulful and the lyrics a grab bag of anti-war clichés. To many of those following the band’s quick popularity - it released two albums, Floating on Echoes and Dust and Silence, in June alone, with a third coming in mid-July - the Velvet Sundown seemed like classic-rock snake oil.

On Saturday, the group confirmed through its Spotify bio that the music was created using artificial intelligence “guided by human creative direction”. “This isn’t a trick - it’s a mirror,” the statement reads. “An ongoing artistic provocation designed to challenge the boundaries of authorship, identity, and the future of music itself in the age of AI.”

The admission capped nearly three weeks of speculation - and confusion. Shortly after the Velvet Sundown began to garner media attention, someone using the pseudonym Andrew Frelon claimed to be a spokesperson for the band, providing conflicting information to Rolling Stone about its use of AI. The Washington Post spoke to Frelon - which translates to hornet in French - last week but could not verify his involvement with the Velvet Sundown. The next morning, Frelon, who described himself as a Quebec-based web safety expert, revealed in a lengthy Medium post that he was not behind the Velvet Sundown’s music. He had falsely claimed to be the band on Twitter to troll those outraged by the band’s use of AI.

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The music’s plausibility speaks to the blandness of some contemporary rock music. When Steven Hyden, author of Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock, heard Dust on the Wind, he felt it could be a parody of the generic Los Angeles bands that play mellow rock.

“There’s lots of bands like this trying to take the essence of late-’60s, early-’70s folk rock and replicate it in the most faithful way possible,” Hyden said in a phone call. “If you just played [Dust on the Wind] for me without any context, I would have no reason to think it was fake. I would think it was a very derivative band that made a listenable-sounding song.”

The band’s use of AI troubled many, particularly listeners such as Jamie Jones, an electrical engineer from Manchester, England, who stumbled on the music through streaming algorithms. When Dust on the Wind appeared in his Discover Weekly queue, he assumed the song was performed by humans. Jones now says he hopes Spotify won’t program AI-assisted songs in playlists without adding a label first.

“If they’re putting in five songs to the playlist from the same AI band, and Spotify knows it’s AI, you’re taking food out of people’s mouths who are trying to make it in that business,” Jones said. “That’s pretty wrong.”

Spotify did not respond to a request for comment.

Others were less concerned about the music’s digital provenance. When looking for music for his yoga classes, Oklahoma native Byron de Marsé often scrolls on Instagram. He initially heard the Velvet Sundown’s Drift Beyond the Flame in a video of someone dancing. Before long, he worked the song into a yoga class, not realising AI was involved. “It’s got this emotional tone to it, so it’s good for the end of a power yoga or vinyasa, where you’re deeply stretching,” said de Marsé, who plans on continuing to use the song in classes.

Beyond the philosophical questions about their use of AI, the success of the Velvet Sundown is a strange testimony to the enduring appeal of classic rock. All of the superficial signifiers of classic rock are here, including lyrics about boots, freedom and flags flying. If you squint, Drift Beyond the Flame could be a B-side from Neil Young’s Harvest, while Rebel Yell is not far from a Bad Company cover.

On Vietnam War Music, one of the Spotify playlists where the band’s songs appear, the entire Velvet Sundown discography sits alongside no less than 19 songs by beloved swamp rockers Creedence Clearwater Revival. Stu Cook, CCR’s bassist, doesn’t think the Velvet Sundown does justice to his band’s era of music.

“I just can’t get past how boring the band is. There’s just nothing inspiring at all about any of it,” Cook said. “In a kind of off-the-wall way, I’m honoured that they’re including aspects of anything that Creedence represents in their AI efforts, whoever’s behind all this. To me, it doesn’t sound anything like Creedence.”