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“The Velvet Sundown” is causing a stir in the music world. The band has gained numerous fans on Spotify in a very short time, but apparently they are not real people.
Who is “The Velvet Sundown”?
The band “The Velvet Sundown” is currently on everyone’s lips. In just a few weeks, it broke the half-million monthly listener mark on Spotify – something that takes other unknown artists a very long time to achieve.
- Four young men with a retro look, serious faces, instruments in their hands. This is how the band members of “The Velvet Sundown” present themselves on their Instagram account. There is hardly any information about the band, and there is no official website. Who is this band that is suddenly shaking up the music scene?
- The Velvet Sundown is said to be an AI-generated band. Anyone who has ever dealt with AI images can see that the photos are fresh from ChatGPT. One Instagram user even spotted two thumbs on one of the band members’ hands in a post – a pretty clear sign that AI was at work here.
- The lyrics in songs such as “Dust in the Wind” and “Let it Burn” are also said to have been generated by AI. Compared to lyrics, artificially created music is not so easy to recognize. But there are tools to help with that too.
- The vocals on “The Velvet Sundown” sound distinctive, a dark male voice performing to guitar and drum sounds. It’s all fake, according to watson.ch, among others. An audio AI detection tool reveals the songs to be 100 percent AI-generated.
- Music fans are less enthusiastic about the AI band. “AI is one of the worst things humanity has ever created” and “AI will never replace real art” are just some of the voices being heard online.
- The band has not commented on the allegations. Perhaps because it cannot speak. Neither the names of the members nor any detailed information about the band’s history are known. It suddenly appeared and released two albums within a few weeks. The third will be released on July 14, 2025.
- There is a supposedly official band account on X. It says: “We are a real band and never use AI!” It is not entirely clear whether this is a joke by a “fan” or someone starting an AI experiment with a dose of satire.
Successful thanks to fake bots?
Watson.ch has an explanation for the numerous music streams of “The Velvet Sundown.” Bots could be behind it.
- Chartmetric statistics clearly show that the success of “The Velvet Sundown” is not natural. Watson.ch reveals that the AI band is buying listeners. The number of new listeners and followers has been exactly the same every day since June 9.
- Streaming services should not tolerate bots. However, the analyses by Spotify and others lag somewhat behind the real-time data. If the fraud is discovered, “The Velvet Sundown” may even be banned from music platforms.
It’s that easy to generate music using AI
Generating music with artificial intelligence is easier than ever today – but the creative process behind it can range from a simple push of a button to a complex production process.
- Imagine it like this: First, you give the AI a prompt – a text-based instruction. This could be, for example: “Create a melancholic lo-fi beat with jazz influences and slow drums.”
- Based on this prompt, the AI then automatically creates a complete composition: melody, chords, rhythm, instrumentation, often even including structure (intro, verse, chorus, etc.).
- In this way, entire tracks can be generated from individual musical elements. These building blocks are then arranged, mixed, and finally mastered in a digital audio workstation.
- The workflow varies greatly depending on the platform. Some tools allow you to create a finished song with a single click.
