The Daily Populous Monday July 7th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by consequence.net and submitted by ethereal3xp

Psych-rock band The Velvet Sundown have garnered over 500,000 monthly Spotify listeners and released two full-length records in a single month, with a third on the way this July. While this rapid rise would be impressive for any music act, it appears the group may be a product of generative AI.

As one Twitter user pointed out, The Velvet Sundown have accomplished all of this despite only existing for two weeks. In addition to pumping out albums like there’s no tomorrow, all images posted on their social media accounts appear to have been made with AI. This inspired internet sleuths to investigate the band’s potentially fabricated origins.

The yellow-tinted, smoothed-over, and hyperrealistic nature of The Velvet Sundown’s press photos strongly hints at the use of AI, but little information is available about the group beyond their Spotify artist page.

According to their bio, The Velvet Sundown’s music is “’70s psychedelic alt-rock and folk rock,” and the lineup is comprised of four purported “members”: singer and mellotron player Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, synth player Milo Rains, and percussionist Orion “Rio” Del Mar.

Yet, these members aren’t traceable online beyond the band’s Instagram account, which was started just days ago on June 27th. Some of the photos feature the “members” enjoying burgers to celebrate their second LP’s release, and recreating The Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover (sans one member appearing barefoot).

While it’s possible that The Velvet Sundown’s more than half a million monthly listeners could be bots, their most popular song on Spotify, “Dust on the Wind,” is closing in on 500,000 streams as of publishing. Spotify doesn’t allow bots on its platform, but does permit AI-generated music with no disclosures necessary.

The band has already released two albums just 15 days apart: Floating on Echoes and Dust and Silence. A third, Paper Sun Rebellion, is due out on July 14th. Their songs are also featured on prominent Spotify playlists like “Vietnam War Music” and “Good Mornings – Happily Positive Music to Start The Day.”

The Velvet Sundown’s music isn’t restricted to Spotify, appearing on other streaming platforms like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Deezer. Their records on the latter service carry a disclaimer: “Some tracks on this album may have been created using artificial intelligence.”

The group’s artist biography is a confounding word salad that reinforces their manufactured aura. “There’s something quietly spellbinding about The Velvet Sundown. You don’t just listen to them, you drift into them,” it reads. “Their music doesn’t shout for your attention; it seeps in slowly, like a scent that suddenly takes you back somewhere you didn’t expect.”

It continues, “The Velvet Sundown aren’t trying to revive the past. They’re rewriting it. They sound like the memory of a time that never actually happened… but somehow they make it feel real.”

There has been growing concern about AI on streaming platforms and beyond. A December report in Harper’s Magazine alleged Spotify is supplementing playlists with “ghost artists” to decrease royalty payouts, while a separate study from the same month suggested music creators could lose up to 24% of their revenue by 2028 due to a lack of protections and policies against AI.

However, there are some artists who have embraced the technology. Back in 2023, Grimes launched Elf.Tech, an AI software that allowed users to record music that would transform their vocals into Grimes’ own. More recently, ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus revealed he was writing a new musical with AI assistance, while Timbaland announced a new company called Stage Zero alongside its first signee, an AI artist named TaTa.

m_Pony on July 7th, 2025 at 11:47 UTC »

So the real question isn't "Is this music actually made by GenAI" (it seems to be the case), it's "how did a band out of literally nothing get so many listens so quickly"? I'm thinking it's driven directly by Spotify.

I can understand Spotify aggressively pushing these tracks to listeners en masse because they probably don't have to pay the same amount of royalties per play (if they pay anything at all). I really want to know how many of those "500,000 monthly Spotify listeners" actually wanted to listen to this music.

sound_scientist on July 7th, 2025 at 11:18 UTC »

It’s all Suno, Canva, CHATgpt, and Gemini

It’s Posers on Steroids

supervillaindsgnr on July 7th, 2025 at 02:50 UTC »

I feel like a lot of those listens are a result of news articles like this