The Velvet Sundown: When AI-Generated Music Tricks the Masses

With indie rock vibes, two albums released in under a month, and millions of streams on Spotify, The Velvet Sundown experienced a meteoric rise. However, after sparking suspicion among listeners, the “group” eventually confirmed that its tracks were generated by artificial intelligence (AI). On Spotify, the group now describes itself as “a synthetic music project guided by human artistic direction.” Their X account adds, “Not quite human. Not quite machine. The Velvet Sundown lives somewhere in between.“

The suspense was minimal. Many listeners had guessed, long before the “group” admitted it, that the music was artificial. The telltale signs included a frenetic release schedule, minimal online presence, and, above all, the systematic use of generative AI for all texts and illustrations. “All the group’s images scream Midjourney,” wrote Vice magazine as early as July 2nd. Deezer had already warned on the group’s page that “some tracks on this album may have been created using artificial intelligence.“

Indeed, according to several specialized sites, The Velvet Sundown’s tracks appear to have been generated by the AI Suno. By being included in highly listened-to Spotify playlists, they were allegedly promoted by the application’s algorithm and presented to numerous listeners.

Confusion Fueled by an Imposter

Ironically, The Velvet Sundown ended up acknowledging its synthetic origin because other people – real humans this time – impersonated them. On June 29th, while the “group” had almost no presence on social media, an X account under its name appeared and posted a thread: “It’s absolutely crazy that so-called journalists continue to promote the lazy and unfounded theory that The Velvet Sundown is generated by AI, without any evidence.” The X profile then multiplied messages, systematically repeating that the group had never used AI.

Simultaneously, another account was created on the same social network. Affiliated with the group’s Spotify account, it claimed that the first one was an imposter. Too late: the first profile already had much more visibility, and several media outlets, including the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and The Observer, contacted the owner. On July 2nd, Rolling Stone published an interview with a person presenting himself under the pseudonym of Andrew Frelon, who claimed to be a “spokesperson for the viral AI-generated group.” “It’s marketing, it’s trolling. Before, people didn’t care about what we were doing, and now we’re talking to Rolling Stone,” he explained.

The next day, Andrew Frelon announced that he was an imposter. He explained that he had chosen his name in reference to “an annoying insect, which seemed like an appropriate mascot” and recounted being intrigued by The Velvet Sundown after failing to create a similar project a year earlier.

Unlike “Andrew Frelon,” the X account associated with the “group’s” Spotify profile never seemed to really contest the accusations of AI use. As early as September 1st, it quipped: “they accuse us of not being real. Maybe you aren’t either,” while announcing the upcoming release of their third album. In any case, the media frenzy does not seem to have disturbed its creator(s), whose identity remains unknown: on July 9th, The Velvet Sundown released its latest single, Reflections in the Glass Hour.

Camille Ribot

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