Update, Monday June 30: We were contacted by Deezer, the Global Streaming Music Service, to say that he reported the albums of the Velvet Sundown as a content generated by AI-A with the message: “Some songs from this album may have been created using artificial intelligence”.
This contrasts with Spotify and Apple Music, which did not report the content as generated by AI. Deezer uses an AI detection filter on all IT albums, “with the ability to detect music generated at 100% AI from the most prolific generative models – such as Suno and UDIO, with the possibility of adding detection capacities for practically any other similar tool as long as there is access to examples of relevant data.”
Meanwhile, Velvet Sundown’s X.com account responded to this article with a denial that the group uses AI, saying: “Absolutely crazy that the so-called” journalists “continue to push the lazy and baseless theory that the sunset in velvet is” generated by AI “without proof.”
I contacted an interview with the group, and we will update you when we have more information.
The original story follows: Wind dust,, Derive beyond the flame, And Put an end to the pain, Are all songs from the new hot group The Velvet Sundown, which explodes in Spotify with more than 470,000 monthly listeners. There is only one problem. It does not seem that the group really exists, and the music seems to have been created by the AI.
While the group appears as an artist verified on Spotify, the biography says an incredible quantity of indefinite things on the group, as “there is something completely bewitching in the sunset in velvet. You don’t just listen to them, you derive towards them ”.
The biography lists the members of the group as a singer and player of Mellotron Gabe Farrow, the guitarist Lennie West, Milo Raines, who “crafts the textured synth of the group” and the “free” percussionist, Orion “Rio” del Mar. No quantity of digger that I (or the musical press) could make me persuade.
The music itself resembles me a kind of mixture of various soft rock groups, influenced by country influence like the Eagles, JJ Cale and the Allman Brothers. I can also detect an element of another group from Texas, Khruangbin, in their sound.
Dust and silence
The Sundown Velvet already has an album, Dust and silencethat you can listen to right now, and another, Paper sun rebellionshould be released in 13 days on July 14, but the signs of AI are everywhere with them.
For example, the two album covers resemble two versions of the same design generated by AI. The two are scenes of surrealism of a floating eye and a staircase in a landscape of the desert with mountains in the background. It looks like what’s going on when AI generates two or more versions of an image to choose between you.
Then take a look at the group’s photos – they seem to have been created by Chatgpt for me. If you look at the group’s Instagram account, you will see what is obviously like photos generated by AI from the group.
With powerful AI music creation tools available online, it is quite possible that the particular mixture of rock easy to fight, in the middle of the road, in which the Sundown Velvet specializes is also created by AI. Another gift for me is that the singer’s voice seems slightly different on each track that the group plays, and the music has a generic soulless quality, even if it listens to be pleasant and harmless. There is nothing coherent between the songs that makes me think that they are played by the same people.
Difficult times
As we pointed out in February, since 2024, Spotify has demonetized songs that do not obtain 1,000 flows per year – according to certain estimates, 86% of music on the platform – which makes even more difficult for musicians to earn a living.
At a time when major streaming services harvest large benefits and artists who are not in the superior percentage of banners are in difficulty, the fact that a group of AI seizes the ears of the listeners of real music generated by man, while not being labeled like AI, proves the division.
Many people are naturally unhappy than what seems to be a group entirely generated by AI obtains games and to be supported by Spotify.
“Just look for them, and the description of Spotify makes no mention of their AI. blyzo.
“Yeah, that’s what people are today; all the frauds, and all the supporters of the Faux. Yell Vanilli came out too early!” Commented the Reddit user Big-rabbit9119
However, the Reddit user Anypomegranate4981 said: “Ngl the songs are fire”.
We contacted Spotify to comment on how this group had reached the verified status and if he thought that the sunset in velvet was a real group, despite all the obvious evidence, but they did not respond. We will update this article if we get an answer.
One thing that came to mind is that if it is a real group, it could be a very intelligent marketing campaign. Generating controversy by seeming to be a false AI group would be a great way to point out.
If the velvet sunset is indeed a group of AI, however, one thing is certain – it is unlikely that we see them playing live.
