The truth is finally out: everyone’s favorite new Spotify band is absolute generative AI, just as most of us had suspected all along.
Who or What Are The Velvet Sundown?
If you’ve still not heard about The Velvet Sundown, they’re a new musical group taking Spotify by storm, racking up a truly astonishing one million monthly listeners in just a couple of months.
It’s a phenomenal figure for a group publishing what can only be described as generic psych-rock with some folk-rock overtones. It’s not bad, but it’s also not mindblowingly good, either. However, The Velvet Sundown caught the imagination of enough Spotify users to propel the group into the unexpected spotlight—and with it, intense scrutiny that the band is completely AI-generated, from top to bottom.
We Knew The Velvet Sundown Was AI All Along
But now, an update to The Velvet Sundown’s Spotify Artist About page confirms what many have long suspected, including this writer.
The Velvet Sundown is a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence.
However, the AI-generated band is framed as an artistic project “designed to challenge the boundaries of authorship, identity, and the future of music itself in the age of AI.”
The signs of AI creation were clear to see. The images of the band standing together have a distinctly generative AI glow to them, despite some editing and touching up. Small edits can alleviate some of the issues with generative AI, but ultimately, anyone who has used AI to create images of humans knows that tell-tale style: uniform textures, a yellowish, sepia hue, and that uncanny, almost “over-human” generic look.
Oh, and they look a little different in each picture—just as the supposed lead singer sounds different on every single track.
Then there was the fact that this band appeared out of nowhere, overnight, and somehow managed to produce two full studio-sounding albums. In this day and age, that’s pretty unheard of, especially with the supposed quality of The Velvet Sundown. And there is another album launching at the end of this week, making it three full albums in 2025.
The Velvet Sundown (and AI Music) Aren’t Going Anywhere
It appears that, despite the revelation that The Velvet Sundown is completely AI-generated, the “band” will continue to produce and publish music.
The supposed popularity of an AI band of this nature is intriguing for several reasons. One, The Velvet Sundown is so middle-of-the-road that I can’t think of reasons why people would specifically turn it off. You might not specifically turn it on, but it’s familiar enough, with that classic 1970s-style psych/folk rock sound, that you could listen to for hours.
Its lyrics are also startlingly basic, but easy to follow and learn. Take The Velvet Sundown’s most listened song, Dust on the Wind:
[Verse 1] Dust on the wind/ Boots on the ground/ Smoke in the sky/ No peace found/ Rivers run red/ The drums roll slow/ Tell me brother, where do we go?
[Chorus] Raise your hand/ Don’t look away/ Sing out loud/ Make them pay/ March for peace/ Not for pride/ Let that flag turn with the tide
Nice and vague, with some national pride and military overtones, but nothing offensive. Combined with the music, it’s a perfect combination of almost soul-soothing familarity, tinged with the backdrop of nothingness—which makes it oh-so-listenable.
But there’s another angle. There are more than a few suspicions that The Velvet Sundown may also be profiting from Spotify’s listening bots, another issue that plagues the platform. It isn’t difficult to imagine the generator of a completely AI band using Spotify listening bots to inflate the AI band’s stats, pushing it into those lucrative Spotify-generated playlists.
AI music has been gradually appearing in more Spotify playlists, with the platform actively promoting certain AI artists. For example, another AI artist, Aventhis, appeared on my Discover Weekly at one point.
It was ultra-generic, and I skipped the track, only realizing that Spotify had served me up some AI-generated music after the fact. So, whether you like it or not, Spotify is pushing AI music on its subscribers, and there is currently no way to opt out.
The rise of The Velvet Sundown highlights a turning point for music discovery. When AI-generated bands can rack up millions of streams, land on curated playlists, and blur the line between real and synthetic artistry, what does that mean for emerging human musicians trying to break through?
It also raises questions about transparency: should platforms like Spotify clearly label AI-generated content? And as AI music becomes increasingly indistinguishable from the real thing, will listeners even care who—or what—is behind the music they’re hearing? One thing’s clear: this isn’t just a novelty. It’s the future knocking.
