A few weeks ago Timbaland unveiled the not-human artist TaTa, who was the first signee of his AI record label Stage Zero. Now there's a new AI-generated act on the scene called the Velvet Sundown, and they have over 400,000 monthly listeners on Spotify after less than a month of existing.
The psych-rock "band" has two albums on their Spotify-verified profile: June 5's Floating On Echoes and June 20's Dust And Silence. The writing/production/performancecredits list only the band's name. And the bio consists of meaningless adages. "The Velvet Sundown aren't trying to revive the past,” it reads. “They're rewriting it. They sound like the memory of a time that never actually happened... but somehow they make it feel real." An earlier version also included this made-up quote attributed to Billboard: "They sound like the memory of something you never lived, and somehow make it feel real.” Neither the Velvet Sundown nor its four members (“vocalist and mellotron sorcerer Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, bassist-synth alchemist Milo Rains, and free-spirited percussionist Orion ‘Rio’ Del Mar”) had social media until yesterday (June 27) when they created an Instagram. The pictures of the "band" are very obviously and disturbingly AI-generated.
Spotify allows AI music, and no disclosure is currently required. These streams certainly might come from bots – which Spotify does not allow – but the band’s songs can be found on various user-generated Spotify playlists in addition to being boosted by the app’s algorithmically-driven recommendations, some users tell Stereogum.
The Velvet Sundown’s music isn’t just on Spotify. Distributed by DistroKid, it can be found on Apple Music and Amazon Music as well. On the band’s Deezer profile at least, there’s a note that “some tracks on this album may have been created using artificial intelligence.” The French streaming service has developed its own AI recognition tool for this purpose and in April reported that 20,000 fully AI-generated tracks – 18% of daily uploads – were put on the platform every day. That figure is up from the 10% Deezer reported just three months prior.
It will get more difficult to identify AI-generated “bands” as tools develop. This is the future Timbaland wants?
apparently this band has only existed for 2 weeks and it’s all AI. how long until you see someone wearing their merch lol pic.twitter.com/5F7d3bq8RG
— gaz (@SilentGarrett) June 26, 2025
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLdBvCQgGjB/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading
UPDATE: In a series of posts on X, the AI band (which now has over 550k monthly listeners) claims it is very real. There is no way to know if @velvet_sundown is actually associated with the project, but although they didn’t begin tweeting until yesterday (June 29) the account was created in March, so it’s likely.
Absolutely crazy that so-called “journalists” keep pushing the lazy, baseless theory that The Velvet Sundown is “AI-generated” with zero evidence.
Not a single one of these "writers" has reached out, visited a show, or listened beyond the Spotify algorithm.
This is not a joke.
This is our music, written in long, sweaty nights in a cramped bungalow in California with real instruments, real minds, and real soul.
Every chord, every lyric, every mistake — HUMAN.
Just because we don’t do TikTok dances or livestream our process doesn’t mean we’re fake.
The fact that some blog editors would rather pretend we’re a bunch of machines than admit an unknown band is out here grinding & made something people enjoy is insulting.
We’ve had to lock down our personal accounts due toharassment all because some writer wanted clicks & couldn’t imagine people like us existing outside their sanitized indie media echo chamber.
The Velvet Sundown's X bio reads, "Yes, We Are A Real Band & We Never Use AI #NeverAI."
