AI “Band” The Velvet Sundown Is An “Art Hoax” Created With Suno, Spokesperson Admits

Perhaps you, too, have had the displeasure of stumbling across the Velvet Sundown on Spotify or social media. The psych-rock “band” made headlines last month after they’d amassed hundreds of thousands of streams on the platform, despite existing for only a few weeks. They currently have 750,000 Spotify listeners. The only problem is that they don’t actually exist. Their press “photos” are comically unnatural-looking, their Spotify bio is a boilerplate nothing burger, and the music is just as bland as you’d expect. They have social media accounts where they’ve noticeably pushed back against AI accusations: “They said we’re not real. Maybe you aren’t either.” Now, a spokesperson for the Velvet Sundown has confirmed to Rolling Stone that they are, in fact, not real.