Photographers are going to struggle to get pictures of the latest psych-rock sensation The Velvet Sundown since they don’t actually exist.
Despite a plethora of images available online for the chill rock outfit and nearly half a million monthly listeners on Spotify, The Velvet Sundown is entirely AI-generated.
According to Musically, the band started getting recommended to Spotify users. Music lovers started digging the four-piece band that fuses “1970s psychedelic textures with cinematic alt-pop and dreamy analog soul.”
The band members even have names: Gabe Farrow on vocals, Lennie West on guitar, bass player Milo Rains, and “free-spirited” percussionist Orion ‘Rio’ Del Mar. “The band feels like a hallucination you want to stay lost in,” adds a telling description.
Redditors and TikToker quickly realized that there was something off about the band, likely because of the group photos that have a distinct uncanny feel to them. Interestingly, music author Chris Dalla Riva on TikTok says the vocals also have a “metallic-y sheen” that is apparently common among AI-generated vocals, similar to AI photos.
An Instagram page set up for The Velvet Sundown makes it painfully clear the whole thing is AI-generated. One post showing the “band” recording music is titled “In the studio working on our new album, we know you’ll all love it” was mocked by an Instagram user who replied: “In the ‘studio’ ‘working’ on your new ‘album’.”
Other pictures on the feed show a mockup of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover in which the members of The Velvet Sundown are all exactly the same height, the band going to the movies, and performing live.
Other giveaways include the generic song titles, such as the band’s biggest hit Dust in the Wind, and fake quotes on the band’s biography from Billboard that simply doesn’t exist.
Riva calls The Velvet Sundown “concerning” since Spotify’s promotion of AI music may come to the detriment of real musicians. It is a similar tale in the image world where stock photographers fret that they are being replaced by AI.
