August 5, 2025
Ed Sheeran has brought back actor Rupert Grint for an upcoming music video, marking their first collaboration since 2011's viral "Lego House" visual. The new project accompanies Sheeran's track...
Read moreAugust 5, 2025
To improve real-time song discovery, Spotify is now testing a new feature dubbed "DJ Now Takes Requests." The feature adds a layer of crowd participation to streaming experiences by allowing users...
Read moreAugust 5, 2025
The Who frontman Roger Daltrey has spoken out about his fallout with drummer Zak Starkey, calling the musician’s post-departure comments “incredibly upsetting.” Starkey, son of Beatles legend Ringo...
Read moreAugust 5, 2025
Fujii Kaze’s “Love Like This” isn’t your average love song, it’s a shimmering, soulful glide through the kind of romance that doesn’t just sweep you off your feet, it levitates you. With effortless...
Read moreAugust 5, 2025
Laufey’s “Lover Girl” isn’t just a song, it’s a soft, sweeping confession wrapped in strings, jazz chords, and the kind of vulnerability that makes you want to cry into your oat milk latte. With...
Read moreAugust 5, 2025
When Saweetie hit the mic with her usual sparkle and sass, fans expected bops, but what they didn’t expect was boffum. Yes, boffum. The internet has been shaken, stirred, and straight-up meme-ified...
Read moreAugust 5, 2025
After years of teasing, manifesting, and fans quite literally breaking down over one-song discographies, Jennie finally pulled the ultimate main character move, she dropped a full solo album. No...
Read moreAugust 5, 2025
In a heartfelt social media post, Freese explained that his decision to leave Nine Inch Nails was one of the hardest of his career. At the time, he and his wife were expecting their third child...
Read moreAugust 5, 2025
Meet Ty Myers, a teen from Texas who is transforming the concept of a country performer in 2025, music fans. Honky-tonk roots, modest ambition, and a popular TikTok moment from 2023 inspired his...
Read moreAugust 5, 2025
Demi Lovato is back in the pop scene with her latest single, “Fast,” which brings her back to the club-ready, EDM-infused beats that fans loved in hits like “Cool for the Summer” and...
Read moreAugust 1, 2025
a deeper heartbeat emerged beneath the surface: the voice of Rumi— performed and co-written by the Korean-American singer-songwriter Ejae.
Read moreAugust 1, 2025
Former Canadian PM and pop star fuel speculation following her split from Orlando BloomFormer Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the unexpected star of Katy Perry’s Montreal concert this...
Read moreWhen Velvet Sundown burst onto Spotify earlier this summer, few suspected that the band’s four “members” were never flesh and blood. With their ’60s-inspired riffs and dreamy vocal harmonies, the digital quartet quickly amassed over a million monthly listeners, fueled by the viral success of their debut single “Dust on the Wind.” Only on July 8, 2025, did Velvet Sundown finally own up to what many fans had begun to suspect: they are an entirely AI-generated project “an ongoing artistic provocation” designed to blur the boundaries between real and synthetic creativity.
Velvet Sundown released their first album, Floating on Echoes, on June 5, 2025, marketing it with faux vintage photos and enigmatic social-media teasers. Listeners loved the band’s nostalgic sound, and streaming figures skyrocketed. Yet as questions arose Why could no one find interviews with the members? Why did their online images look subtly “off,” with hands that seemed oddly shaped? critics grew skeptical. The final nail in the coffin came when fans noticed Velvet Sundown’s Spotify bio had been quietly updated to confess the truth: “All characters, stories, music, voices and lyrics are original creations generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools employed as creative instruments”.
The revelation has ignited a wider debate in the music world. Proponents of AI-assisted creativity argue that tools like generative audio and image algorithms can open new frontiers providing artists with fresh palettes and speeding up production. Detractors warn that such projects undermine the authenticity central to musical culture, potentially eroding listeners’ trust and displacing human musicians. A landmark December report by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) even predicted that AI-generated music could shrink artists’ incomes by over 20% within four years if left unchecked.
Major streaming platforms have responded cautiously. Spotify maintains that it neither prioritizes nor profits directly from AI-generated tracks, noting that all uploads come from licensed third parties. Meanwhile, rival service Deezer has begun flagging AI-created songs, warning listeners that some Velvet Sundown tracks “may have been created using artificial intelligence” and deploying detection tools to spot generative audio models in the uploads.
Velvet Sundown’s creators describe the project as an “ongoing artistic provocation,” inviting listeners to question what makes music “real.” Is the emotional impact of a riff any less genuine if a neural network composed it? Some fans have embraced the experiment, praising the band’s catchy melodies regardless of their synthetic origins. Others feel cheated, betrayed by the illusion of human connection that music often provides. Critics like author Steven Hyden have noted that while the band’s songs hit familiar classic-rock tropes, they lack the unpredictable spark that comes from human imperfection, making them feel unnervingly generic.
Beyond artistic concerns, the Velvet Sundown saga raises practical and ethical questions: Who owns the copyright when an AI generates a song? How should royalties be distributed? Could entirely AI-created acts flood streaming platforms, making it harder for real musicians to stand out? The industry is only beginning to grapple with these challenges, balancing innovation with safeguards to ensure that genuine human artistry isn’t sidelined.
Despite the controversy, Velvet Sundown plans to press on. Their second album, Paper Sun Rebellion, is slated for release on July 14, and they’ve hinted at AI-curated virtual concerts in the fall. Whether listeners will continue to tune in once the novelty fades or whether a backlash will prompt streaming services to tighten their AI-content policies remains to be seen.
One thing is certain: Velvet Sundown has forced the music world to confront the question of authenticity head-on. As AI tools become ever more capable, artists, platforms, and audiences will need clear guidelines and open dialogue to navigate a landscape where the line between human and machine composition grows increasingly thin. Whatever the outcome, this AI-driven experiment has already rewritten a page in music history proving that, in the digital age, even our most cherished art forms can be reimagined in ways we never expected.