Who is behind the hit that has conquered more than a million listeners on Spotify? The story of Velvet Sundown has become a sensation in the music world—a popular indie group admitted that it is not a band of musicians, but a fully virtual project created by artificial intelligence. This news sparked a storm of discussions and raised questions for listeners about the boundaries between the real and the artificial in modern creativity. Can we trust what we hear today if even music can be composed by an algorithm?
The viral success of Velvet Sundown and the unexpected confession
Velvet Sundown rapidly gained popularity on the largest streaming platforms. On Spotify, the group had more than a million monthly listeners and hundreds of thousands of plays for individual tracks. Such success gave rise to a host of questions. Users began to discuss oddities in the group’s history and suspected that the hits were not performed by real artists, but by something else.
A few days after the start of the online discussion, Velvet Sundown updated its official profile. There appeared a frank admission: “All characters, stories, music, voices, and lyrics are original creations made with the help of artificial intelligence tools used as creative means.” The very name refers to indie scene legends such as The Velvet Underground, emphasizing the play with recognizable cultural images.
Listener reactions and online discussions
In social networks, a real storm unfolded in a short time. Discussions about Velvet Sundown gave rise to hundreds of memes and theories about the origin of the group’s music. Users analyzed the photos posted on official accounts and noted their excessive “artificiality”—as if the faces were created not by a camera lens, but by an image generator.
Against the backdrop of contradictory reports about the group’s lineup, a new intrigue arose: who or what is actually behind these melodies? Is it possible now to distinguish real musicians from virtual artists if even the biographies and stories of the members cannot be verified?
AI in music creation: how the new project works
Today, AI is used everywhere—from creating business models to developing online casino applications. Music generation using artificial intelligence is based on complex algorithms that can learn from huge arrays of musical data and create tracks styled in different genres. Such systems form voices, lyrics, and instrumental parts, combining recognizable motifs with new solutions.
In the case of Velvet Sundown, AI acts not only as a repeater but also as a creative composer. The algorithms create not only melodies but also the “personalities” of performers, styled after real musicians. Similar projects have already appeared in the industry: for example, experiments with vocals from Google or albums written by neural networks based on samples from The Beatles and Nirvana.
Expert opinions and risks for the music industry
Many copyright specialists and interdisciplinary experts express concern about the blurring of boundaries between human creativity and machine-generated content. According to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), in the next four years, the income of traditional musicians may decrease by more than 20% if AI compositions take a significant share of the market.
Scientific publications emphasize that the mass adoption of AI technologies threatens the originality and diversity of authorial music. However, the technology also has its supporters. They see artificial intelligence as a creative partner for composers and believe that such tools expand the palette of sound.
The position of music platforms Spotify and Deezer
The largest streaming services are already forced to respond to the spread of AI music. A Spotify representative officially stated that the platform does not receive financial benefit from compositions created by artificial intelligence. All tracks uploaded to the service are uploaded only by licensed third parties.
At the same time, Deezer has introduced a special warning for Velvet Sundown tracks. Users see a note about the possible use of AI in the creation of the music. According to Deezer’s press service, the company has implemented a tool to recognize artificially created songs. The new technology is capable of identifying compositions created with the help of popular generators Suno and Udio.
The growth of AI music share and the scale of the phenomenon
According to a Deezer report, as of April 2024, on average 18% of uploaded tracks were fully generated using AI. At the beginning of the year, this share was only 10%. Such dynamics show that virtual creativity is becoming an increasingly widespread phenomenon.
Similar processes are taking place in other areas: text generation, image synthesis, video creation. Practically every day, tens of thousands of new compositions are uploaded to platforms, whose author is not a human, but a machine.
New risks—fraud and social threats
The emergence of realistic synthetic voices and texts gives rise to new threats. For example, recently there were reports of fraudsters who used AI-generated voices and text messages to impersonate high-ranking officials and correspond with foreign ministers.
Experts point out that the spread of artificial content increases the risks of cybercrime. The same technologies can create both music and tools for deception and manipulation, which requires attention from society and regulators.
Final reflections and open questions
The music industry is experiencing an unexpected turn: artificial intelligence not only helps, but also independently creates new hits. On the one hand, this makes music even more accessible and diverse. On the other—it puts listeners before a choice: what to trust and whom to consider real artists.
With each passing day, the line between the real and the virtual becomes ever thinner. It is worth considering: what does it mean to be a musician today if even success can be programmed? How will our perception of creativity change if algorithms are capable of creating entire groups? There is still no clear answer to these questions, but observing the development of technology and forming one’s own point of view is a task relevant to everyone who loves music.
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