By India McCarty
Seventies rock-inspired band The Velvet Sundown were on track to be the next big thing, until their big secret was revealed: the band and their music were created by AI.
“The Velvet Sundown is a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence,” an X post from the band explained. “Not quite human. Not quite machine. The Velvet Sundown lives somewhere in between.”
The post said the band’s music wasn’t a trick but “a mirror…designed to challenge the boundaries of authorship, identity, and the future of music itself in the age of AI.”
The Velvet Sundown is a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence.
This isn’t a trick – it’s a mirror. An ongoing artistic provocation designed to challenge the boundaries of… pic.twitter.com/8qwoFFOPNx
— The Velvet Sundown (@tvs_music) July 5, 2025
The Velvet Sundown launched last month with debut album Floating on Echoes and quickly racked up over a million monthly listeners. Their song “Dust on the Wind” boasts 1.2 million streams. A second album, Paper Sun Rebellion, drops July 14.
While The Velvet Sundown’s popularity might seem like a funny trick that fooled people around the world, experts warn about what this might mean for those in creative industries.
“When an act like The Velvet Sundown racks up more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify, it punctures the long-held belief that writing songs that move people is a uniquely human talent,” Dr. Fabian Stephany, an assistant professor for AI and Work at the University of Oxford, told Newsweek. “If algorithms can now evoke emotion, we have to (once again) rethink what truly separates human and machine creativity.”
He continued, “The bigger story is what this experiment says about the evolving division of labour. You can’t simply type create a viral rock band and watch the royalties roll in…AI doesn’t write the hit on autopilot but it might turn one skilled creator into a ten-person studio.”
Related: Record Labels Sue AI Music Companies for Copyright Infringement
Stephany did point out that The Velvet Sundown’s popularity might be more due to “curiosity” rather than a genuine love of the music.
“Whether audiences stay once the novelty fades will depend on honest storytelling and sustained quality,” he concluded. “What’s certain is that we’ll see similar AI-human hybrids in film, fashion and even stand-up comedy. The music world is simply the latest canary in the coalmine.”
Many artists have spoken out against the use of AI in the music industry. Last year, over 200 artists signed an open letter, distributed by the Artists Rights Alliance, denouncing the technology.
“We, the undersigned members of the artist and songwriting communities, call on AI developers, technology companies, platforms and digital music services to cease the use of artificial intelligence to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists,” the letter stated.
It continued, “Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and in a manner that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere.”
The Velvet Sundown’s quick rise to the top of the streaming charts is yet another sign that AI is becoming more ingrained in every part of our lives — and it’s getting better at fooling us.
Read Next: Producer Scammed Millions of Dollars Through AI Music. He Was Just Arrested.
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