The Velvet Sundown, the fictitious “band” that has become viral after having attracted more than 750 thousand monthly listeners on Spotify, admitted to having used the Suno generative artificial intelligence platform to create its own music. The move, he says to Rolling A spokesman for the group is an “artistic mockery”. Before now, and after various media have written about their strange popularity, the “band” had repeatedly denied and firmly used the IA. But now Andrew Frelon, pseudonym of the spokesperson and “added member” of the group, admits that “it is all marketing, it is a trollata. People didn't care about what we did, now suddenly we are talking to Rolling Stone. Maybe we didn't make a mistake. “
“The artistic mockery sticks me,” explains Frelon. «The Leeds 13, a group of art students from the United Kingdom, were, like, of the fake photos while spent the money of the scholarship on the beach or something. It was a huge scandal. They are interesting phenomena … we live in a world where fake things can have a greater impact than real ones. It is absurd, but it is the reality with which we have to deal with. Should we ignore it? Should we ignore everything that is placed on the spectrum between the truth and the false, and that mixes the two? Or should we throw ourselves into the fray and make it become the emerging native language of the Internet? ».
During our phone call, Frelon initially argued that the IA had been used only in the process of creating music. He then admitted the use of Suno, but “not in the final product”. Finally he recognized that some songs (“I don't want to say which») were generated with Suno. “I didn't tell anyone else.” Frelon also confirmed the use of the person person of Suno – the same used by Timbaland for his controversial fictitious artist Tata – to ensure that the singer's voice was consistent in the various songs. However, it continues to argue that it was not used in all songs.
Some wondered if there has been any form of manipulation of the playlists to grow the number of listeners of the Velvet Sundown on Spotify. Frelon dodges the question. «I don't manage things behind the scenes of Spotify, so I can't say for sure what happened. I know we ended up in some playlists with a lot of followers and from there things have grown ». Were the playlists used to push the “band”? “I don't have an answer to give you because I'm not involved. I don't want to say not real things ».
The debate around the Velvet Sundown began in June, when two “group” albums suddenly appeared on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and other streaming platforms. A band that nobody had ever heard of, and who did not seem to have any presence on the internet, suddenly found himself with hundreds of thousands of listeners making music described as “a fusion between psychedelic textures of the 70s, kinematic and analogue soul pop”.
How real is all this? Songs like Dust on the Wind They seem a generic version of the 70s rock and the “photographs” of the group seem clearly generated by the AI, Deezer added the disclaimer to their album “some tracks may have been created using artificial intelligence”. According to the Music Ally website, most of the Spotify playlists in which the band appeared from just four accounts. And nobody knows exactly how the band catalog ended up in a playlist of songs on the war in Vietnam.
At the beginning of this week, the “band” replied on X stating that it is “absolutely crazy that the so -called journalists continue to support the lazy and unfounded theory that the Velvet Sundays would be generated by the AI, without having any proof … it is not a joke. This is our music, written during long sweaty nights in a small bungalow in California, with real tools, real minds and real soul “(” Then make an appearance on live TV “, replied a user,” try it, make a real video “, wrote another).
Spotify has no rule that limits music generated by artificial intelligence. In the past, says Glenn McDonald, a former spatify given alchemist, “fake listeners were a bigger problem than false music, now perhaps it is the opposite”. The visibility of the Velvet Sundown on the platform could be according to McDonald the result of several factors, including the changes of the criteria with which Spotify recommends music for users, criteria that have moved away from “understandable algorithms based on real human listening and on the communities” to orient themselves towards systems guided by the AI who “can choose songs to be recommended on the characteristics of the sound”.
Put together, says McDonald, these factors “increase the causality of the system, putting less arguments to the fact that a fake band is successful. Most of the fake bands In any case, it does not achieve success, and of course no one notices it if a group created with the IA has not listeners, but there are no arguments against the fact that it can happen. And probably, from the commercial point of view of Spotify, it is not even clear that it is a phenomenon against which one should protect ourselves “(a spokesman for Spotify has refused to release a comment).
The Velvet Sundown have attracted attention “because they are generated by the AI, not because the music is exceptional”, says an A&R sector veteran who asked to remain anonymous. «It doesn't seem authentic stuff. Having said that, it is clearly only a matter of time before the IA creates a real hit. I am not yet convinced that he can create an artist with a lasting success. In my opinion, however, sooner or later a successful song that the public will love will appear. Someone will reveal that it was created by the AI, but at that point no one will care more, because they already love the song “.
According to Frelon, music fans should accept the AI -based tools. Fear towards them, he says, is exaggerated. “People have strong feelings on the subject and respect it, but it is important to allow artists to experience new technologies and new tools, try different things. You don't have to panic just because someone uses or does not use a certain program. You don't have to please everyone and follow the rules, that's not how music and culture progress. If they go on it is thanks to those who make strange experiments that sometimes work and sometimes not. This is our spirit ».
From Rolling Stone Us.
