A newly-emerged, seemingly AI-generated band called The Velvet Sundown has hit a staggering 400,000 monthly listeners on Spotify—just three weeks after debuting its first album in early June 2025
🚀 How They Rose So Fast
- The Velvet Sundown launched two albums—Floating On Echoes (June 5) and Dust and Silence (June 20)—before rapidly climbing the charts
- Despite claiming to be a four-piece psych-rock group, no verifiable info exists, and their Instagram visuals appear AI-generated, sparking crowd curiosity
- Music Ally reported they had already reached around 325,000 monthly listeners by June 26—a figure that climbed even further in the next week
Why This Sparks Concern
- The emergence mirrors a broader trend: AI‑generated artists accumulating hundreds of thousands of streams without real-world presence
- Many such acts share suspicious traits—lack of bios, odd vocals, auto‑generated art—but still get Verified Artist status on Spotify
- This flood of AI music raises major concerns for human artists, who are losing visibility—and royalties—to these synthetic creators
Spotify Struggles with AI-Generated Music
- Spotify has begun removing tens of thousands of AI-generated tracks after fraud investigations, but estimates suggest this accounts for just 7% of Boomy-uploaded content
- Deezer, by contrast, tags “some tracks… may have been created using artificial intelligence” on artist profiles
- Spotify CEO Daniel Ek affirmed they won’t ban AI music outright but will prohibit impersonation of real artists getcoai.com.
What This Means for Music’s Future
| Impact Area | Effect |
|---|---|
| Artists | AI acts competing for algorithmic recommendations may reduce exposure and royalties for humans . |
| Platforms | Spotify must enhance detection of fake streams, suspicious uploads, and bot farms . |
| Listeners | Fans may unknowingly support nonexistent artists, contributing to a distorted streaming ecosystem. |
Final Take
The Velvet Sundown’s explosive rise is part of a growing wave of AI-generated music flooding platforms like Spotify. With AI bands gaining hundreds of thousands of listeners quickly, the platform and regulators face mounting pressure to ensure fair play and preserve human creativity.
