That psychedelic rock rhythm may sound like something you heard in the 1970s. Those carefully arranged layers of instruments may remind you of bands like The National. And in the intimate atmosphere surrounding Dust on the Wind, you may find echoes of the classic Dust in the Wind by Kansas. Because, indeed, all of that is in the music of The Velvet Sundown, one of the viral phenomena of the last month on digital platforms.
But, before we continue, a slight detail. None of this seems to be true, even though it may have seemed so at some point. Beyond some images developed with artificial intelligence, with that unmistakable toasted tone, nothing is known about the singer Gabe Farrow. Nor about his bandmates Lennie West, Milo Rains, and Orion Del Mar. Not a single image that allows tracking the four members of the group beyond those shown on their social media. And always the four together.
The first musical clue of The Velvet Sundown dates back to June 5, when the album Floating and Echoes arrived on Spotify. Just two weeks later, on the 20th, a second one appeared on the platform: Dust and Silence. And, according to a counter on their profile, a third one, Paper Sun Rebellion, will be released on July 14. Various facts indicate that all of them have also been created with AI.
The platform Deezer, which has technology to detect the use of AI, warned that in their two albums there are "some songs that may have been created using artificial intelligence." A study conducted by the French Ircam Amplify, a subsidiary of the prestigious Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, with its verifier and shared with the portal Music Ally, detected that 10 out of the 13 songs on the album Dust and Silence are made 100% with that technology, probably with the Suno 4.5 program. The same program is the one that a band spokesperson told Rolling Stone they had used to create their music - although in a blog, that same spokesperson, under the false name of Andrew Frelon, claimed to have invented his relationship with the group.
Despite all the evidence surrounding the use of AI to create this music, with the ensuing moral debate it arouses, the streams on Spotify keep growing. On Monday, they were around 500,000 monthly listeners; by Wednesday, they had already surpassed 600,000; yesterday, they were over 750,000, and that trend seems to be increasing. These are numbers higher than those of established indie artists in Spain like Iván Ferreiro or Lori Meyers and close to those of Zahara.
They have had a little help with this. The Velvet Sundown has made it onto some playlists with a significant audience on the streaming platform. Two are particularly striking and managed by the profile Extra Music: one about the Vietnam War, with over 630,000 followers, which has nothing to do with the band beyond that 70s vibe; and a second one, with over 210,000 followers, focused on positive music to start the day, where the band's music also doesn't fit. Both playlists have featured over a dozen tracks from this anonymous group.
Meanwhile, the band's social media accounts are busy releasing statements denying that their songs and images are the result of AI, although the facts seem to contradict those claims. On Instagram, there are three accounts with the band's name. In one, only a video of the upcoming album is shown along with two statements denouncing identity theft. In another, there are a dozen photographs of the members, a couple of them recreating the iconic scenes from Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Abbey Road by the Beatles, with the aesthetics of those created with this technology. But, for now, the streams keep growing.