'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,/9j/2wBDAAYEBQYFBAYGBQYHBwYIChAKCgkJChQODwwQFxQYGBcUFhYaHSUfGhsjHBYWICwgIyYnKSopGR8tMC0oMCUoKSj/2wBDAQcHBwoIChMKChMoGhYaKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCj/wgARCAAHAAoDASIAAhEBAxEB/8QAFgABAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYI/8QAFQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH/2gAMAwEAAhADEAAAAM8zgn//xAAfEAABAwUAAwAAAAAAAAAAAAARAgMSAAEEEyEGFSL/2gAIAQEAAT8Ax/Ut+LLfcQyvLvlaUt/e6MDMxhE8BNXB5yv/xAAUEQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA/9oACAECAQE/AH//xAAWEQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABABH/2gAIAQMBAT8ADL//2Q=='%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
On Saturday, July 5, an indie rock band called The Velvet Sundown admitted to be AI-generated and not a real one through a social media post and by also updating its Spotify bio. This band became popular since its debut album Floating on Echoes was released on June 5, 2025.
The tweet began by stating that The Velvet Sundown was neither human nor machine, but something living in between.
"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 authorship, identity, and the future of music itself in the age of AI," their tweet added.
Trending
The tweet further suggested that their music, character, stories, and every other factor related to the band had been generated using artificial intelligence. This revelation by the apparent band was done after they gained about a million monthly listeners on Spotify.
According to The Post, the band had been releasing album at an oddly and inhumanly pace. Notably, they released two albums in June and were set to drop one this month.
The band members' photos further looked unnaturally smooth and matte. Upon looking at the images more minutely, it could be noticed that a guitarist's fingers seemed strange. These usually could be considered as the most determining factors behind AI content.
Some of their popular tracks were Drift Beyond the Flame and Dust on the Wind. Between June 29 and July 1, Dust on the Wind topped the Spotify's daily "Viral 50" chart across Britain, Norway, and Sweden.
An X account claiming to be The Velvet Sundown's official account declared that they were not AI-generated
While The Velvet Sundown revealed that they were not a real band, another X account surfaced that initially claimed otherwise in the past. The X account in question with the handle, Velvet Sundown (Real Band Not The AI One), tweeted that there were no evidence to prove that the indie rock band was unreal. According to a tweet posted by this account on June 29:
"Absolutely crazy that so-called 'journalists' keep pushing the lazy, baseless theory that The Velvet Sundown is 'AI-generated' with zero evidence."
The tweet further suggested that the writers penning down the narrative that they were fake, had never reached out to them in the first place. This account further wrote in their X bio that they were a real group of people and not AI-generated.
In follow-up tweets, the account claimed that they had worked hard for a long time to come up with the music. According to the tweet, the band worked together to make music in a bungalow in California. In one of the tweets, they even called out several writers and journalists and accused then of spreading the false narrative of them not being real humans.
The account further suggested that they had also been facing harassment since the "narrative" began spreading on the internet.
On July 10, the X account uploaded another tweet that included a photo which again seemed to be AI-generated. The caption of the photo read:
"Just some totally real dudes keeping it totally real as we fly to our next exciting & important business meeting!"
Last week, Medium published an article that reported that an individual identified as Andrew Frelon (not real name) was behind the fake X account of The Velvet Sundown.
Why did "Andrew Frelon" create the fake X account pretending to be The Velvet Sundown?
As aformentioned, Andrew Frelon was behind the fake X page of the AI-generated indie rock band. Frelon revealed that he first came across this band on June 29 and noticed that they were gaining traction on social media after claims of them being unreal surfaced on the internet.
Felon added that he too had a similar plan in mind, where he wanted to launch an AI-generated band and earn money on platforms like Spotify. Andrew Frelon even had an interview with Rolling Stone, in which he said:
"We live in a world now where things that are fake have sometimes even more impact than things that are real. And that’s messed up, but that’s the reality that we face now."
As far as the real The Velvet Sundown is concerned, it is unclear if they will face any consequences for being AI-generated and sharing music on Spotify.
