The Velvet Sundown
The Velvet Sundown | |
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| Genres | |
| Years active | 2025–present |
| Members |
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The Velvet Sundown is a psychedelic rock band formed in 2025. The band released its debut album, Floating on Echoes, on June 5, 2025. Dust and Silence, their second album, was released shortly afterwards on June 20. The band's third album, Paper Sun Rebellion, is due to release on July 14. The band received significant media coverage around late June 2025 for its alleged use of artificial intelligence in music and promotional photos after being placed in Spotify's Discover Weekly playlists.
History
The Velvet Sundown first emerged around June 2025. The band claims four members: vocalist and mellotron player Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, bassist Milo Rains, and percussionist Orion "Rio" Del Mar.[1] Their debut album, Floating on Echoes, was released on June 5, 2025.[2] Their second album, Dust and Silence, released shortly after on June 20.[3] The covers for both albums consist of a floating eye and a staircase in a desert terrain.[4] The Velvet Sundown's third album, Paper Sun Rebellion, is set to release on July 14, 2025.[4] The band's most popular song is "Dust on the Wind", having been streamed nearly half a million times on Spotify as of July 1.[5] The song was compared by Siôn Geschwindt of The Next Web to the 1977 song "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas.[6]
Towards the end of June, The Velvet Sundown had almost over 550 thousand monthly listeners on Spotify.[1] Their music is distributed using DistroKid.[3] Beyond their Spotify profile, little information about The Velvet Sundown is known.[7] An Instagram account for the band was created around June 27.[1]
Style
The Velvet Sundown has been variously described by journalists as psychedelic rock,[lower-alpha 1] neo-psychedelia, folk rock,[9] indie rock,[6] and roots rock with influences of country music.[10] The band has described their own music as "70s psychedelic alt-rock and folk rock",[7] as well as "cinematic alt-pop and dreamy analogue soul."[11] Graham Barlow of TechRadar felt that it was influenced by various country rock bands, such as the Eagles and The Allman Brothers Band.[4]
Reception
Barlow described The Velvet Sundown's music as "soulless" and "generic" and noted the incohesiveness between each song.[4] Alex Baker of KRON-TV stated that while their music lacked "musical depth", it was not completely distinct from "the sort of sound that was popular in Los Angeles' Silver Lake neighborhood back in the '00s."[9] Christianna Silva, writing for Mashable, felt that although "the lyrics lack specificity, and the music itself lacks depth", she thought it was "kind of" "fine music".[12]
Accusations of artificial intelligence
The Velvet Sundown has received sharp criticism from music journalists and Internet users due to allegations that their music was generated using artificial intelligence (AI).[1] Speculation first arose after Reddit users noticed the band in their Discover Weekly playlists, which are chosen by Spotify's algorithm,[1] and were unable to find much information about the band.[11] Music journalists have noted the band's lack of a digital footprint[10][3][5][4] and absence of live performances as possible indicators of its fictionality.[2] Both Matt Mullen of MusicRadar and Fraser Lewry of Louder Sound suggested that the music was created using Suno AI, with Mullen stating that the band's music "bears the unmistakably lo-fi veneer of a Suno creation".[10][8] Music journalists also noted that several images posted by the band were possibly AI-generated.[lower-alpha 2] In one of these images, a guitarist is missing a finger. Another image, a recreation of the cover for The Beatles' Abbey Road, shows each band member as the same height, with one appearing to wear two different shoes.[5] Jaeden Pinder of Consequence described the images as "yellow-tinted, smoothed-over, and hyperrealistic".[7] The Spotify description for The Velvet Sundown also included a fabricated quote from Billboard, calling the band's sound as "the memory of something you never lived, and somehow [making] it feel real."[11][1]
Spotify does not require its artists to disclose AI-generated music.[7] On Deezer, as well as on several posts on the band's Instagram account, The Velvet Sundown's artist page is marked as having possibly been created using AI.[7][2] The Velvet Sundown has denied claims that the band is AI-generated on Twitter, calling it a "lazy, baseless theory", and stating that their music is "written in long, sweaty nights in a cramped bungalow in California with real instruments, real minds, and real soul."[4][9] On July 2, in an interview with Rolling Stone, an individual posing as a spokesperson for the band, identifying himself under the pseudonym Andrew Frelon, described The Velvet Sundown as an "art hoax" and admitted to using Suno to generate some songs, but refused to specify which ones.[13] The following day, Frelon admitted to being an impostor, saying that he had taken advantage of the band's lack of a digital footprint and created fake social media accounts with the goal of "testing journalists".[14]
Discography
- Floating on Echoes (2025)
- Dust and Silence (2025)
- Paper Sun Rebellion (2025)
Notes and references
Notes
- ↑ Attributed to the San Francisco Chronicle,[1] Consequence,[7] PC Gamer,[2] Stereogum,[3] and Louder Sound.[8]
- ↑ Attributed to Stereogum,[3] The Music,[5] Consequence,[7] TechRadar,[4] and The Next Web.[6]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Vaziri, Aidin (June 30, 2025). "Suspected AI band Velvet Sundown hits 550K Spotify listeners in weeks". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Kinghorn, Jess (June 30, 2025). "Psych-rock band The Velvet Sundown racks up well over 400,000 Spotify listens within a month, but very quickly turns out to be AI-generated". PC Gamer. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Chelosky, Danielle (June 28, 2025). "AI-Generated Psych-Rock Band The Velvet Sundown Rack Up Hundreds Of Thousands Of Spotify Streams". Stereogum. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Barlow, Graham (June 30, 2025). "Spotify's latest breakout band The Velvet Sundown appears to be AI-generated – and fans aren't happy". TechRadar. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Varvaris, Mary (July 1, 2025). "New Band The Velvet Sundown Appears On Streaming, Allegedly A Product Of AI". The Music. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Geschwindt, Siôn (June 30, 2025). "A viral band on Spotify is probably AI — but there's no label to tell you". The Next Web. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 Pinder, Jaeden (June 30, 2025). "AI-Generated Band Already Boast Over 500,000 Monthly Spotify Listeners". Consequence. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lewry, Fraser (July 1, 2025). "There's a band with more than half a million monthly listeners on Spotify and they probably don't exist". Louder Sound. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Baker, Alex (June 30, 2025). "Suspected AI band, The Velvet Sundown, has breakout month on Spotify". KRON-TV. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Mullen, Matt (June 27, 2025). ""There's not a shred of evidence on the internet that this band has ever existed": This apparently AI-generated artist is racking up hundreds of thousands of Spotify streams". MusicRadar. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Molloy, Laura (June 29, 2025). "Seemingly AI-generated band The Velvet Sundown have over 400,000 monthly Spotify listeners". NME. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ Silva, Christianna (June 28, 2025). "Is The Velvet Sundown an AI-generated band?". Mashable. Retrieved July 1, 2025.
- ↑ Browne, David; Hiatt, Brian (July 2, 2025). "AI 'Band' the Velvet Sundown Used Suno, Is an 'Art Hoax,' Spokesperson Admits". Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 3, 2025.
- ↑ Hiatt, Brian (July 3, 2025). "'Spokesperson' for AI 'Band' Velvet Sundown Now Says He's a Hoaxer". Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 6, 2025.
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