Rarely has a band garnered so much global attention without performing concerts, interviews, or showing a verifiable identity. The Velvet Sundown has managed to overcome the 900.000 monthly listeners on Spotify in a few weeks, but far from being a traditional group, the project is completely digital: neither its members, nor its songs, nor even its images really exist, since everything has been created using artificial intelligence.
What began as a curiosity became a viral phenomenon and the center of an intense debate about Authenticity and the limits of digital creativityThe case has perplexed both listeners and music industry professionals, who are now wondering how far it is possible to distinguish the real from the synthetic in today's music landscape.
A group with millions of views and no physical existence
The history of this band is, to say the least, enigmatic. The Velvet Sundown hit platforms like Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, and YouTube in early June 2025., successively releasing their albums 'Floating on Echoes' and 'Dust and Silence'. Just a few days later, they announced their next album, 'Paper Sun Rebellion'. The credits for each song feature only the band's name, with no trace of any human authors.
Its promotional images, also generated by AI, show four men supposedly members: Gabe Farrow (vocalist), Lennie West (guitarist), Milo Rains (bass and synthesizers), and Orion "Rio" Del Mar (percussion). However, none of them have an actual social media presence or previous experience in the music industry. The digital portraits themselves exhibit AI-typical anomalies, such as strange features or inaccurate visual details.
The musical style of The Velvet Sundown transits between the melodic indie, dream pop and soft psychedelia, with calming guitars, synthetic male vocals, and nostalgic lyrics. These songs have entered major playlists and auto-recommendations, increasing the intrigue surrounding their rapid rise.
Confusion and deception: the false spokesperson and the official statement
The enigma was accentuated when the magazine Rolling Stone published an interview with a supposed spokesperson for the group, Andrew FrelonThis individual claimed that all the music had been created almost entirely with the tool Suno, an artificial intelligence platform that can transform text into melodies. A few days later, Frelon himself confessed that His identity and his connection to the gang were fictitious, and that his interview was part of an experiment to confuse and test the credulity of the media.
The situation led to the verified page of The Velvet Sundown Spotify published its own statement, denying any relationship with Frelon, with the X accounts (formerly Twitter) that claimed to represent them, and warning about fake interviews and profiles created to impersonate them. The band formally denounced attempts at appropriation and misrepresentation, further blurring the line between reality and fiction surrounding the phenomenon.
The role of artificial intelligence in music: opportunities and risks
The case of The Velvet Sundown It's just the tip of a growing iceberg: AI tools like Suno and Udio are already capable of generating melodies, lyrics, and even artificial voices in seconds. This type of technology puts on the table ethical, legal and creative dilemmas for streaming giants, who must decide to what extent they will allow the proliferation of content generated without direct human intervention.
While the platform Deezer He was blunt and described the group's music as "100% AI-generated." Spotify has preferred not to make public comments. Its CEO, Daniel Ek, stated on the BBC that they do not plan to ban this type of music., unless it directly imitates real artists. This legal and regulatory loophole leaves open the question of how to identify (and manage) this content to protect both listeners and the actual musical creators.
Copyright concerns and industry reaction
The phenomenon of The Velvet Sundown has set off alarm bells in the music industry and among copyright groups. Artists such as Elton John and Dua Lipa have unsuccessfully urged the British Government to legislate to prevent the use of original works as training for artificial intelligence systems without permission or compensation to the human authors.
Organizations like Fairly Trained and British BPI They believe that this case highlights a latent concern: the risk of “theft disguised as competition,” in the words of Ed Newton-Rex, founder of Fairly Trained, and the misinformation that can spread in a digital environment.
Experts such as Gina Neff, a professor at the University of Cambridge, warn that the situation goes beyond music and affects our ability to distinguish the real from the artificial in cultural and social spheres, exacerbating the erosion of authenticity in the age of AI.
For now, the phantom band continues to rack up views and expand the debate around music generated by artificial intelligence. Cities like Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo, London and Stockholm top The Velvet Sundown's listening statistics., confirming that the phenomenon has reached different parts of the planet.