AI 'Band' the Velvet Sundown Used Suno, Is an 'Art Hoax,' Spokesperson Admits
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Source: Rolling Stone
The Velvet Sundown, an obviously fictional “band” that’s gone viral after somehow racking up more than 500,000 monthly listeners on Spotify out of nowhere, used the generative-AI platform Suno in the creation of their songs, and consider themselves an “art hoax,” a band spokesperson reveals to Rolling Stone. On their X account, the “band” fervently and repeatedly denied any AI usage after multiple media outlets reported on their mysterious popularity — but pseudonymous band spokesperson and “adjunct” member Andrew Frelon now admits, “It’s marketing. It’s trolling. People before, they didn’t care about what we did, and now suddenly, we’re talking to Rolling Stone, so it’s like, ‘Is that wrong?'”
“Personally, I’m interested in art hoaxes,” Frelon continues. “The Leeds 13, a group of art students in the U.K., made, like, fake photos of themselves spending scholarship money at a beach or something like that, and it became a huge scandal. I think that stuff’s really interesting.… 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. So it’s like, ‘Should we ignore that reality? Should we ignore these things that kind of exist on a continuum of real versus fake or kind of a blend between the two? Or should we dive into it and just let it be the emerging native language of the internet?'”
In the phone conversation Tuesday morning, Frelon originally maintained that AI was used only in brainstorming for the music, then admitted to the use of Suno but “not in the final product,” and finally came to acknowledge that at least some songs (“I don’t want to say which ones”) are Suno-generated. “I haven’t admitted that to anyone else,” Frelon says. He also acknowledged employing Suno’s “Persona” feature — the same one Timbaland is using with his controversial AI artist TaTa — to maintain a consistent singer’s voice across songs, although he continues to claim that’s not the case on every track.
Some observers have wondered whether some kind of playlist manipulation was used to build Velvet Sundown’s Spotify listenership, but Frelon dodged that question. “ I’m not running the Spotify backend stuff, so I can’t super speak to exactly how that happened,” he says. “I know we got on some playlists that just have like tons of followers, and it seems to have spiraled from there.” Did Frelon and his associates use playlists of their own to boost the process? “I don’t have an answer that I can give to you for that because I’m not involved,” he says. “And I don’t want to say something that’s not true.”
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Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/velvet-sundown-ai-band-suno-1235377652/
I posted about this fake band in GD this morning:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220452288
This "confession" by an anonymous person looks to me like an attempt to get Spotify off the hook for AI-enabled fraud, putting this AI slop on popular playlists. The only reason it got there was a decision by a person or persons at Spotify trying to see how successful this fraud would be.
They could no longer survive the media scrutiny, it would be too embarrassing to admit it was a corporate decision (though Ted Gioia and Rick Beato discussed Spotify planting.AI crap on playlists a year ago). So.suddenly a previously unmentioned and anonymous spokesperson for the band makes a confession, but has no idea how their AI slop got on those playlists.
= new reply since forum marked as read
