Have you heard of Velvet Sundown? It's a band that's supposedly generated through AI

[True Dough]

What do you think of this music? Does it bother you that it's created through artificial intelligence, or do you enjoy it despite that?

[hlthe2b]

1. OMG... "DUST ON the WIND" as opposed to Kansas' "Dust IN the Wind?" Are you kidding me?

I think that observation tells you how I feel about it. Cheap rip-offs that serve no one except some unethical untalented exploiter's bank account.

I want nothing to do with AI-generated music unless there is a real genuine way to both protect the artists and to get FULL buy-in from the artists--so just a tool THEY CHOOSE to use to aid in their own creativity. Otherwise, I guess I am done buying music.

[highplainsdem]

12. See reply 11 below. It's likely Spotify created this.

[debm55]

27. I thought I hit the wrong button, That is nothing like the Kansas original at all. I don't like it.

[NBachers]

2. My Youtube algorithm has put a lot of 50's/60's radio-pop type woman singers in front of me. The pictures look just

like what a 1963 American Bandstand-type Top 40 singer would look like. The music and lyrics are true to the genre. After listening to a few, I've found that YouTube is now seeding more and more of them into my open pages. I've decided not to listen to them anymore. This music will probably get more common and more better, but I'll hold off for now. It's quite interesting how well it's done, but I've got plenty of authentic real original music by real people to listen to.

[highplainsdem]

14. A lot of YouTubers who are apparently never hindered by ethics are now creating AI music that can be created

only because the AI companies stole all the copyrighted music they could, and often those YTers will either suggest THEY created it or they'll invent a fake artist to go with the fake music.

There's a good chance in this case that Spotify created it. See reply 11.

[johnp3907]

3. There's just no substitute for autotuned vocals over prefab backing tracks!

I mean, I can't help but wonder how many of the people who rail against this kind of thing are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to basically watch famous people do karaoke?

[FalloutShelter]

4. I am disgusted by the complete and total degradation is the arts

By AI
I am an artist and an author and we are getting carpet bombed with AI Slop that is making it impossible to get out works seen let alone sold.

Fuck AI

[LuvLoogie]

5. So I maybe listened to one verse of each song.

I mean there is no hook to any of it. Assembled words and chords over plodding tempos. I was not curious enough to invest any more time into listening. Not because it might be AI, but because it just wasn't interesting.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. I Think The Word You're Looking For Is...

...crap. Every one of those songs are dreck.
And, if you listen to details, I'm not thinking it's AI. I'm 99.9% sure it is.
The guitars are too robotic and there are weird overtones that would happen when sampling guitars out of an existing mix. The overtones are from the things that are not guitar.
Rick Beato did a thing where he isolated the tracks. The guitar is definitely not an actual guitar.
The vocals have a weird howl whenever the chord change goes opposite the direction of the melody.
They are bad songs that sound bad.

[LudwigPastorius]

6. "Does it bother you that it's created through artificial intelligence..."

Yes, because somebody is making money from it, and that somebody is NOT the very real musicians/producers/recording engineers that created the music that the AI model was trained on. (i.e. the music that was stolen without permission)

I wouldn't be surprised in the least to learn that Spotify itself created this AI "band" so that it doesn't have to share a dime of the revenue it gets from streaming this slop.

[highplainsdem]

13. Agree completely, including that it's likely Spotify did this. See reply 11.

[highplainsdem]

21. A comment I found on Rick Beato's video about this explains how Spotify is forcing this AI slop on people:

Spotify seems to be actively pushing this “band.” I have a playlist called “Vietnam War Music” that I listen to frequently. About two weeks ago, all of these songs by The Velvet Sundown start being played. Like, a lot. Every fifth or sixth song. I’d never heard of them, and it sorta sounded 60s’ish, but something was definitely off. So I googled them and found they’re from, wait for it, 2025. Spotify has them slammed ALL OVER that playlist now (they weren’t as of three weeks ago). Clearly, Spotify is involved.

[LudwigPastorius]

23. Interesting

Thanks

[highplainsdem]

24. You're welcome. I think Spotify's treatment of most artists is outrageous. And not identifying AI slop

is fraud, especially when they add it to playlists. They're testing to see how much they can get away with.

[JoseBalow]

7. Do you WANT to be scolded by the SlopBot?

You playin' with fire, son!

[True Dough]

8. I'm just the messenger on a lil ol' discussion forum

where we can all share our opinions.

Your anger can be rightfully directed at "SlopBot" itself.

[highplainsdem]

10. See my reply for JoseBalow. Same questions for you.

[JoseBalow]

15. I agree, we're all here to share whatever interests us

I'm not angry at all... I'm a lover, not a fighter!

[True Dough]

17. You're certainly okay by me, Jose!

I'm not advocating for AI music or AI anything. But it's a real force that is starting to envelope us. It cannot be ignored. Best to exchange ideas and feelings about it, IMO.

[JoseBalow]

20. Ya, some things are inevitable and unavoidable

I tried to warn you!

[highplainsdem]

9. Since we don't have a SlopBot here, would you please stop using childish insults to object to people

who don't like AI slop and explain which DUer you mean?

And since you want to insult people who see AI slop as harmful, would you please explain why you think slop being posted on DU should be just fine?

[JoseBalow]

16. Nah, I'm good

[highplainsdem]

18. No, you're not. Not funny, either. AI slop generated by illegally trained AI tools might be a joke to

you, but it isn't to all the people whose intellectual property was stolen. But you're apparently fine with it.

[JoseBalow]

19. Oh no!

[highplainsdem]

11. I ran across Rick Beato's video about this last night - I'll post that at the end of this reply - and had

planned to post about "Velvet Sundown" this morning, but logged in to see you already had. Beato is also sure it's AI, btw, and he isn't happy about whoever is behind this AI slop getting paid off the work of other people whose music was stolen to train the AI.

What do you think of this music?

It's homogenized crap. AI slop created only through the theft of all the copyrighted music the AI model used could be trained on.

Does it bother you that it's created through artificial intelligence, or do you enjoy it despite that?

If it DOESN'T bother you that generative AI was trained via the theft of the world's intellectual property, then you're giving a thumbs up to the theft and are trying for an ethics-free and conscience-free discussion of something that exists only because of that theft.

LudwigPastorius (reply 6) isn't the only person who suspects Spotify created this and is doing so to trick customers and fill up playlists with music they own and can use without paying royalties. (Spotify has already been filling up playlists with mediocre music that's apparently work for hire that they had created so they wouldn't have to pay royalties. I posted about Rick Beato's video on that a year or two ago.)

So this is a two-pronged attack on real music by real artists - first by using illegally trained AI, and then by diverting their users' attention to fake music Spotify owns and through that stealing revenue from real artists on Spotify.

If you think that's defensible, I'd like to hear that defense.

Editing to add a short clip from the earlier Rick Beato video I referred to above:

Editing again to link to a DU thread from last December about another way Spotify harms musicians and exploits users not caring enough about who created the music:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219837180

[malthaussen]

33. Then again, how do real musicians train?

One part is listening to the works of others, often imitating it to see how it works, and then trying to put something together which is in their own voice, yet still shows the influences of their source material, especially in the first attempts. And the creators of that source material are rarely compensated for this study. Generative AI just uses much more source material, accessed much more quickly than a human could, and then uses it to produce homogenized crap that is rarely listenable (or readable, if writing, or viewable, if art).

So no, I don't really find the way AI music draws its influences to be particularly bad. What's bad is the crap it generates, and the way the owners of such homogenized crap try to shove it down people's throats without even telling them it's AI. And sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, because so much of human-made music these days is homogenized crap to begin with. This is all a continuation of the desire of the engineers to remove humans from the equation in just about any field. And to downplay the importance of creativity, expertise, and hard work. It's a damned shame, but it's the direction the whole world has been heading for decades. Incremental change has just become a torrent of change, and we're drowning in crap now.

Corporate execs in the entertainment industry have always hated the talent. Generative AI is their revenge.

-- Mal

[crosinski]

25. As an average listener

I thought the melodies and singing were okay, but none of the songs made me feel anything. None of them are memorable. It does bother me that music created with AI is doing so well because that means people have rotten taste and are easy marks.

[highplainsdem]

32. See reply 21. Spotify is reportedly shoveling this slop onto people's playlists. I posted elsewhere in

the thread about things Spotify is doing to keep people listening while tricking them with stuff Spotify won't have to pay royalties for. This AI slop is part of a con.

And that's on top of the slop being churned out by AI trained illegally on stolen copyrighted music.

[Midnight Writer]

26. The difference between AI music and human music is like the difference between a relationship

with a prostitute and the relationship with a lover.

Either may trip your trigger, but only one means anything.

[True Dough]

28. Wait a minute!

You never saw Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts back in 1990?

[marble falls]

29. Think I'll pass.

[highplainsdem]

30. You're definitely not missing anything. But if you use Spotify, you might discover this AI slop is

being added to your playlists anyway. See reply 21 for a quote from one of Rick Beato's followers.

[highplainsdem]

31. Post from someone on Bluesky who says the tech be used to analyze the tracks showed they're

100% AI and made using Suno AI. Wikipedia page on him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benn_Jordan

I ran the "Velvet Sundown - Dust and Silence" album in both CD quality and 24bit/96kHz. Both passed transcode detection.

Every single track returned AI detection with 100% confidence on my AI detection algorithm chain. I have a module that detects which model was used, and all of them were Suno.

— Benn Jordan (@bennjordan.bsky.social) 2025-07-01T17:17:47.755Z

So as a journalist who also co-founded an AI rights company. There's your evidence!

They're deceptively using AI on DSPs.

I'm extremely confident of the accuracy of my algorithm. They're welcome to sue me for libel if they want to die on a very expensive hill.

— Benn Jordan (@bennjordan.bsky.social) 2025-07-01T17:17:47.756Z