The Velvet Sundown: When aesthetic judgment capitulates to AI music
AI-powered rock band The Velvet Sundown already has over a million monthly listeners on Spotify. Their popularity has intrigued video game designer and academic Ian Bogost. This “unremarkable” music reveals how streaming has accustomed us to listening to bland tracks, he writes in “The Atlantic.”
The cars become fewer and fewer as I drive further out of Chicago and along Interstate 90. Farms and trees dot the horizon. My rental car speakers, playing Spotify music from my cell phone, emit the first riff of a psychedelic rock song. The following lyrics, in a folk vibrato, capture my mood: “Smoke in the sky / Peace is nowhere to be found,” the singer intones.
Except he doesn't really sing, because he doesn't exist. Neither does the band, The Velvet Sundown. The music, lyrics, and album cover are the products of artificial intelligence (AI). The same goes for the band's photos. "They say we're not real. But maybe you're not real either," The Velvet Sundown retorts on social media.
Still, the band is a hit: after two albums released in June, a third is in the pipeline. With [more than 1.2 million monthly listeners as of July 11, 2025] on Spotify, they're outperforming Martika, a major MTV star in the late 1980s, or hard-bop jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley.
And his music? Well, it's not bad. Not really good either. In fact, it's
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Courrier International
