Generative AI continues to penetrate every area of human creative artistry, and while image and video generation has received the most public attention, music-generating AI have been progressing at a steady pace.
There have been plenty of fun, but mostly questionable AI music attempts with people generating music and trying to make a buck by streaming it, but it’s only recently has an (allegedly) AI-generated band made a splash on the streaming charts. Whether the band really is fabricated or not, the writing is certainly on the wall.
Meet the Velvet Sundown (They Don’t Exist)
The group is known asThe Velvet Sundownwhich already sounds like an allusion to several other real bands. As for what these musos look like, well we only have these photos to go on.
This really triggers all my “AI-generated photo” alarm bells, but, of course, just because these people aren’t necessarily real doesn’t mean the music wasn’t made by a real musician or musicians. There are plenty of fictional acts (e.g.The GorillazandDethklok) with very real and talented musicians behind the veil, so it might just be that The Velvet Sundown is one dude in his bedroom making all the music.
This is probably a good time to stop and actually listen to what the music sounds like. This isDust on the Wind, which is as of this writing their most popular track, steadily on its way to two million streams.
What do you think? Does this sound AI-generated? If you’ve listened to AI-generated tracks from services likeSuno, it does feel like it has that characteristic white noise overtone, which you don’t really hear with crisp, modern music production.
That said, The Velvet Sundown’s music is in a genre where that low-fidelity aesthetic is feature, rather than a bug. Which might actually be why the first band to raise this question and actually chart on streaming services is a fuzzy psych-rock outfit.
Music expert and producerRick Beatohas an interesting take on it. He used AI software that can separate a produced track back into multi-track form with effectively no crossover and artifacts. He shows us how both old analog recordings and modern digital recordings are no issue for this software, and all the isolated tracks sound great. However, the software struggles to separate music from The Velvet Sundown back into its components. Rick seems to think that this is a pretty good indication the music is AI-generated.
Of course, just because the music has AI-generated components doesn’t mean it’s entirely AI-generated. After all, you can use AI to make parts of a song, such as just the drums or the bass, or use it to change your voice, but someone still has to sing. The Velvet Sundown could use some, all, or none of these methods. We just don’t know for sure. Personally, I’m going to assume the band’s music is AI-generated, at least in part, because, on balance, that’s what my ears tell me.
Nobody Knew (or Cared)
The thing is, the question of whether the music is AI-generated doesn’t seem to have dampened whether people like to listen to the music or not. Just look at the numbers on the page of this “verified” artist.
I’m sure some of that traffic is down to the sudden controversy the band has generated (and that might be by design), but the whole reason the band came into the spotlight was because of how many people were listening and how fast it happened. The band’s official motto seems to be “Not quite human. Not quite machine.
The Velvet Sundown lives somewhere in between.” and I think that probably alludes to the person behind the music and their use of AI tools to craft the final product.
While a small group of people are debating what this means for music, for artists, and listeners like you and me, thousands of people are simply enjoying the music. I’m sureDust on the Windis already someone’s favorite song somewhere, and to them, it doesn’treallymatter that a neural net may have spat it out.
AI Music Tools Are Advancing at 200 BPM
I started playing around with some of these AI tools a few years ago, and at the outset it really was just a curiosity. Just like AI image generation and AI video. However, seemingly overnight the tools improved rapidly.
As an amateur musician myself, someone who has written and performed complete songs and even had a bit of local radio play back in the day, these tools have already filled my own head with possibilities. I remember the struggle of getting four or five people to work together long enough to actually make music. I remember how painful iterations on song ideas can be. So I definitely think there’s a lot of merit to these tools when it comes to merging traditional musicianship with AI tools.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that if the songs released by The Velvet Sundown are entirely AI-generated, that wasn’t actually necessary. you may still make entire songs using AI, and then use real human performers to record a version of that song which no one would know was originally written by an AI. So, just because other artists on Spotify and similar services may not be posting AI-generated tracks, AI may have been involved in most of the creative process already, and no one would know.
So where is this going? Personally, I think AI tools will be involved in all aspects of music going ahead. Some musicians will simply use them to augment or speed up the creative process, and that will probably result in the best and most interesting songs. Next to that, we’ll have these completely AI-generated songs as The Velvet Sundown is purported to make, and there will always be a place for such aggressively middle-of-the-road music that so many people seem to like.
