Defecation music
On The Velvet Sundown plus other "elitist" reflections (by a human, pertaining AI)
Have you heard the one about the latest band to rake in millions of plays on Spotify? They’re called The Velvet Sundown. At the time of writing they have almost 1.4m monthly listeners. Folky, light-hearted, inconsequential sunny morning music, and made entirely with AI.
Does this surprise you? If the rumours (and several reports) are true, Spotify has been releasing tracks by ghost artists for a while, allegedly stuffing soulless sludge churned out by sonic content mills into mood playlists, in a bid to keep some royalties in-house. Whether this is true or false, it was just a matter of time until a cynical maverick (or a group of them) succeeded with a similar grift, using AI, cutting out even more middlemen in the process. Now, I would be lying if I said I could have clocked The Velvet Sundown was AI slop just from listening to them. But then, if I had believed this…