An act calling itself The Velvet Sundown has revealed that its musicians, songs and even publicity photos are the work of generative-AI tools such as Suno and Udio. The project, which uploaded its first two albums to Spotify on 5 June, crossed one million monthly listeners in barely five weeks, placing several tracks on the service’s “Viral 50” playlists in Europe. On 5 July the group updated its Spotify biography to describe itself as an “ongoing artistic provocation” and to confirm that “all characters, stories, music, voices and lyrics” were AI-generated. Deezer, which runs an AI-detection system, had already tagged the songs as fully synthetic, while Spotify declined to discuss the case, saying only that it does not prioritise AI music and that all uploads come from licensed third parties. The episode highlights how quickly algorithmically generated content can mimic—and monetize—the aura of a live band. Deezer estimates that AI compositions now account for 18 % of the 20,000 tracks it receives each day, and a study for the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers warns that musicians’ earnings could drop 20 % by 2028 as such material crowds human creators. Industry groups are pressing streaming platforms to introduce clearer labelling and royalty rules before AI-made hits become routine.