A rock group that never existed has become one of Spotify’s fastest-rising acts. The Velvet Sundown, whose members, songs and artwork are generated with tools such as Suno, admitted in an updated Spotify biography on 5 July that the project is “a synthetic music experiment guided by human creative direction” and “an ongoing artistic provocation.” The disclosure followed weeks of speculation triggered by the band’s rapid ascent on streaming charts. Debuting only in early June, Velvet Sundown released two 13-track albums within weeks and, by 8 July, had drawn more than one million monthly listeners—surpassing some established indie acts. Streaming rival Deezer had already tagged the catalogue with a warning flag for AI-generated content, highlighting how easily machine-made music can pass as human to casual listeners. The episode intensifies pressure on platforms to explain how they will handle synthetic recordings. Deezer says around 20,000 fully AI-generated tracks are uploaded to its service each day—about 18 % of all submissions—while Spotify declined to comment on the specific case, insisting it does not give preferential treatment to AI music and that all uploads come from licensed third parties. Industry groups warn the stakes are high. A December report by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers projected that creators’ royalties could fall by a fifth within three years if generative music proliferates unchecked. The Velvet Sundown’s viral success is now a touchstone for calls to label—or even restrict—AI-derived songs before they swamp human artists’ share of streaming revenues.