AI Generated Music Is Here and Its Disturbingly Fine
The Eerie Sound of an AI Road Trip
As the Chicago skyline faded behind me on Interstate 90, the landscape opened up to barns and trees. The soundtrack for my journey, streaming from my phone, was a laid-back psychedelic-rock tune. The folksy vibrato of the vocals seemed to capture my mood perfectly: “Smoke in the sky / No peace found,” the singer lamented.
The strange part? The singer, and the entire band called the Velvet Sundown, likely don't exist. By all appearances, their music, lyrics, album art, and even band photos are AI-generated. The band's social media presence is equally enigmatic. “They said we’re not real. Maybe you aren’t either,” declares one Instagram post. Despite its questionable origins, The Velvet Sundown is a success, releasing multiple albums and boasting over 850,000 monthly listeners on Spotify—eclipsing many well-known human artists. And the music itself? It's not bad.
The Age of Innocuous Music
But it's not good, either. It’s a void—aesthetically and morally neutral. After listening to both of their albums on a drive from Chicago to Madison, I came to a unsettling conclusion: The Velvet Sundown is profoundly and disturbingly innocuous. Its existence highlights a grim reality about modern music consumption. Long before generative AI, streaming had already primed us for this shift, turning music into a vehicle for vibes rather than active listening. My road trip proved that a significant portion of the music we consume today might as well be made by a machine.
Anyone Can Be a Music Producer Now
The technology to create an AI album has been developing for years. Large language models like ChatGPT can write lyrics, while software like Suno can generate complete songs with vocals from a simple text prompt. Image generators can create album art and photorealistic band members. Curious, I signed up for Suno myself. Within moments, I had my own psychedelic road-trip jam, which the AI conveniently named “Endless Highway.” Its synthetic vocalist sang, “Rubber burns, the map fades away / Chasing the ghosts of yesterday.” It was passable. It was fine.
How Streaming Culture Paved the Way for AI
Cultural shifts have made AI music not just tolerable, but even welcome. The digital music revolution, started by Napster and legitimized by the iPod, was supercharged by Spotify. The platform's focus on curated and algorithmically generated playlists changed how we interact with music. Playlists for any mood or activity, from a lazy Sunday to mowing the lawn or baking, turned music into a utility. Whatever the algorithm served was good enough.
The Velvet Sundown operates more like a playlist than a band. Its sound is a mix of ‘70s psychedelic alt-rock and modern indie pop, with tracks varying so much in vocal tone and style that it feels less like a cohesive album and more like a random collection. This stylistic blend may be what makes it so palatable; there's a little something for everyone, but nothing that demands your full attention.
A Pastiche of Genres Without a Soul
This approach works because the band, or its AI, has no shame. The lyrics are a jumble of moody, disconnected phrases like, “Dust on the wind / Boots on the ground / Smoke in the sky / No peace found.” They sound profound until you realize they mean nothing at all. Even when touching on political themes, the lyrics are so vague they could apply to any conflict, appealing to everyone and no one. Take the line, “No more guns, no more graves / Send no heroes, just the brave.” It has the feel of an anti-war anthem without any of the commitment.
From Tribal Identity to Algorithmic Atmosphere
There was a time when music defined identity. Being a punk, a rocker, or a goth was a commitment to a subculture. The internet has flattened these tribes. The Velvet Sundown’s blend of genres isn't a sophisticated fusion; it's a careless smear of stylistic averages, devoid of the passion and conviction that once defined these musical movements.
Today, music is often used to create a barrier, to feel nothing rather than something. We use headphones to tune out coworkers or roommates, turning our personal space into an algorithmic white-noise machine. The music best suited for this is ambient, designed to be in the background, to drown everything else out.
Music for the Void
Driving through the cornfields, The Velvet Sundown was the perfect soundtrack. It wasn't satisfying, but it was apt. It could have been the background music for waiting in line, scrolling through memes, or any other mundane activity. To my embarrassment, I found the songs getting stuck in my head. I didn't like the music, but I had succumbed to its vibes—the modern word for ultra-processed atmosphere.
Out of curiosity, I asked Spotify to create a playlist based on the band. It returned a list of other artists that also seemed suspiciously artificial, with names like Appalachian White Lightning—a band that others also suspect is AI-generated. The task of verifying their authenticity felt exhausting.
Switching back to The Velvet Sundown, I felt an acute sense of nothingness. I was experiencing the idea of listening to music, provided by a band that doesn't even exist. I didn't want art; I just wanted to feel as little as possible while driving. This music, and perhaps most music now, isn't for dancing or even for airports. It's for the void. I pressed play and drove on, letting the machines lull me into oblivion.
