The Decibel How much AI music is in your playlist?
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Mar 20, 2026 Joshua Kane, Globe reporter on arts and culture, unpacks how generative AI is reshaping music. He explains how AI recombines scraped tracks, why fake bands and flooding of streaming services happen, and the legal and financial tug-of-war between labels and AI firms. He also explores whether listeners can spot nonhuman music and how artists are responding.
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AI Can Replace Rather Than Augment Creativity
- Unlike tools like Auto-Tune that augment human performance, generative AI can create full songs from scraped material, raising debates whether outputs are new art or facsimiles.
- Critics argue these are blown-up recombinations of existing art, not genuine new works.
Mystery Band Velvet Sundown Flooded Playlists
- Velvet Sundown appeared on streaming services as a seemingly new band with AI-generated music and photos, then quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of streams.
- The origin remains mysterious while someone collects streaming revenue from the anonymous uploads.
Scale Turns Tiny Streaming Fractions Into Profit
- Streaming payouts are fractions of a penny per play, so uploaders rely on scale: many small fake or AI tracks can add up into meaningful sums.
- Joshua Kane warns bad actors could replicate this across thousands of artist names to profit.