Bill Burr slams AI band The Velvet Sundown: “These f**king nerds are taking over”Comedian Bill Burr has made clear his thoughts on AI-generated music, particularly that of the Velvet Sundown, the “band” which was recently revealed as an AI project created using Suno.
The fake group went viral last month, with nearly half a million monthly listeners on Spotify. Many people had their suspicions that the band was fake, though, after listening to the music and viewing its very AI-familiar cover art and press photos.

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The revelation provoked ire among some listeners, and also called into question the legitimacy of those 470,000 monthly listeners, and whether a certain chunk of that figure was the work of bots.
“These fucking nerds have taken over the music [industry],” says Bill Burr. “People who can’t even play instruments, with computers, are inventing bands that don’t exist, writing songs.
“And then they have bots listen to them, so they get, like, 500,000 views and then people think, ‘This is a real band.’ And it isn’t.”
Burr asks: “What fucking world are we living in here? It’s unbelievable.
“These fucking people, they cannot make enough money. It wasn’t enough to be screwing musicians the way that they have, unapologetically, just fucking them over. The entire existence of the music business – they’ve done nothing but absolutely bend over and fuck musicians. And that still isn’t enough. Now they’re the band, they’re writing music.
“This is like Fleetwood Mac meets Funkadelic with just a dash of Bryan Adams. And then they just put it in the thing and it spits it out.”

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Revealing the AI-powered nature of the Velvet Sundown in a phone call with Rolling Stone was one Andrew Frelon, who said “I think it’s important that we allow artists to experiment with new technologies and new tools, try things out, and not freak out at people just because they’re using a programme or not using a programme.”
Only thing is, Andrew Frelon isn’t a real person at all, and in a recent post on Medium, explained why he opted to tap into the online conversation surrounding the Velvet Sundown despite having no affiliation with the project.
“I also noticed in media coverage that since the band had not had much of any social media presence, none of the journalists covering the band had been able to reach out to them for comments or quotes to include in their articles,” the person explained. “This left a gaping void in the narrative around the band, a situation that is dangerous for the reputation of any brand.”
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