For The Velvet Sundown, Kneecap and Bob Vylan, Controversy Has Been Good for Business

The Velvet Sundown, the AI-generated retro rock group that launched out of nowhere in June, has done something many real bands struggle to achieve: Gain worldwide media attention that converts into streams at Spotify and other streaming platforms. 

In the week ended July 3, The Velvet Sundown’s catalog of 26 songs — spanning two albums — generated 2.59 million streams globally, according to Luminate. That’s a staggering 399% increase from the previous week. The surge followed a flood of online coverage at music trades, mainstream newspapers, and popular YouTube channels, all intrigued by the novelty — and the ethical implications — surrounding an artificial band that diverts attention (and royalties) from actual musicians.  

After more than two weeks of media coverage, the buzz hasn’t died down. The Velvet Sundown has been featured in major publications, including articles at BBC.com and a long-form think piece in The Atlantic. In an era when viral fame often fades in hours, the sustained interest — from both the media and the public — is remarkable. Just six weeks ago, the band had zero streams. Today, it boasts 1.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify, up from approximately 300,000 following a viral Reddit post about the band on June 24. To capitalize on the momentum, The Velvet Sundown will release yet another album on Monday (July 14).

The notoriety of being an AI band has translated into modest real-world success. By Tuesday (July 8), the attention had propelled The Velvet Sundown’s track “Dust in the Wind” to No. 1 on Spotify’s Viral 50 chart — a measure of recent popularity and social engagement — in the U.K., Ireland, Israel, Iceland and Sweden, and into the top 10 in Australia, Canada, Denmark and a handful of other countries. “Dust in the Wind” also landed on iTunes’ top tracks list in Switzerland (No. 3), Poland (No. 9), Austria (No. 14), Canada (No. 20) and Sweden (No. 23), according to Chartmetric.

The Velvet Sundown represents a reality of the music business in 2025: Getting online attention, whether complimentary or critical, helps an artist rise above the noise and find listeners. Notoriety — being known for something negative — isn’t necessarily a liability.  

For all the people turned off by The Velvet Sundown’s artificial origins, there may be other listeners who stick around, says Phillip Lybrand, creator of the AI-generated band Hoverborg. The group’s album The Good Stuff, a collection of catchy pop-punk songs, used Lybrand’s lyrics but was otherwise conceived entirely on the generative AI platform Udio. The Good Stuff received some positive press and online streams early on, but coming clean about the band’s origins actually added to its momentum. “I’ve sold through Bandcamp more copies of it digitally, and the physical CD and vinyl, since letting people know it was AI-generated,” Lybrand says, adding that only one person has asked for a refund.

Even though streaming platforms are awash in AI-generated content — Deezer estimates that 18% of its daily uploads come from AI — the success of The Velvet Sundown stands out. The band’s albums, complete with evocative, surrealistic artwork, do an excellent job of capturing the look and feel of a psychedelic folk-rock band. Importantly, the songs reveal a level of expertise that is typically absent from hastily created AI music, says author and audio engineer Bobby Owsinski: “It does take a fair amount of skill and a fair amount of time to come up with that.”

Real-life music groups Kneecap and Bob Vylan have also grabbed worldwide attention for controversy as of late. Kneecap, a hip-hop trio from Northern Ireland, gained notoriety in April for the anti-Israel comments it made during its performance at Coachella. More media impressions followed: Kneecap split with its agent, Independent Artist Group, after Coachella, and band member Mo Charra (born Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh) was indicted on a terrorism charge in the U.K. for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London. Charra was released on bail on June 18, but the controversy wasn’t over.

Both Kneecap and Bob Vylan ran into trouble following their appearances at Glastonbury in late June. Kneecap’s Charra voiced support for Palestine and criticized U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer — with an expletive — for stating the Irish group should not be allowed to perform at the annual event in Somerset, England. And Bob Vylan singer Pascal Robinson-Fraser, who performs as Bobby Vylan, led a chant of “death, death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces, the country’s national military. Since the performances were broadcast live by Britain’s public service broadcaster, the BBC, both Kneecap and Bob Vylan are facing a criminal investigation.

The uproar that followed Kneecap’s Coachella set has had an undeniable effect on the metrics that denote success. From the week before Coachella to the week after Glastonbury, Kneecap’s weekly global on-demand streams more than doubled. The increase in new listeners isn’t necessarily fleeting: Chartmetric data for the last 30 days shows that Kneecap’s new followers on Spotify have grown faster than its monthly listeners, suggesting that people who recently discovered the group are more than casual fans. As for Bob Vylan, Glastonbury led to a nearly 13-fold increase in the duo’s weekly streams.

In music, gaining fame for political statements isn’t necessarily bad for business. For groups such as Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine, being controversial was part of the appeal. Today, though, the internet amplifies statements and preserves them for posterity. “Artists ought to be ready to live and die by what they’re putting out to the world,” says Johnny Cloherty, CEO of Genni, a social media creator network. In the case of The Velvet Sundown, people won’t forget that the viral band was created using AI technology. The question there is whether, ultimately, they’ll even care.