"This is humans versus machines, and today, the humans…

In July 2026, TV producer Simon Blach announced the formation of The Bootleg Velvet Sundown, a tribute band composed of human musicians intended to rival the AI-generated act The Velvet Sundown. This project emerged as a protest against the rise of AI-generated music and the perceived threat it poses to professional artists.

What happened

The Velvet Sundown gained significant attention in 2025 by accumulating hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners on Spotify. While an unofficial spokesperson claimed the music was produced using the AI platform Suno, the band later released a statement characterizing their work as a multidisciplinary project blending music, analog aesthetics, and speculative storytelling. Despite the ambiguity surrounding its creation, the group is estimated to have generated tens of thousands of dollars in royalty payments.

In response, Simon Blach assembled a group of real musicians—Leo Walrus, Enzo Allen, Milo Garland, and Luke McQueen—to form The Bootleg Velvet Sundown. The stated goal of the tribute band is to re-record tracks and surpass the original group's streaming numbers. Blach explicitly stated that the project is designed to redirect potential profits away from the AI-generated act and back toward human musicians, citing concerns that AI technology relies on the unauthorized use of existing creative work.

The initiative highlights a growing friction between AI-driven content generation and human-led artistic production. While some have suggested the original Velvet Sundown project may be an elaborate performance piece designed to highlight the implications of AI in music, others view it as a commercial venture. Blach has utilized social media to frame the conflict as a direct challenge to AI-generated music, famously declaring that the humans are rising against the machines.