There’s apparently another high-profile AI imposter on the DSPs. The metalcore “band” Broken Avenue has nearly 130,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, where it is a “verified artist” and has one of the platform’s auto-generated “This Is” introductory playlists (which is triggered by a popularity threshold).
Fans of Counterparts, Knocked Loose, and the Devil Wears Prada say whoever is behind Broken Avenue has generated music and artwork to explicitly mimic those bands. For example, in the image atop this article you can compare the art for Broken Avenue’s new single “finally free” (left) to the cover of Counterparts’ 2019 LP Nothing Left To Love (right).
Also suspicious is that the dozens of songs associated with the Broken Avenue profile were all uploaded in the past six weeks. All credit the unknown “James Tolby” as composer and lyricist. (The one exception is an EP that lists 2011 as its year and “Santana Marsh” as the composer.)
Broken Avenue was brought to the attention of Counterparts’ singer Brendan Murphy, and he’s now called out the suspicious act on X. Alongside an image of the songwriter credits, Murphy wrote: “$100 to anyone who can get me the legit contact info for James Trolby I won’t do anything fucking crazy you won’t get in trouble.” Time will tell if James Trolby is a real person, a pseudonym, or an AI-generated artist.
Any of this bullshit sound familiar? Last year there was the whole debacle with the Velvet Sundown. The AI-generated “psych-rock band” racked up millions of streams while insisting it was entirely human. That lie quickly crumbled within a week after a so-called spokesperson came forward about “art hoaxes,” only for him to be outed as a fake spokesperson. Eventually their streaming bio was updated to acknowledge it is a “synthetic music project,” something that could be easily overlooked by a casual listener.
Among music platforms, Deezer has at least been proactive about identifying AI music on its platform. In November it said over 50,000 AI-generated tracks are uploaded to the app daily — 34% of its all new music. Incidentally, Broken Avenue have only “20 fans” on Deezer; maybe all their botting funds went to Spotify.
In a world where verified badges have mostly lost all meaning, platforms are desperately overdue in taking action to better vet their “artists.”
