On “Vietnam War Music,” one of the Spotify playlists where the band’s songs appear, the entire Velvet Sundown discography sits alongside no less than 19 songs by beloved swamp rockers Creedence Clearwater Revival. Stu Cook, CCR’s bassist, doesn’t think the Velvet Sundown does justice to his band’s era of music.

Frelon said he created The Velvet Sundown tracks using the generative-AI tool Suno before posting them on Spotify, where the band now has more than a million monthly listeners. Case settled, then. But apparently not.

A band called The Velvet Sundown has launched a debut album on Spotify, and the group has quickly racked up over a million listeners. And though the group's aesthetic and sound seem lifted out of the Sunset Strip in the '60s or '70s, the reality is a little different.