It has now been over a month since many Spotify users pointed out that “Sienna Rose” is reportedly an AI-generated project, and many news outlets, including Rolling Stone, reported on the same. But despite the growing backlash, Spotify has yet to take any visible action.
It’s not only a sham that this thing’s artist page remains live, but it is quite appalling that the songs are still circulating thanks to Spotify’s algorithms and discovery playlist, and nowhere on its profile is there a clear label indicating that the music is AI-generated. And I suppose, none of it is really a surprise to many people, considering this is just what we have come to expect from Spotify these days.
If anything, the numbers suggest the opposite of accountability from the streamers. Rather than its plays declining because it is all generative AI, Sienna Rose’s monthly listeners have now climbed from 2.6 million to almost 4 million, within just a month, signaling growing reach for the AI slop.
For reference, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, Baltimore’s metal stars, Turnstile, the breakout indie act from New York, Geese, and Cameron Winter, who are practically everywhere, have significantly fewer monthly listeners than Sienna Rose.
Mind you, Sienna Rose does not have any social media presence; there are no interviews from this artist on the internet, no live gigs listed under its name, no Bandcamp page, and its YouTube comments are disabled. It is diabolical that they are now outperforming many indie musicians grinding it out on tours for years.
Deezer has also confirmed “that many of Sienna Rose’s albums and songs are detected and flagged as AI on Deezer.” But even after a month on Spotify, the AI tag still hasn’t appeared, and its audience keeps on growing.
If anybody is curious as to how the music part of it actually sounds like, well, it is profoundly generic and algorithm-friendly, widely speculated to be trained on the vocal style and musical beats of Olivia Dean.
Among the 4 million listeners who are oblivious to the fact that this is AI is also pop star Selena Gomez, who shared one of Sienna Rose’s songs on her Golden Globes Instagram post, unintentionally giving an AI-created artist’s catalogue a platform and visibility.
So much of what is being made today is already made to be crammed onto a 6-inch screen to sell you subscriptions and ads for countless betting companies and whatnot. Everybody involved at the top is trying to squeeze every bit of money from you in whatever way they can. And now there is this new thing, which is everywhere, and all these tech-bros keep wanting the death of creativity and are always tweeting about how this new AI tool will end movie studios or animation or replace real musicians.
Of course, these companies do not care; they just want to make the most amount of profit they can in the next six months and move on, and I, who is very young, feel like an old man yelling at the clouds when I say I am so sick and tired of seeing AI everywhere.
And I know, I am not the only person who is exhausted out of my mind from these AI slops, but all these tech-bros are annoyingly loud. We must bully whoever we can at the very least, to have somewhat of a distinction between what is made by AI or what is human, for those of us who still appreciate real art.
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It is worth noting that Spotify is always enveloped by one controversy or another. Just a couple of months ago, a King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard AI knockoff act calling itself King Lizard Wizard suddenly emerged on the platform after the rock band from down under pulled their entire catalogue from the streaming service in protest of CEO Daniel Ek, who is busy pouring the money he makes from Spotify into an AI-driven military tech startup.
The knockoff act featured AI-generated psych-rock tracks, identical song titles, and artwork that kinda looked like a cheap fever-dream mimicry of the band’s signature album covers.
To no one’s surprise except maybe Spotify’s, the whole thing was an impersonation scam that even made it to the latest Spotify Release Radar roundup. What’s more, the song was called “Rattlesnake” and was eerily similar to the real King Gizz’s 2016 track of the same name, right down to the lyrics.
The company eventually removed the fake band, insisting it “strictly prohibits any form of artist impersonation” and that no royalties were paid out. But it certainly is worrying how easily these fake AI artists can make their way onto the biggest streaming service there is, and Spotify did not even do anything until the fans and the band itself pointed out the existence of the fake band.
All these big tech companies that own the majority of the marketplace continue to push for an ecosystem that is completely dependent on digital media and streaming. We do not own anything anymore, and the streaming ecosystem and the internet are rapidly being flooded with AI-generated soundalikes, clones, and pseudo-artists engineered to exploit payouts while piggybacking on the aesthetics of real musicians.
What is disgustingly funny about all of this is that the streaming giant is gearing up to charge you an extra buck for their services, with their latest price hike now in motion. Projections from JP Morgan analysts suggest that tacking on just one extra dollar per month could net the company an additional $500 million annually. That’s another half a billion dollars to probably fund Ek’s military venture, while its users continue to be confused between “King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard” and “King Lizard Wizard.”
Defense tech has become a hotbed for VC cash, especially amid ongoing conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza. Last June, Ek’s venture capital firm Prima Materia led a massive €600 million ($694 million) funding round for Helsing, a European defense tech startup that specializes in AI-driven battlefield analytics and military drones. Following the funding round, Helsing is now valued at $12 billion. Ek also serves as the chairman of the company.
Individual Premium plans for Spotify are now $12.99 per month (up from $11.99), while Duo subscribers will now pay $18.99 per month (up from $16.99). Meanwhile, family plans have increased to $21.99 per month (up from $19.99), and student plans rose by $1 to $6.99 per month.
Spotify is now offically the most expensive major music streaming service, with Apple Music, TIDAL, and YouTube Music all charging $10.99 for individual plans. All of these other streaming services also offer comparatively cheaper options for families and students.
So on one hand, Spotify is telling its entire customer base it needs more money. On the other hand, its CEO is helping raise nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars for artificial intelligence built for war.
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If you’ve found value in our writing and want to support it, we are accepting donations starting at just $1. Unfortunately, display ads generate very little revenue, and we are unable to monetize our work in any meaningful way. At the moment, reader support is the only way this work can be financially sustained. Even a dollar helps keep this sustainable and allows us to do something about it.