The Velvet Sundown wasn’t a real band. But for weeks, no one could tell. Their vintage Americana-inspired sound, complete with analog warmth and bluesy pop melodies, slipped into Spotify and Apple Music playlists without warning. With no interviews, no social media presence, and just three cinematic-sounding albums, they quickly climbed past 500,000 monthly listeners in a span of a month.
Then on July 2, the band’s spokesperson Andrew Frelon admitted in a post on X that the music had been generated using Suno AI — specifically its “Persona” feature, designed to create entire virtual acts with consistent songwriting. The confession sparked a wave of discourse: just how easy is it to fake a band and fool the public?
The reveal turned a viral music mystery into a flashpoint in the growing debate over AI-generated OPM. While AI tools like Suno and Udio offer powerful songwriting shortcuts, many Filipino artists have expressed concern over the ethics and impact of such technology. Lawyer and musician Carlo Ybanez expressed his disdain over AI-generated music in the local scene.
“I think people who use AI to create music should admit that they used AI and not claim they composed it,” he tells Rolling Stone Philippines. “They should also make it clear that they [prompted the AI]. Basta they should make it clear ano participation nila.” Some worry that AI tracks could dilute the emotional and cultural weight of OPM, while others warn about the exploitation of artist likeness, stolen vocal styles, and the loss of human context in storytelling. As The Velvet Sundown shows, the line between novelty and deception is already starting to blur, and listeners may not realize how often they’re crossing it.
How to Spot an AI OPM Song
On YouTube, a channel called CyberTunes Studio delivers generic, AI‑generated Filipino R&B and trap in Tagalog, wrapped in cybernetic, anime‑style visuals using neon filters and uncanny retro symbols. Other channels, like Makina Sining on TikTok and Music DIBA PH on YouTube, focus on more acoustic-driven kundiman songs, with some even paying tribute to “Tatay Digong” or former president Rodrigo Duterte, calling for his return home from The Hague, Netherlands, where he is currently detained for crimes against humanity. AI-generated OPM hasn’t made major waves on Spotify or Apple Music just yet, but the potential is growing with videos — some raking thousands of views — being uploaded on a nearly daily basis.
While AI can mimic Taglish speech patterns, the voice sits flat and wordy, as if recorded in one take using janky text-to-speech software. They get some of it right — the bounce, the phrasing, the cadence — but there’s no improvisation, vocal runs, or raw edge to the delivery. Compare that to a track by singer-songwriter Arthur Nery or alternative rock band Mayonnaise with terms like “pangamba,” “biritero,” and real-time responses between words that stretch, morph, and crave a breath. AI OPM lacks the slightest imperfection, and that’s why it doesn’t stick.
Where Does OPM Go After AI?
AI tools may one day generate convincing OPM, but I’d say we’re not there just yet. The more troubling issue for now is that the music industry’s de facto business model puts human artists at a disadvantage compared to AI, with machines able to churn out endless tracks at minimal cost.
Listeners are already donating their time to machine-made music, sometimes without realizing it. From algorithmic playlists to hours-long YouTube mixes, convenience is the music industry’s most powerful persuader. AI-generated songs fit into a mold that generates a certain appeal: it’s easy to produce, easy to consume, and it works to fill background noise without demanding too much of the listener’s effort.
But convenience has its limits. For many Filipino listeners, especially those rooted in OPM, music is more than filler: it’s memory, context, and lived emotion. Filipino artists perform, tour, collaborate, and build communities around the songs they write. That kind of connection can’t be prompted. The Velvet Sundown proved that AI can mimic the sound, but not the stewardship. Their brief moment in the spotlight showed how easily audiences can be tricked, but also how quickly they push back when something feels off.
OPM isn’t about replicating a voice, it’s about telling the Filipino story.
