Playing Pop Star with AI (and Zero Regret)

When your favorite new band turns out to be AI-generated—but the vibes are still immaculate. Velvet Sundown: fake band, real bops.

When Velvet Sundown revealed they were an entirely AI-generated band—no real members, no real instruments, and definitely no human guitarist with five normal fingers—I wasn’t shocked. I wasn’t scandalized.

I was like: same, bitch.

Because for the past few months, I’ve been doing the exact same thing.

Serving delusion with a mic and a mission. Babe & The Bot: pop stardom without the permission slip.

Meet my alter ego: Babe & The Bot—a rhinestoned, rage-powered pop project born from one throwaway joke on Girls5Eva and years’ worth of lyrics living rent-free in my Notes app.

The AI music revolution isn’t coming—it’s here. And if we’re being honest, it’s not even that weird. It’s karaoke with creative control. It’s Darrin’s Dance Grooves meets Guitar Hero, minus the carpal tunnel and need for a basement band. It’s pop stardom for people who aged out of sleepovers but never stopped performing in their heads.

It’s make-believe for grownups—with far too many Oxford commas and auto-tune.

The Girls5Eva Origin Story

My foray into digital discography started one night when I was rewatching Girls5Eva and they joked, “If you want a hit song, just write about a city.” Then they launched into the ludicrously perfect “Tap Into Your Fort Worth”—a song that should not slap, and yet? It absolutely fucking slays. About as hardcore as a trip to America's second-best zoo would be, no doubt.

Proof that greatness begins as a joke: Tap Into Your Fort Worth—the satirical city bop that accidentally goes way too hard.

I paused the episode.

Turned to no one.

And whispered: Paso Trouble.

The rest is digital hilbilly history.

Suddenly, I was writing one, two, twelve songs. Every fake city anthem turned into a real pop catharsis. Songs I didn’t know were in me started falling out of my brain and into AI tools. Poems I wrote as a kid. Melodies I used to hum but never had the skill—or social battery—to develop. That one time I fell asleep during a particularly boring episode of Grey's Anatomy and woke up in the middle of the night to see an elderly man in khakis with a tremor performing a ribbon dance on an episode of The Golden Bachelorette? That shit needs a fucking ditty! With a banjo!

And no, I didn’t call up the kid with a guitar outside the coffee shop. I didn’t learn 12 instruments or network my way into some startup jam band with people I have zero desire to be around. I just opened my laptop, clicked “generate,” and said yes to my weird brand of bops.

The Velvet Sundown Parallel

So when Velvet Sundown hit a million Spotify listeners with their AI-created, AI-voiced, AI-visualized folk rock album and then casually admitted, “Yeah, we’re fake,” I wasn’t mad.

I was thrilled.

Because the truth is, nobody cared that it wasn’t real. Nobody needed it to be.

As someone who craves authenticity, I couldn’t care less that Velvet Sundown is a figment of someone’s imagination. Isn’t that what all art is anyway? What even is real? Hit play and transcend.

People liked the songs. They liked the vibe. They clicked play and felt something—and maybe that’s all music ever had to do.

The gatekeeping is gone. The permission slips are canceled. If fake boys with fused fingers can drop a banger about dust and war and peace, then I can absolutely write a breakup song about an emotionally unavailable firefighter and make it shimmer.

Babe & The Bot: A Glitter-Bomb Discography

Let’s break down a few favorites:

• Paso Trouble This is not your average wine country anthem. Paso Trouble is a biting roast track with a full-bodied pour of truth, inspired by Paso Robles, CA —equal parts love letter and middle finger to the Central Coast’s most chaotic tasting room town. Think Facebook fights, and conspiracy-fueled cabernet, all decanted over a beat. It’s satire with sediment. A hometown diss with depth. A grapevine gossip session that ends with, “...but I love it here, I guess.”

  
  

• No Soup For You (Girl, Don’t F*ck That Cop) A protest anthem wrapped in a pop hook, No Soup For You is Babe & The Bot at its most deliciously petty and politically pointed. It's a flirty, fiery PSA encouraging women to defund the police the easiest way possible—by keeping their vaginas out of it. Laced with Seinfeld references and siren sounds, the track doubles as a personal exercise in unresolved daddy issues, since the singer’s own cop father is obsessed with Seinfeld. It’s horny, healing, and hilariously hostile. Just like all the best acts of rebellion.

  
  

• Coppertop Daddy This one’s all heat, no shame. Coppertop Daddy is a flirty, unapologetic anthem about a lifelong, red-hot obsession with ginger men. From childhood crushes during Happy Days reruns to blushing over the Lucky Charms box at breakfast, this song is a slow burn turned full blaze. It’s playful, it’s horny, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything deeper than raw, unfiltered ginger thirst. A love song? Maybe. A lust song? Absolutely. Just press play and let the freckles take over.

  
  

• Airport Foreplay Airport Foreplay is less a love song and more a protest anthem in a push-up bra. Beneath the sultry synths and power-pop gloss is a sharp middle finger to the TSA—and every invasive pat-down that felt more personal than professional. It’s the soundtrack for anyone who's ever had their camel toe thoroughly investigated in the name of "security," all while trying to make their 6 a.m. flight. Part erotic satire, part travel trauma diary, this track turns body scans into bedroom eyes and says: if you're going to violate me, at least buy me a drink first. Flirty. Furious. Fully cleared for takeoff.

Why I’m Doing This (And Why You Might Want To, Too)

You're allowed to have your Britney moment. Who cares if that girl you used to work with who follows every word you post on social media makes fun of you. She was already doing it anyway.

Look, not everyone needs to make AI music. But some of us have had a pop star in our bones since we were Y2K babes, performing Britney choreo from a warped VHS tape in our bedroom.

Some of us have things to say and no time to learn Pro Tools. Some of us are done waiting for someone else to say, “You’re allowed to do this.”

AI didn’t take the humanity out of music for me—it helped me put it back in. It gave me a way to turn decades of ideas, lyrics, and imaginary concerts into something real-ish. And it turned into a couple of bucks, since I get three cents every time someone uses my audio on a TikTok video.

That’s good enough for me.

Velvet Sundown fooled the world. I’m not trying to. I’m just finally playing—and this time, the hairbrush mic is optional.