Have you ever heard of Broken Avenue? Of course you haven’t. They’re just another AI-generated bullshit metal thing meant to scrape away what little royalties bands actually get by some greedy scumbag, and make zero cultural impact with its stolen “art.”
Broken Avenue currently has 127,000 listeners on Spotify, is on plenty of playlists to the point where they’ve got their own Spotify-generated “This Is”, and is shamelessly stealing from bands like Knocked Loose, Counterparts, and The Devil Wears Prada. Which is disappointing, but definitely par for the course when it comes to Spotify not giving a care about musicians. Doubly so considering it seems most of Broken Avenue’s “popularity” comes from AI-generated playlists.
The project not only steals their music, but also seems to be using shitty AI-generated variants on the covers of other artists records. For starters, how many variations can you spot of Knocked Loose‘s latest effort You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To? I’ll wait.
Counterparts vocalist Brendan Murphy is predictably pissed off, stating on his Twitter: “$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.” Whether “James Trolby” is a real person, a fake name, or just another layer of obfuscation behind the project remains unclear.
But yeah, this is what the future looks like if nobody stops it: fake bands, fake art, fake people, real money — and none of it going to musicians who actually create something.
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