In brief
Sienna Rose, with nearly three million monthly Spotify listeners, is taking the music scene by storm, but evidence suggests she might be an AI creation. Despite having popular tracks on streaming services, her absence from social media and AI-like artistry raises questions about authenticity in music. As the line blurs between human and AI-generated music, industry concerns grow over the future of artistry.
Sienna Rose is having a good month.
Three of her dusky, jazz-infused soul songs are in Spotify's Viral Top 50. The most popular, a dreamy ballad called Into The Blue, has been played more than five million times.
If she continues on this trajectory, Rose could become one of the year's hottest new stars.
There's only one problem: All the signs indicate she's not real.
Streaming service Deezer, which has developed tools to tackle AI music, told the BBC that 'many of her albums and songs on the platform are detected and flagged' as computer generated.
Look closer and you'll see the indications of an AI artist. Rose has no social media presence, has never played a gig, has no videos, and has released an improbable number of songs in a short space of time.
Between 28 September and 5 December, she uploaded at least 45 tracks to streaming services. Even Prince, an artist known for restless creative mania, would have struggled to match that figure.
Her Instagram account, which is currently deactivated, featured a strangely homogenous series of headshots, all showing the gauzy, unreal lighting characteristic of AI image generators.
Then there's the music itself. Songs like Into The Blue and Breathe Again sit neatly next to Norah Jones or Alicia Keys, full of jazzy guitar lines and buttery smooth vocals.
But many listeners have noted what they have identified as 'AI artefacts'. Play Under The Rain or Breathe Again and you'll hear a telltale hiss running throughout the tracks.
That's a common trait of music generated on apps like Suno and Udio - partly because of the way they start with white noise and gradually refine it until it resembles music.
Interestingly, several of Rose's songs are credited to New York indie record label Broke - which has a track record in turning viral artists like bbno$ and Ndotz into chart stars.
In the meantime, a backlash against AI music is growing. Last year, artists including Paul McCartney and Kate Bush released a 'silent album' protesting against companies training their AI models on copyrighted work without permission.
As the discussions about the authenticity of music artists like Sienna Rose continue, many wonder whether listeners still seek genuine connections through music versus algorithmically generated filler.
