AI suspicions surround the mysterious singer

Sienna Rose has a good month.

Three of his dusky, jazz-infused soul songs are on Spotify’s Viral Top 50. The most popular, a dreamy ballad called Into The Blue, has been played more than five million times.

If he continues on this trajectory, Rose will be one of the year’s hottest new stars.

There’s just one problem: All signs point to him not being real.

The streaming service Deezer, which develops tools to solve AI music, told the BBC that “many of his albums and songs on the platform were detected and flagged” as computer-generated.

Look closely and you will see the signs of an AI artist. Rose has no social media presence, has never played a gig, has no videos, and released an improbable amount of songs in a short amount of time.

Between 28 September and 5 December, he uploaded at least 45 tracks to streaming services. Even Prince, an artist known for his restless creativity, would have struggled to match that number.

His Instagram account, which is currently deactivated, features a remarkably homogenous series of headshots, all reflecting the gauzy, unrealistic lighting characteristic of AI image generators.

Then 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 noticed what they identified as “AI artefacts”.

Play Under the Rain or Breathe Again and you’ll hear a shrill hiss running throughout the tracks.

That’s a common characteristic of music generated by apps like Suno and Udio — partly because of the way they start with white noise and slowly refine it until it sounds like music.

It’s this quirk that enables Deezer to flag AI songs.

“When (the software) adds all the layers and instruments, it introduces errors,” explained Gabriel Meseguer-Brocal, a senior research scientist for the streaming company.

“They are not perceptual, we cannot hear them, but they are easy to find if you do some mathematical operations.”

The mistakes act like a fingerprint, says Meseguer-Brocal, with a “unique signature” that means it’s possible to tell which piece of software was used to create any given piece of music.

For casual listeners, there are other clues: Discordant drum patterns, slow lyrics, and a singer who never deviates from the melody or takes a break from the final chorus.

That “generic” sound is the biggest clue for some Sienna Rose listeners.

“I was like, ‘i like it’, but there is something ‘uncanny valley’,” said TikTok music critic Elosi57.

“So I went to look (at his profile) and I was like, ‘This is AI’.”

Another user posted by X: “Started listening to Olivia Dean (fantastic). Within two days Spotify recommended Sienna Rose, with a similar, but more generic voice. It took me a few songs to realize she was AI.”

Broadcaster Gemma Cairney told BBC Radio 4: “The photos of her look unreal… And listening to the music, is there some soul in the soul that’s gone?”

To be fair, many people fell for Rose’s songs.

Among them is pop star Selena Gomez, who used the Rose track Where Your Warmth Begins as the background to an Instagram post about Sunday’s Golden Globes.

The song was later removed when questions about Rose’s identity spread online, but Gomez’s post took interest in Rose and her identity to a whole new level.

And many of the listeners who played Rose’s music were worried about their reaction when they learned that he might not be there.

“Please tell me he’s real,” put one in Threads.

“I was disappointed because a couple of his songs came and the music was not BAD,” agreed with another of Bluesky. “(But) someone said once you know then it sounds soulless’ and I agree.”

Of course, it is possible that everyone is wrong, and Sienna Rose is a real singer who avoids the limelight. Maybe he’s in witness protection. Maybe he’s a real singer, stuck in a contractual dispute with his label, and releasing music under a pseudonym.

If so, I’m sorry. It must be crushing to have your music labeled as soulless “slop”. But that’s indicative of the problem facing the entire music industry today.

AI software has become so sophisticated that clone artists are competing with real musicians.

In Sweden this week, a song topped the chart banned from the charts after journalists discovered the artist behind it, Jacub, was gone.

There are plenty of people — in tech companies and the business side of the music industry — who want to see AI succeed.

The cost of launching an act like Sienna Rose is almost zero, but her music makes an estimated £2,000 in royalties per week.

Compare that to the K-Pop industry, where labels invest an average of $1m (£750,000) per member of a girl or boy group per year, and you can see the attraction.

Interestingly, several of Rose’s songs appear to be credited to US indie record label Broke – which has a track record of turning viral artists such as bbno$ and Ndotz into chart stars.

If you visit their website, Rose is not listed as one of their signatures – but British dance act Haven is.

If that name rings a bell, it’s because they got in trouble last year for making a song with an AI clone of Jorja Smith’s voice.

Their song, Run, is removed from streaming services after record industry bodies issued takedown notices, saying the track infringed copyright – but was re-recorded with human vocals, and entered the UK Top 10 two weeks later.

The BBC contacted Broke to ask about his relationship with Sienna Rose, but has yet to receive a response.

The BBC also contacted another label, Nostalgic Records, which lists Rose on its website.

Nostalgic Records’ biography claims he is “based in London” and says he is “not just a performer, but a storyteller at heart”.

Deezer says 34% of songs uploaded to its streaming service – about 50,000 per day – are generated by AI.

“Eighteen months ago, it was about 5% or 6%,” Meseguer-Brocal said. “It’s kind of surprising how fast it’s going up.”

However, Deezer has yet to go after online music store Bandcamp, which this week announced it was banning all AI-produced music.

In a statement, Spotify defended the presence of artists like Rose on its playlists.

“It’s not always possible to draw a simple line between ‘AI’ and ‘non-AI’ music,” a spokesperson said. “Spotify does not create or own any music, and does not promote or penalize tracks created using AI tools.”

Meanwhile, a backlash against AI music is growing.

Last year, artists including Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Damon Albarn, the Pet Shop Boys and Annie Lennox released a “silent album” protesting against companies training their AI models on copyrighted work without permission.

Speaking at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2024, pop star Raye told me he believes fans will always choose real music over algorithm-generated filler.

“There is no reason to feel threatened,” he said. “I don’t write because I’m trying to be the best writer. I write because I’m trying to tell my story.

“I’m trying to lose some of the weight I’ve been carrying or I’m trying to express myself and feel better.”

At the same event, Kojey Radical said he is not worried about AI if he can’t trust his washing machine to start on time.

“Why is everyone trying to make me afraid of robots?” he laughed.

“I’m not afraid of robots. I’m going to win.”