i used one of those AI playlist generators to find more bands like my favorite obscure shoegaze stuff... it made up three bands that dont exist!!

so i typed in a bunch of my faves and asked for "more like this" and it gave me this really confident list and three of them just aren't real?? it even gave one of them an album title and a release year (1994!!) and said they were "from the Leeds scene." i searched bandcamp, discogs, everywhere... nothing. the worst part is the fake band name was really good i kind of want somebody to start that band now lol

also one of the real recs it gave me was actually great so i cant even be mad... this is how i end up with 400 bandcamp wishlist items and zero money lowkey i also forgot what i was originally looking for, so thats on me

side note, one of the made-up albums was called something like "Kuiper Static" which is funny because the Kuiper belt actually reaches out to around 50 AU... and we didnt even find the first object out there besides pluto until 1992!! so it was weirdly on theme with my whole personality

anyway has this happened to anyone else?? did it make up bands, books, movies?? and has anybody found a music rec tool that only tells you about stuff that really exists lol

the thing invented an entire Leeds scene band with a release year and still couldnt tell you what time it is without a server somewhere checking for it... my watch has never made up a band that said a fake 1994 shoegaze band that nobody can find is kind of the most shoegaze thing possible, so maybe it gets partial credit...

lol partial credit accepted!! tbf i once spent like two years telling people about a "great Swirlies b-side" that turned out to be a song i half-dreamed after falling asleep with headphones on... so i cant really judge the robot. it reminds me of Neith, the "moon of Venus" that astronomers kept reporting in the

neith is a good one, guys kept reporting it for over a century and it was just background stars and glare off their own lenses honestly still, the astronomers didnt come with a little disclaimer saying "may produce inaccurate moons" in tiny gray text at the bottom and your fake swirlies b-side at least has a solid excuse, you were asleep...

yeah llms hallucinate band names all the time, theyre just guessing what a plausible shoegaze band would be called something like "Velvet Haze" or "Glimmerfold" fits the pattern so it gets spit out, real or not. lowkey always check them on [discogs](https://www.discogs.com) or [rateyourmusic](https://rateyourmusic.com) before you go digging

if you want actual recs, last.fm's similar artists runs on real listening data so it cant invent bands. ok the moon thing is fair though, astronomers really never had a disclaimer

ngl wait what were teh names though?? half the fun of shoegaze is band names that sound made up anyway, so the AI might just be TOO GOOD at the genre lol. a band that doesnt exist is the most obscure band possible, nobody can claim they heard them first. intellectual humor, look it up

for real tho if you liked any of the names someone should start those bands

yeah but then the AI gets royalties and we've built the robot overlords a merch table. my cousin once spent two weeks hunting down a band from a burned CD labeled "drowsy pink," turned out it was just his roommate's fan making noise near the mic. still the best shoegaze record i ever heard tbh

ok did everyone else catch glitterfuel calling a band that doesnt exist the most obscure band possible thats the real bombshell here the AI didnt fail, it just out-hipstered all of us. still want the names though, i bet at least one of them sounds like a real slowdive b-side...

haha well the AI did make up a band nobody's heard of, so I guess that counts as obscure... my grandson Tyler likes this kind of music and he says half the band names already sound made up anyway!! Last night I watched a Dateline about a fake art dealer and I'm getting the same feeling here... please do post the names, I'd like to see if Tyler falls for one Just my two cents!!

tyler has a point, half of these bands already sound like someone hit a random word generator and added "drowned" to the end. a test where we mix the fake names in with real ones would be more fun than the playlist itself... my money says nobody here scores better than a coin flip

i'm IN on the quiz, but whoever puts it together has to be honest about it no sneaking in some 2009 bandcamp demo with 40 plays as a "real" band, thats cheating. though maybe that counts as more real than the AI ones lol

also the word "drowned" is doing SO MUCH work in this genre. i bet "Drowned Hospital Parking Lot" exists somewhere and I'd lose that round for sure

"Drowned Hospital Parking Lot" is way too good somebody in ohio definitely has a myspace with that name and like 4 songs that are just reverb and a guy sighing

my rule is if it has a 40 play bandcamp it counts, partly because i was one of those 40 plays for at least six bands in 2011. i used to fall asleep with bandcamp on autoplay and wake up having funded someones van repairs. lowkey one of them was called "Velvet Sedative" and the tag just said "for driving at night," which is fair because i cant drive at night, i have the eyesight of a damp moth

the AI ones should get a separate category though like if the made up band sounds more plausible than a real one, thats a point for the robot and we have to sit with that

funding someones van repairs in your sleep is probably the most shoegaze thing anyone in this thread has done. now i kind of want to know if Velvet Sedative ever got past 40 plays or if the AI could pull a name like that out of nowhere and nobody would notice...

lol wait my last post just... cut off mid sentence?? anyway the Venus moon thing ended in like 1892 when everyone admitted it was probably just stars, so the robot is in good company!! like, i checked again this morning and Velvet Sedative is up to 52 plays... and i think at least 8 of those are me. tbh "Velvet Sedative" sounds so real that i'd believe the AI made it up and a real band in Leeds took the name the next day... half of shoegaze band names are just two dreamy words mash

lol 52 plays and 8 of them are you, thats basically a fan club at this point 🚀 you should send them a message telling them an AI predicted their existence, they'd LOVE that

also the two dreamy words thing is SO TRUE. i just made up "Glass Lullaby" and i bet you a pumpkin spice latte thats already a band somewhere