Category: 5. Entertainment

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Britain’s biggest band

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A band called The Velvet Sundown has had its tracks played hundreds of thousands of times on Spotify since appearing several weeks ago – without anyone knowing for sure what it is.

The band has a verified page on the music streaming platform, with more than 850,000 monthly listeners.

However, none of the four named musicians in the band have given any interviews or appear to have individual social media accounts, and there are no records of any live performances.

It has prompted accusations that they and their music are artificial intelligence (AI) generated – something the band denies on social media.

It did not respond to the BBC’s request for an interview.

Further confusing the story, Rolling Stone US reported that the band’s spokesman had admitted The Velvet Sundown’s music had been generated using an AI tool called Suno – only for the magazine to report shortly afterwards that the spokesman was himself a hoax.

The man, who goes by the name of Andrew Frelon, said it was a deliberate plot to hoax the media.

A statement on the band’s Spotify page says that the group has “no affiliation with this individual, nor any evidence confirming their identity or existence.”

An account on X which claims to be the band’s official channel, is also fake, it added.

Professor Gina Neff, from the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, says it points to a problem which affects much more than just one band.

“Whether this is an AI band may not seem important,” she told me.

“But increasingly, our collective grip on reality seems shaky. The Velvet Sundown story plays into the fears we have of losing control of AI and shows how important protecting online information is.”

The Velvet Sundown’s indie ballads, with guitar music and male vocals, is fairly easy, if bland, on the ear.

With lyrics such as “eyes like film in faded light, dreams walk barefoot into the night” and “ash and velvet, smoke and flame, calling out in freedom’s name”, it could all feasibly be either AI-generated or penned by humans.

Deezer, a rival music streaming platform, said that its AI detector tool had flagged the music as being “100% AI generated”.

Spotify did not respond to a request for comment.

CEO Daniel Ek has previously told the BBC that he did not intend to ban AI-generated music from the platform but added that he did not agree with using the tech to mimic real artists.

Many in the creative arts industry are deeply concerned about the impact of AI.

Hundreds of musicians have protested about the use of their content in the training of AI tools to create music.

Sir Elton John and Dua Lipa joined many members of the House of Lords in fighting for the UK government to include AI and copyright in a new set of laws regarding data use and access. Their campaign was ultimately unsuccessful.

The government says it is carrying out a separate consultation about AI and copyright.

Ed Newton Rex, founder of Fairly Trained, which campaigns for AI firms to respect creators’ rights, said the questions around the The Velvet Sundown bore out musicians’ concerns.

“This is exactly what artists have been worried about, it’s theft dressed up as competition,” he said.

“AI companies steal artists’ work to build their products, then flood the market with knock-offs, meaning less money goes to human musicians.”

Sophie Jones, chief strategy officer at BPI, said it illustrated the need for government action.

“This discussion reinforces many of the concerns raised by the music industry and artist community in recent months on the critical issues of AI and music rights.

Friday 4 July marks 100 years since the first broadcast of the Shipping Forecast on BBC radio on 4 July 1925.

To mark the occasion, Jarvis Cocker has recorded a special shipping forecast to be broadcast for an audience at the Crossed Wires Podcast Festival in Sheffield. The festival will welcome ‘ships’ fans to a special 100th anniversary programme with Radio 4 announcers Lisa Costello and Viji Alles, hosted by Chris Mason. The session is part of BBC Sounds’ free Fringe festival with live podcast recordings and exclusive sessions, open to the public.

Just two days before Pulp, aka Patchwork, were wowing crowds with a surprise performance at Glastonbury, Cocker was quietly nestled in the BBC Radio 4 studio, reflecting on his love for the Shipping Forecast.

Cocker says: “The Shipping Forecast is something you absorb unconsciously if you live in the UK. It’s been on the airwaves for over 100 years… Now technically speaking, it’s a weather guide designed to help sailors on the high seas. But it helps people navigate in other ways than that. For instance, for insomniacs, it’s a mantra that hopefully helps them drift finally off to sleep.”

He says: “I think it’s known around the world as a go-to chill-out thing – before chill-out things were invented, probably.”

The Shipping Forecast is preceded by a piece of music called Sailing By. Cocker notably chose this track as one of the eight he would take to a desert island when he appeared on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2005.

Cocker says: “When you listen to Sailing By, it really does feel like life is drifting past you in an extremely pleasant way. A handy go-to sedative to have to hand if you ever happen to become a castaway – or get cut off from normal life for any other reason.”

Cocker used to listen whilst going to sleep, citing that “the repetitive nature” and “the soothing nature of the person who reads it” helped him to drop off.

“I think it’s because it’s a routine”, he adds, “it’s on every day, so it’s something that you can rely on. It’s on at a set time, so it gives a bit of stability. And if the rest of your life isn’t that stable, it can provide some kind of stability for it. Sailing By was a very relaxing piece of music… I know that a lot of people do use it for that kind of relaxing, almost ‘meditation-like’ thing.”

When asked why he felt the Shipping Forecast was still important, he said: “I think because even though sometimes it’s talking about bad weather conditions and storms and stuff, it’s actually an oasis of calm in the day. There’s no musical backing to it, it’s just a human voice talking to you. Some words, which you don’t really know what they mean at all, but the sound of it is comforting and will put you into a nice place.”

Cocker said some of his favourite place names include, German Bight – “for some reason I always think of a cocktail sausage there. I suppose it’s because a frankfurter cocktail sausage is a small frank.” – and Hebrides – “I’ve actually been to the Hebrides, so that conjures up some kind of real image.”

Imagining how the Shipping Forecast might sound in another 100 years, Cocker gave us his best robot impression, suggesting: “It may be a robot who is saying “north to northwesterly, occasionally poor.” I hope not. I think it would be better to keep it as a person. Who knows? We don’t know what the world’s going to look like in 100 years, or whether people will even be in it. If people are still in it, it might all be water. So everybody will be listening to it. It’d be like the number one programme, because everybody will be in a boat. Kevin Costner will be hailed as a seer who knew that we would all become a Water world one day. I don’t know. I hope it is. I wouldn’t be around to hear it anyway.”

The Shipping Forecast is produced by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) as part of the UK’s statutory obligations to provide Maritime Safety Information to seafarers via approved broadcasting methods. The Shipping Forecast is also shared with the BBC for its own broadcast.

An online journey through the one-hundred-year history of the Shipping Forecast can be found on the BBC History website.

Special anniversary programmes from BBC Radio 4 are available now on BBC Sounds, including The Shipping Forecast: A Beginners Guide with Paddy O’Connell, The Shipping Postcards from continuity announcers, Archive on 4 – The Shipping Forecast at 100: Shipshaped and Soul Music: Sailing By.

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SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers from the “Squid Game” series finale, now streaming on Netflix.

Lee Jung-jae‘s Seong Gi-hun has always been the beating heart of “Squid Game,” and his ultimate sacrifice allows the dour finale to have a flash of humanity shine through.

Lee spoke with Variety about the day he learned Player 456’s fate, his conversations with “Squid Game” creator Hwang Dong-hyuk about the series finale and his hopes for Gi-hun’s daughter.

What are your thoughts on the ending now that it’s out in the world?

Now that it’s all been released, I think the ending was definitely something that a lot of the audience didn’t expect to see. I know there are a lot of people with a wide variety of different opinions about the ending, and I’m following up on all of them. I know a lot of you like to express what you thought about the ending on social media, so I’m trying to check all of them.

What were your initial feelings when you first learned how the show was going to end?

I got the entire script for Seasons 2 and 3 at the same time, and I read everything the day that I got it. That’s when I learned about my character’s fate and the ending. I was very shocked too, because it was not something I had expected to see. I remember speaking a lot about this ending with Director Hwang, and I asked him, “Did you have different endings in mind? Were there different versions?” And he told me that he did think of other endings. However, he did share with me that he believed this was the right way to end the story of “Squid Game.” He also shared with me that I shouldn’t look at Gi-hun’s sacrifice as just simply a sacrifice itself, but what if we could look at it as something that shows or symbolizes hope for humanity?

Your last words are so powerful, and they’re also cut off, which is unique and leaves interpretation for the audience. What does it make you feel when you look back on those last words we hear from your character?

That was part of the many conversations between the director and me, and we thought a lot about how the audience was going to respond to Gi-hun making his choice before he finishes what he was saying. I remember, even on the day that we shot that sequence, I believe a lot was going through his mind. I think he was also considering a different version of Gi-hun finishing what he was saying. I was also thinking a lot about different versions of that, too. But I believe Director Hwang wanted the audience to finish the sentence in their own way and in their own interpretation. I believe he designed the scene and the sequence so that the end of the sentence belongs to all of the audience, and they are the ones who will finish it with their own emotions and their own journey.

What was the most challenging scene for you to film this season?

Of course, it was that very last scene, that last moment of Gi-hun. I had been on a very strict diet for about 14 months leading up to that point. Especially for the last two months, I was on an extremely harsh diet compared to before we shot the series. I had lost about 10 kilograms from my regular weight. I really wanted to make sure that not only did I express Gi-hun’s emotions, but I also wanted the audience to know just how completely dry and depleted he was just by looking at him. I also remember we had to shoot that last moment for a very long time. It took a lot longer than you might expect on that filming day. That was the only scene we were able to shoot, so it was extremely important and also very challenging.

What are your hopes for Gi-hun’s daughter? Do you think she discovers the truth about what happened? Do you think she makes it her mission to take down the L.A. games?

Thinking about the “Squid Game” storyline, I would like to see Gi-hun’s daughter dismantle the entire system. But on a personal note, I hope she doesn’t learn anything about the truth of it all. I hope she doesn’t know anything about her dad. I just wish she would live a very happy and stable life with her stepdad and mom.

This interview was conducted through an interpreter and has been edited and condensed for clarity.

As Comic-Con returns this month, fans are once again looking forward to the Saturday night Masquerade — a long-running tradition where costumers go big with handmade outfits and full-on stage performances. Back in 2015, one standout group turned heads by taking the X-Men back to the 18th century, mixing comic book characters with Rococo style, à la Marie Antoinette by way of Sofia Coppola.

Arabella Benson, a longtime Masquerade participant, led the team behind “Let Them Eat Cake Presents: X-Men Days of Future Past, Past,” which reimagined Marvel’s mutants in powdered wigs, panniers and silk brocade.

“Masquerade can be something as simple as walking onstage and showing off your costume,” Benson said at the time, while working on an elaborate, flaming orange wig. “I think that when it’s something at the level of Comic-Con, it’s a really big stage. I think Ballroom 20 is 6,000 or 4,000 people — that’s a lot of people. I think you are perfectly welcome to walk on stage and be beautiful, but you will be kind of overshadowed by the people who do full-on skits, by people who do dance routines.”

Like kaiju showgirls stomping Tokyo to “A Chorus Line’s” signature “One,” or a Tatooine take on “West Side Story’s” “America” song with a bunch of Jawas dancing in rainbow-colored petticoats.

In 2011, Benson and her group performed a tango as Gotham villains. “We came up with this group called Arkham Tango and we did this really cool tango, and we thought we were the coolest, sexiest thing that ever was,” she recalled. “And then we won Best Humorous. So we learned something there — and that’s OK, because I got to tango with Batman with a rose in my teeth. You can’t go better than that.”

The group followed up in 2013 with Marvel Mumbai, a Bollywood-inspired take on the Avengers. By 2015, they went full Rococo with their mutant skit. “We’re getting ready for the Comic-Con Masquerade. Our costumes are on the verge — the very verge — of being done,” Benson said at the time. “But we’re down to the little fiddly bits like the hem, and we’re adding some more trim. The nature of our dresses, there can’t really be enough trim. (Fellow costumer Erwyn Hildebrand) dulled a pair of pinking shears cutting my trim. That happens.”

A few weeks before the event, Benson had been hand-painting silk wings her Phoenix costume. But by the final days, plans had changed.

“If I have learned anything in Masquerade, it is to roll with the punches,” she said. “The beautiful silk wings I was painting had not dried, so I cannot set the dye with the iron so that whole idea has been scrapped. We lost our Wolverine because he got a nice, high-paying job. And as much fun as Masquerade costumes are, work and money is a little bit better.”

Her husband, who was originally going to portray Beast, stepped into the Wolverine instead — a key part of the skit’s time-travel twist. “Our joke is that Wolverine gets sent too far back by Kitty Pride, instead of going to 1973, he goes to 1773,” Benson said.

With just a few days to finish before the 2015 Masquerade, stress was running high. Benson said, “I have to hem it. Once I hem it, I could go onstage with it, but I will know that it didn’t have any beads on it, and that would make me sad. I have Yuly, who still doesn’t have sleeves on her dress, she thinks I don’t know, but there are no sleeves on her dress. And so it’s getting kind of tense. The sun’s going down and we are counting down the hours. I’ve given up on checklists, and Erwyn’s hair is not done. I know that. I know these things because I’m boss queen. I’m gonna let them eat dinner. They can eat dinner. I might even give them some cookies.”

The team brought their Rococo X-Men skit to the Masquerade stage that Saturday night, dazzling the crowd with elaborate costuming and historical flair. A decade later, “Let Them Eat Cake Presents: X-Men Days of Future Past, Past” still circulates in Comic-Con memories, a tribute to what happens when comics, couture and creativity collide. I followed up with the group after the show — they didn’t win, but their performance (and a few wild entries from that year’s Masquerade) are captured in this recap:

More than 70 writers wrote an open letter outlining their issues with the use of A.I. in the literary world. Their main demand is for publishing houses to never release books created by machines.