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The mysterious singer with millions of streams - but who (or what) is she?

2026-01-17 17:00:13
Sienna Rose has almost three million monthly listeners on Spotify

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.

On streaming service Tidal, Rose is also credited with albums of folk and ambient music, all uploaded last year, with different singers pictured in the artwork

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.

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

"When the [software] adds all the layers and the instruments, it introduces errors," explains Gabriel Meseguer-Brocal, a senior research scientist for the streaming company.

"They're not perceptual, we cannot listen to them, but they're easy to spot if you do a few mathematical operations."

The errors act like a fingerprint, Meseguer-Brocal says, with a "unique signature" that means it's possible to detect which piece of software was used to create any piece of music.

The mystery surrounding the singer poses bigger questions around AI-generated music

Of course, it's entirely possible that everyone has got it wrong, and Sienna Rose is a real singer who shuns the limelight. Maybe she's in witness protection. Perhaps she's a real singer, stuck in a contractual dispute with her label, and releasing music under a pseudonym.

If so, I'm sorry. It must be crushing to have your music labelled as soulless "slop". But that's indicative of the problem facing the entire music industry right now.

AI software is becoming so sophisticated that clone artists are competing with genuine musicians.

In Sweden this week, a chart-topping song was banned from the charts after journalists discovered the artist behind it, Jacub, didn't exist.

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

The costs of launching an act like Sienna Rose are practically zero, but her music is making 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.

The pop star Raye says fans prefer genuine, heartfelt music over computer-generated emptiness

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

"Eighteen months ago, it was around 5% or 6%," says Meseguer-Brocal. "It's kind of shocking how quickly it's increasing."

Still, Deezer hasn't gone as far as online music store Bandcamp, which this week announced it was banning all AI-generated 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 penalise tracks created using AI tools."

In the meantime, 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 who train their AI models on copyrighted work without permission.

Speaking at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2024, pop star Raye told me she believed fans would always choose real music over algorithmically-generated filler.

"There's no reason to feel a threat," she 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 lift off some weight I've been carrying or I'm trying to express myself and feel better."

At the same event, Kojey Radical said he wasn't worried about AI when he couldn't even trust his washing machine to start at the right time.

"Why is everyone trying to make me scared of the robots?" he laughed.

"I'm not scared of the robots. I will win."