Photo: Marina Hunter [Official press image]
By now, AI-generated music is far from rare. On top of that, many no-name generators are abusing it to make money themselves — at the expense of real people. Bands from the metal and core scene such as Anthrax, While She Sleeps, Thy Art Is Murder, The Ghost Inside, and many more have already issued statements about fake music being released on Spotify under their names. There was a real wave of this in summer 2024. And in 2025 alone, Spotify reportedly removed over 75 million of these AI tracks from the platform.
Now Slipknot singer Corey Taylor is also affected via his solo page. Anyone browsing new releases will immediately notice a whole series of extremely obvious AI-generated cover artworks, some of which weren’t even adjusted to his name. Instead, for example, “Metallica” appears on them…
Spotify has already spoken publicly on the issue, stating:
“The pace of innovation around generative AI technology is currently extremely high and can sometimes unsettle creators. At its best, AI opens up entirely new ways for artists to create content, while technology helps listeners discover it. At its worst, so-called ‘bad actors’ or content farms use AI to deceive listeners and flood the ecosystem with low-quality content. This can slow down authentic artists who are in the process of building their careers.
This type of harmful AI content negatively impacts the listener experience and often attempts to redirect royalties illegitimately. […]
We see a future where artists and producers decide for themselves whether and how they incorporate AI into their creative processes. As always, we leave these creative decisions to them. At the same time, we continuously work to protect them from spam, identity misuse, and fraud, while offering listeners greater transparency about the music on Spotify.”
With such a surge of AI content affecting numerous artists, there is unfortunately still a lot to be expected in the future, despite the new protective measures already announced by Spotify.
In the end, it remains important to stay vigilant when it comes to new releases.
