34. hey you're not nikki blonsky!
Who is hacking Broadway actors’ Spotify accounts’ to post AI pop covers?
Last Friday, I opened up Spotify to a shocking statement: “New release from Nikki Blonsky.” I asked myself where could poor Nikki Blonsky’s struggle to capitalize on once playing Tracy Turnblad have taken her now. Why is she possibly releasing a cover of the Jonas Brothers’ “What a Man Gotta Do”? But then I noticed this profile photo was 100% not Nikki Blonsky [I would know because I’ve seen Hairspray 1000 times, and seen 1 time a Cameo she did for my college’s Students for Justice in Palestine where she said “Free Palestine” in a way that made it clear she did not know if Palestine was a person, place, or thing]. The voice singing the cover could be Nikki Blonsky, but it’s so generic it could be anyone.
Later, my beloved friend Áine texts me a link with the query, “why is he doing this?” This is a cover of Mike Posner’s “I Took A Pill in Ibiza” released by Grey Henson, the Tony-nominated star of Mean Girls: The Musical and Shucked. Now, I’ve listened to a lot of great Broadway actors’ mediocre pop albums so it's not exactly a shock to see this, but after hitting play, I know that this is not Grey. Neither is it him or even the same not-him who released this cover of Post Malone’s “I had some help” with an artist simply called Jazz Lounge. At the bottom of Henson’s page, I see these songs have been added to a playlist, the same playlist I recognize from Nikki Blonsky’s profile.
Other artists credited on this playlist include Pitch Perfect’s Brittany Snow, Waitress’ Kimiko Glenn, Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton, multiple supporting cast members from Heathers: The Musical, and the fake backing band from the Rachel Zegler Hunger Games movie. You even have Varian, a character from Tangled: The Series, singing Sabrina Carpenter’s new song “Busy Woman.” All of their profile pictures have been changed to clearly AI-generated photos of hot, artsy people. Most of the artists on this playlist aren’t actually co-opted like the above, but instead wholly invented with more AI profile photos and album art. The range of songs also include a kind-of good cover of Bo Burnham’s Bezos I and a cover of Rock DJ that is so painful it should wipe out every bad review of Better Man. There’s also this song below called “I’m not Michael Jackson” that seems to have little grasp on how the public perceives Michael Jackson in the year 2025 (mainly, dead).
More of these songs are scattered across other playlists made by this account IKONS with titles like “Good Old Lounge” and “city sound mood.” I have to assume those were the direct prompts entered into whatever AI music software they used to generate these. The songs are also cross-posted on YouTube and Apple Music. A website linked in some of their playlist summaries advertises IKONS as a Sweden-based business who can “[create] the soundtrack to your every state of mind.” Though they claim to have worked with ABC and Electronic Arts, there is no more specific information about what kind of services they actually provide, and they did not reply to the inquiry email I sent.
I’ve been mostly in denial about the encroachment of AI into all corners of the internet. This time though, it found me where I live, like the rising tide I can’t ignore once it flooded my basement, something we can probably expect to see more of given AI’s environmental impact. But besides that, the other annoying part of AI to me is that artists are being threatened by a technology that turns out mostly crap, or “slop” as Max Read put it. Sometimes it's kind of an interesting or funny slop. I’ve personally sent hundreds of funny-horrifying examples to my friends, usually the ones set to a cat meowing Sia’s “Unstoppable”, but I’ve only used AI a single time (example below), and I think we’ll all agree that that was the rare exception that was worth it.
IKONS created their YouTube account in 2013, and for most of their existence, they posted normal covers and vlogs from Robin Bengtsson, a real singer-songwriter from Sweden. Their Facebook posts from years ago advertise a small, independent record company. Then a year ago, their accounts switched to posting hundreds of these AI videos. They seem to be following the model of Swedish musician Johan Röhr who exploited Spotify’s set-up to rack up 15 billion streams across 650 different fake accounts. IKONS simply took out the labor of making music. They’re not the first to do so either. The allegedly-AI-and-definitely-stupidly-named band, Jet Fuel & Ginger Ales, has racked up millions of listens. The only innovation I’m seeing from IKONS is attaching their fake artists to real, albeit not-well-known ones. I’m curious how it will take before someone notices. I DM’d a few of the artists involved to confirm they had no involvement but have not heard back (no, not even from Blonsky). Although Spotify is pretty loose with allowing covers, impersonation is still against the platform policy.
Now, I see how AI was used to make the songs, and a service like DistroKid was likely used to post them en masse, but how did they select the real artists to credit these songs to? This seems to be one part where a human element acted, although again, I am a bit of a rube here. I’m thinking their thinking was who’s got enough listeners to be on the map algorithmically but not enough to quickly notice a fraudulent addition. Technological innovation aside, this is yet another indignity on the books for the long-suffering musical theatre actor, like when one of our greatest living stage performers gets billed eighteenth in what’s supposed to be a musical. The names Nikki Blonsky or Grey Henson may mean little to these Swedish fucks, but in my corner of the woods, at least one of them connotes respect. You may think no one would notice you commandeering the Spotify account of a fictional character from the Tangled TV show, but some of us are just obsessed enough with Varian’s voice actor, Jeremy Jordan, to have listened to that soundtrack a LOT. This is the first wave of the coming robot war, and if we let minor Broadway actors go down without a fight, there is no hope for the rest of us.
further reading:
Spotify Removes ‘Tens Of Thousands’ Of AI-Generated Songs: Here’s Why
Spotify is full of AI music, and some say it's ruining the platform
Stability AI: Ed Newton-Rex's resignation got lost in the OpenAI chaos
good reads
The first two are older pieces. I read the first after watching A Complete Unknown, which I adored. I definitely projected onto it and thought yes, this is what it’s like to write a Substack in chaotic political times. The second I came upon after rereading The Locked Tomb series because I think Tasmyn Muir is a mad genius.
Interview Magazine | "I Wanted To Be You": Joan Baez, in Conversation with Jane Fonda
FONDA: God. I just remembered, I stayed in Hanoi in 1972 in the same hotel that you had stayed in previously. The first night I was there, there was an air raid because the war was still going on. They took me down to this bomb shelter in the basement, and then they told me, “When Joan Baez was in the bomb shelter, she sang for us.”
BAEZ: Oh god, you tell them to go fuck themselves.
In The Margin | Norman Spotlights: Tamsyn Muir
The way I personally stay true to the story I started down on is to give myself permission to not teach anyone anything…I think this is the pressure of capitalism on time – that everything has to double or triple up in benefit compared to the time we take on it: if we’re prepared to waste eight hours on a book we had better be able to tot up at the end how that book was also feeding us in some way. That’s brand time we just used.
Vulture | Tom Sandoval Went on The Traitors to Make Friends
I found that very gross and really effed up for her to say that I’m doing cocaine and cocaine is running through my veins. I thought we were cool.
SEEN/READ
02/28 BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY
03/01 ANUJA*, WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL
03/02 Hell Followed With Us, SUGARCANE, THE ACADEMY AWARDS
03/03 30 ROCK
03/04 “Mae Martin @ Gramercy Theatre”
03/05 PURPLE RAIN
03/06 THE WARRIORS
co(o)lman (ranch) do(r)ming(t)o
Last week, I celebrated my favorite tradition-my Oscars party!! My full menu is below. The pun I’m personally proudest of is The Limes They Are A-Shaking Timojitee’s and Colman Domingo Cool Ranch Doritos. My Substance jell-o shots didn’t set, but my game friends took them anyway to celebrate their win in Makeup & Hairstyling. I wore my A Different Man and A Complete Unknown crew gifts to cheer them on but it seems I jinxed them instead. My affection for Conan somehow grew in size, and he walked the perfect line of silly and sincere. Happy for Anora!! But I was right-er.
