From manufactured fans to AI artists and "industry plants," 2026 is one wild year for figuring out what's authentic and what's not in the music industry. For more, check out our historical survey of fakes, a podcast about why it feels harder than ever to know what's real and an essay by Ann Powers on where our desire for authenticity comes from.
Earlier this summer, British producer and singer James Blake posted a series of complaints on his Instagram: He claimed that the music industry is essentially rigged, and that album reviews, comment sections and streaming numbers are all increasingly being manipulated for profit.
"If you're an artist, remember that in 2026 there's not a single part of the system that isn't faked," he wrote.
In a year where an indie darling's success has been called a "psyop" and a pop star's debut album is dogged with plagiarism allegations, Blake raised an interesting point. There's a growing tension between the rise of generative AI, social media algorithms' effect on creative forces and the hypercommercialization of the music industry. Dead internet theory, or the idea that everything online is fake, has taken hold in music; it claims that what was once a human-led space for communication and innovation has turned into a wasteland of bot-programmed activity. At the same time, Gen Z continues to prioritize live music and communal experiences, spending more than ever on concert tickets to do so. Beloved indie stars who had taken a step back from the public eye returned with widely celebrated albums, and streaming services started implementing more and more safeguards around AI content on their platforms.
The year has also had more than its share of bizarre — and dare I say fun? — mysteries that have popped up online: a rabbit hole investigation into the real identity of an underground artist and TikTok song parodies that are somehow on the cutting edge of U.S. immigration law. For better or worse, is 2026 shaping up to be one of the fakest years in music?
Here's a sampling that indicates why the feeling of artifice in music has been so pervasive this year:
The "Geese is a Psyop" controversy
In March, the co-founders of a digital marketing agency called Chaotic Good Projects spoke to Billboard during a live podcasting taping at SXSW. During the conversation, they opened up about one of their strategies for manufacturing hype: creating fake fan accounts to post, comment and share videos of the artists on their roster, which ranged from major pop stars to indie rock bands.
The conversation went mostly unnoticed until indie musician Eliza McLamb wrote about it on her Substack. She expressed surprise not at the existence of online narrative campaigns, which are a continuation of decades-old marketing tactics, but at the irony of smaller, alternative artists like Cameron Winter and Oklou being beneficiaries of Chaotic Good's mainstream virality machine. (Chaotic Good changed elements of its website and took down its roster shortly after McLamb's piece was published; the agency has not responded to NPR's past requests for comment.) The controversy snowballed when WIRED picked up the story, writing an article about Winter's band — which had recently released its breakthrough album, Getting Killed, and was in the midst of enormous critical acclaim — titled "The Fanfare Around the Band Geese is a Psyop."
In an interview with Rolling Stone months later, Geese frontman Cameron Winter said the band had been just as taken aback by the viral story and the band's seemingly overnight explosion. "We were just like, 'Oh, my God. The whole f***ing thing is fake.' We were having a meltdown," Winter said. "Then we marched up to our label over email, the relevant team members, like, 'How long have all our f***ing fans been fake, you sons of b******?'"
According to Winter, the label explained they had hired Chaotic Good to repost clips of the band's performances and help push it onto algorithms, not to create fake fan accounts or flood comments with bots. Even so, the Chaotic Good discourse sowed distrust around artists who seem to suddenly go viral and in the authenticity of their fandoms. (For what it's worth, Geese has been playing festivals and selling out its biggest headlining tour for all of 2026, and the people in the mosh pits look pretty real).
Ticketmaster cancels Harry Styles tickets purchased by fake accounts
When Harry Styles announced his 30-night residency at Madison Square Garden at the beginning of the year, tickets sold out almost immediately — kind of.
In April, Ticketmaster announced it had identified and canceled thousands of tickets that had been purchased by scalpers, who the company claimed used fake identities to create multiple accounts and bypass ticket limits. Saumil Mehta, global president of Ticketmaster, wrote in a statement that the tickets would be sold back to real fans at face value.
The announcement followed years of debate about how Ticketmaster prices concert tickets, how it manages virtual queues for high-demand shows, and how it does (or doesn't) restrict the resale market. It also coincided with the end of a high-profile antitrust trial involving Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, and dozens of states who accused the conglomerate of exercising too much power over too many aspects of the live music industry — including by overcharging fans.
Producer and musician Jack Antonoff responded to Ticketmaster's statement about catching scalpers on X with sarcasm: "you caught you?"
KJ Apa feuds with Mr. Fantasy (Who feuds with who? Exactly.)
Last year, a long-haired, bell-bottom-wearing character named Mr. Fantasy started making waves on TikTok, releasing a string of electropop songs with goofy videos. Social media users soon started pointing out the physical resemblance between the eccentric singer and the Riverdale actor KJ Apa, including the fact that they seemingly have the same tattoos. When asked about his identity in interviews, Mr. Fantasy cheekily denied any relation to Apa. In a statement to NPR last year, Mr. Fantasy's manager claimed to not know who "that TJ Apple actor boy is."
In May of this year, Mr. Fantasy upped the ante when he released a music video featuring several of Apa's Riverdale costars. KJ Apa then posted a now-deleted video on Instagram, alluding to the singer and accusing him of having "completely and utterly stolen my identity and likeness," and adding that it was costing him acting jobs. Mr. Fantasy later told Entertainment Tonight that he and Kapa had "talked it out."
The Rolling Stones deepfake themselves in a music video
"What a drag it is getting old," Mick Jagger crooned in 1966. If only he knew that 60 years later, he would be able to de-age himself — at least for a few minutes.
This summer, The Rolling Stones released the single "In the Stars" ahead of the group's 25th studio album, Foreign Tongues. In the music video, Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood appear as younger versions of themselves, playing an impromptu show in a warehouse party alongside rising actress Odessa A'Zion. The deepfake versions of the Stones were created by Deep Voodoo, an AI startup formed by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Malcolm Todd's "Earrings" gets a suspicious boost
Despite originally being released in 2024, indie pop singer Malcolm Todd's song "Earrings" has spent much of 2026 climbing the Billboard Hot 100 chart — a trajectory that has become more and more common thanks to how TikTok boosts songs into virality.
The song has seen a surge in streams, too. In June, "Earrings" spiked in listenership by 70% overnight, landing it at the top of the Spotify USA charts. The Financial Times reported that the song's meteoric rise coincided with bets on the prediction market Kalshi that it would be the most-streamed song in June; Spotify later deleted more than half a million streams on "Earrings" after it determined that the song's numbers had been manipulated by bots.
In a statement shared with NPR, Spotify said, "All streaming services face ever-changing stream manipulation. Spotify has best-in-class detection and mitigation practices for manipulated streams, and we don't pay out associated royalties."
Representatives for Todd did not respond to NPR's request for comment.
Robots listening to robots
This summer, music streaming company Deezer reported that for the first time ever, AI-generated songs constituted more than 50% of its daily uploads in the month of June. But the songs accounted for less than 3% of total streams on the platform, and a majority of those streams were deemed fraudulent, meaning they're likely driven by bots rather than human listeners.
Deezer's announcement came soon after a report published by the entertainment insights company Luminate, which found that although generative AI content is flooding streaming platforms, listeners are becoming less and less comfortable with it.
Gracie Abrams battles another round of "nepo baby" and "industry plant" complaints
Over the last few years, Gracie Abrams has become one of the most popular confessional singer-songwriters of her generation. The 27-year-old has opened for Taylor Swift, been mentored by indie rock veteran and frequent collaborator Aaron Dessner and is now headlining arena shows. But because she is the daughter of filmmaker J.J. Abrams and Hollywood producer Katie McGrath, Abrams is often accused of being a "nepo baby." That term, which has become almost inescapable on the internet, basically accuses a person with influential parents of climbing the music (or other) industry via connections driven by nepotism rather than talent, hard work or real popularity.
The term is used widely to describe almost any star who could have had a leg up thanks to their family connections (see also Sombr, Clairo or Stella Lefty), but it's been a particularly pervasive line of questioning for Abrams this year, as she was on the press tour for her album Daughter From Hell in July. During an interview with The New York Times' Popcast, Abrams acknowledged the debate around the term.
"The nepo stuff is obviously in the discourse appropriately," she said. "I think about the privilege there, and it's like, I had a safety net, and that allowed me the ability to experiment and to concentrate and I had the gift of time to dedicate to doing this thing I loved. I wasn't growing up afraid financially, and that's the biggest deal."
Daughter From Hell, which largely contends with Abrams' coming-of-age and her relationship to her mother, was the singer's first album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Most major stops of her upcoming tour to promote the album are sold out.
Influencer payola
With a decline in traditional media and arts journalism in particular, there's been a rise in a new medium for music discovery: short-form video content that recommends, analyzes and dissects new songs. The influencers who run these accounts have become the modern-day equivalent to VJs; they're increasingly popular as music fans face algorithmic fatigue and look for trusted voices to put them on.
But it turns out that some of these videos, which usually look like organic fan content, are a form of paid advertising. Over the summer, NPR spoke with five music content creators who said they often accept payments from record labels and marketing agencies to promote certain songs — and they don't disclose any type of sponsorship in their posts.
Australian influencer Derrick Gee, known for his music discovery and commentary videos, says he does not accept any kind of payment from labels, artists, agencies or publishers in order to uphold trust with his audience. Although payola and other kinds of undisclosed marketing have long existed in the industry, Gee told NPR that these short-form video campaigns are a slippery slope.
"The problem with it now is that it's like Average Joe from Denver starts with a passion for music and in a year is pushing slop because someone paid him to," Gee said. "I don't think that's the most moral thing for that person or moral thing for the industry to purchase people's faces to be the promoter [of a song]."
Shakira and Usher clone allegations
Shakira may be the unofficial queen of World Cup songs, but during the opening ceremony of this year's tournament in Mexico City, some fans didn't think the person performing was actually Shakira. A conspiracy theory that she'd used a body double circulated on social media, though it seemed to dissipate by the World Cup's halftime performance in July.
Similar claims plagued Usher in August. After a concert at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, internet sleuths began pointing out supposed differences in his jawline and outfits, casting doubt on whether it was really him onstage. The 48-year-old singer addressed the claims in an Instagram post, writing, "Y'all are funny…clone? They can't clone this?" He added: "AI ain't that advanced."
Spotify starts verifying AI personas
In September, Spotify began labeling AI-generated users posing as human artists on the streaming platform.
"Although there's a broad spectrum in how artists use AI as a creative tool, the question of whether a profile represents an actual human is one where Spotify can help make a clear determination," reads the announcement on Spotify's website. "This badge is about the artist's public identity, not about how the music was made."
Creators uploading music to Spotify now have the ability to self-disclose if they are using AI for their public persona, not for actual music creation. (Earlier this year, Spotify introduced a different tool called AI credits, which artists can use to disclose generative AI usage in the creative process). The company will also independently review profiles and enforce the policy. Spotify says AI personas will be excluded from all editorial and algorithmic recommendations.
Is Boy Throb a real band, or a Nathan Fielder stunt?
Last fall, the band Boy Throb debuted on TikTok with a clear goal: to win a Grammy. The band's second objective? To get member Darshan Magdum, who was "stuck in India," a visa in order to join the rest of the group in the U.S.
Since then, the boy band has racked up over one million TikTok followers for posting choreographed dances in matching pink tracksuits, often set to parodies of pop songs with new lyrics that underline 1) their determination to make it in the music industry and 2) their friend Darshan's immigration journey.
The unconventional group signed to pop star Kesha's label earlier this summer and later released a collaborative single with her called "DJ Turn It Down." In a recent NPR story about Boy Throb, Kesha said that "as someone who's kind of built a career on riding the line between seriousness and play, game respects game."
Boy Throb scored a massive win in August, when they announced Magdum's visa had been approved. Many people online are still unclear on whether the band is serious or not — some even suspect it could be the latest stunt from comedian and filmmaker Nathan Fielder. In the group's interview with NPR, the band members denied the theory, but admitted to using silly marketing tactics to their advantage.
Jason Isbell and other artists sue Suno
In August, musicians Jason Isbell, David Lowery, Guy Forsyth and Eduardo Calle filed a lawsuit against AI music model company Suno. In the filing, the artists claim that Suno is appropriating and exploiting their voices and identities without permission.
Suno, a leading company in the generative AI music space, has faced lawsuits from multiple record labels over copyright infringement, or essentially training its models on artists' music without authorization. Suno has claimed that it is operating under fair use laws.
The lawsuit from Isbell and others accuses the company not of violating copyright laws, but of infringing on artists' right of publicity to the way their own name and identity is used for commercial gain. The artists allege that Suno has captured and stored information about their musical styles, vocal tone and other identifying features that allows users to input artists' names as prompts for creation. According to the lawsuit, Suno has stated in the past that it does not allow artist names to be used as prompts because its goal is to create original content, not replicate existing music.
Who is Betty Hammerschlag?
Psycho Summer, the latest album from the underground Gen Z artist known as Betty Hammerschlag, is a collection of lo-fi musings that melds fuzzy guitars with electronic bursts and hazy, delicate vocals.
There is little personal information about Hammerschlag online, but in her music and on her social media, she comes across as many of her peers do: a somewhat mysterious young artist who communicates primarily via purple emojis and oversaturated close-ups of flowers. Her songs have been recommended by The Guardian, The Quietus and have been played on NTS radio shows dozens of times.
In a recent investigation for his newsletter First Floor, journalist Shawn Reynaldo claims Hammerschlag is not real, but the product of German artist Tilman Hornig, a man in his 40s. In his reporting, Reynaldo repeatedly tried to verify the artist's identity or get comment from Hornig, neither of which he was able to do. But he pieced together a breadcrumb trail: writing credits on a 2024 single, interviews with collaborators and bookers and accounts from shows in which someone claiming to be Hammerschlag allegedly just sat onstage and played cassette tapes. Reynaldo's conclusion? The project is, basically, a big, elaborate and "rather convincing ruse."
In a Reddit thread about Reynaldo's story, one user summed it up as: "I don't know who this is and I really don't care other than to say that I'm really not loving the year 2026."
Stella Lefty hit with plagiarism claims
Stella Lefty is one of 2026's biggest breakthrough stars. Her pop-country song "Boston" peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart this summer, and her debut album Long Way Home has been a commercial success.
But perhaps even more persistent than her songs are the accusations that the 24-year-old has been "stealing" melodies from other artists. In reality, Lefty's album interpolates two existing songs: "Boston" pulls from Noah Kahan's "Stick Season" and "Summer You Were Mine" is reminiscent of the Chicks' "There's Your Trouble." Kahan, Mark Selby and Tia Sillers (who co-wrote "There's Your Trouble") all have writing credits for those respective songs on Lefty's album (which entitles them to a share of publishing royalties), but Lefty is still facing scrutiny.
Her team declined to comment to NPR on allegations that she copied other songs. On social media, people continue to point out similarities between Lefty's songs ("Seven Eleven") and songs she's covered in the past ("Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus). Even Saturday Night Live poked fun at the backlash.
First real person is criminally charged for faking music streams
Earlier this month, a man from North Carolina named Michael Smith was sentenced to 18 months in prison for committing streaming fraud. Smith had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in March.
Prosecutors alleged that from 2017 through 2024, Smith uploaded AI-generated songs to streaming platforms and then used bots to rack up millions of dollars in streaming royalties. With his guilty plea, which carried a maximum sentence of five years, Smith also agreed to pay over $8 million in forfeiture. He is the first person to receive criminal charges for manipulating streams with the use of AI.
"Michael Smith exploited super intelligence technology to generate a fraud," said U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald in a statement. "By flooding music streaming platforms with automated bots in the place of consumers, and fake songs in the place of creativity, Smith robbed millions in royalty payments from genuine artists and their fans.
Phoebe Bridgers' no-phone rule sparks absurd memes about what's happening at shows
Phoebe Bridgers' return to the spotlight is without a doubt one of the biggest music stories of the year. In 2024, the singer-songwriter took a major step back from the public eye after the death of her father coincided with heightened media attention. She released her third album, Lost Weekend, in August, and later embarked on a sold-out arena tour across the country. (Lost Weekend is itself a meditation on the hazy nature of reality, with Bridgers' lyrics mining fragmented memories and her voice alternating between pure emotion and robotic vocoder.)
As part of her comeback, Bridgers has banned phones and recording devices at all of her shows. One result? Concertgoers are now joking about outrageous events transpiring during the concert, saying that without photos or videos, you just have to take their word for it. One video claims Candace Owens made a cameo during the D.C. stop to read a passage from the novel Stone Butch Blues; another meme says tour opener Alex G pulled a lucky fan onstage a la Justin Bieber's "One Less Lonely" girl bit. Who knew that by imposing some rules around technology, the internet could feel kind of fun again?
Marsha Blackburn dances to AI Kendrick Lamar video
Earlier this month, Sen. Marsha Blackburn attempted to give the final weeks of her gubernatorial run in Tennessee a boost by posting an AI-generated video of her as Kendrick Lamar during the 2025 Super Bowl halftime performance. In the clip, Blackburn — who has championed legislation to regulate AI — appears to be singing Lamar's megahit "Not Like Us" while flanked by fellow Tennessee Republicans: Rep. Tim Burchett, Sen. Bill Hagerty, state Sen. Brent Taylor and former WWE wrestler Glenn Jacobs (Kane), who served as mayor of Knox County.
The clip received swift backlash online, with many social media users calling it "AI slop." In an interview with Fox13 News, Blackburn said a county commissioner created the video and her campaign thought it was "fun."
Copyright 2026 NPR
