I recently discovered an artist called William Calhoun on Qobuz. At first I was genuinely impressed. The voice is extraordinary — very natural, deep, wide-ranging and beautifully recorded. The arrangements and production are also remarkably polished.
I even bought three individual tracks from Qobuz because I wanted to use them as demonstration tracks when showing my hi-fi system to a friend.
Then I became suspicious. There seem to be an extraordinary number of albums under the same artist name, all released during 2026 and with very similar production and musical style.
I checked further and found something rather surprising. Shazam credits Suno as the performing artist/vocalist, while William Heath Calhoun is credited as songwriter and producer. The same pattern appears on multiple tracks.
So this appears to be an AI/Suno-generated music project, rather than a conventional recording artist.
What bothers me is not that AI music exists or that Qobuz distributes it. That’s a separate discussion. What bothers me is the lack of transparency.
As a listener, when I see an artist, album and detailed credits on Qobuz, I naturally assume I am listening to a human performer and a conventional recording project unless stated otherwise.
In this case I actually bought the music before discovering what it was.
Should streaming services such as Qobuz and Roon clearly identify AI-generated music and AI performers?
And if they don’t, aren’t we effectively creating a new kind of musical deception — not because the music itself is fake, but because the identity and nature of the “artist” are presented as if they were conventional?
Interestingly, I had already known Will Calhoun from Living Colour for many years, so seeing the name “William Calhoun” initially made the discovery even more convincing. It turns out this is a completely different entity.
I find the whole thing fascinating, but I would definitely prefer to know what I am actually listening to.
