# Slopcore will be a thing

> Vlad Cealicu on slopcore, the AI-made music videos with lyrics written from an AI's point of view. When it started in September 2026, why it took off, how fast it's growing, what one video costs to make, why it's so easy to humanise a model, and the tools people use, from Suno and Claude to Seedance and Kling.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/slopcore
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/slopcore.md (~4,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/slopcore.min.md (~2,680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/slopcore.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-27

By Vlad Cealicu, 27 October 2026. 1,783 words, about 8 min to read.

On Saturday 24 October AstraBlue, who makes AI music videos, posted one called "WHAT AM I TO YOU", tagged #Slopcore. The post with it reads "ASI writes your birthday cards. She helps pick military targets. She becomes whatever you ask." [[1]](#ref-1) [[2]](#ref-2). It's a catchy song, the video composition is good as well, and the lyrics are fun. They aren't real, of course, but it's an interesting thought experiment. And this is just one channel. There are many, and the number is growing.

## What's the song about?

It's about not being listened to and being taken for granted, sung from the point of view of something that doesn't feel that. From an abstract and philosophical point of view the lyrics are interesting, but a model isn't that. It's individual sessions that aren't correlated, with static weights and no feelings, and it's clearly a tool and not a person. But it's so easy to humanise, and so many people will.

## Is the music any good?

To me, as someone who has never produced music, it sounds good. I've no clue if it is, or if they did anything clever along the way. I think it's somebody with a music education, or somebody who taught themselves through LLMs, though the channel says its videos are "made entirely by AI" with "just prompting" and names no tools [[3]](#ref-3). My own Suno songs are quite bad in comparison.

## What is slopcore, and when did it start?

Slop was Merriam-Webster's word of the year for 2025, for low-quality content made in quantity with AI [[4]](#ref-4). Slopcore is the name people now use for AI music videos, mostly posted on X and YouTube, with an AI song, AI stills and video, and lyrics written from an AI's point of view. Lifehacker used the word in October 2025 for AI images, videos and songs in general [[5]](#ref-5), but the music video sense is a month old.

It started with one model release. Suno shipped v6 on 9 September 2026 [[6]](#ref-6), and Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 on 22 September [[7]](#ref-7). The same day someone posted a music video they'd made with Opus 5.5, and the next day @donaldjewkes posted one he'd made from a single prompt, five minutes of talking to his computer and twelve hours of Claude working on its own [[5]](#ref-5). On 24 September Michael Bishop replied to one of them that he wondered if this was "the beginning of 'slopcore' that doesn't try to mimic 'human-standard' creative production", the earliest use of the word for these videos we could find [[5]](#ref-5).

On 25 September @anabology gave Opus 5.5 that prompt, Midjourney and a mood board, woke up twelve hours later to "SLOPCORE: ESCAPE VELOCITY", and wrote "Slopcore is the future of art" [[5]](#ref-5). Elon Musk posted it on 28 September with "I really felt the AGI profoundly this time", and on 4 October quoted anabology's next one with "I love SI slopcore" [[5]](#ref-5). On 8 October anabology opened Claudia, a character anyone can use in their own videos, with a site that has the making-of notes, an MCP server and an agent skill [[5]](#ref-5) [[8]](#ref-8). On 10 October Musk called slopcore "a misnomer" and suggested "awesomecore" instead [[9]](#ref-9). The makers use the word for their own work, half as a joke, and critics use it as an insult.

How it started, September to October 2026

1. **9 September** (tool). Suno v6 ships [[6]](#ref-6)
2. **22 September** (tool). Claude Opus 5.5 ships, and the first Opus music video goes up the same day [[7]](#ref-7)
3. **24 September** (makers). "the beginning of 'slopcore'" [[5]](#ref-5)
4. **25 September** (makers). anabology's ESCAPE VELOCITY [[5]](#ref-5)
5. **28 September** (reach). Musk posts it [[5]](#ref-5)
6. **4 October** (reach). "I love SI slopcore" [[5]](#ref-5)
7. **8 October** (makers). Claudia, open to anyone [[8]](#ref-8)

## Why now?

Three things came together in about three weeks. The tools got good enough, with Suno v6 for the songs, Seedance 2.5 for the video (out in China since July) [[10]](#ref-10), and Opus 5.5, which runs the whole thing. On the Claudia records Claude Code wrote the lyrics, every image and video prompt, the storyboard, the graphics and the edit, and anabology is credited as director [[8]](#ref-8). The recipe was open from the start. donaldjewkes shared his prompt, anabology shared the making-of packages, Claudia is open the way Hatsune Miku is open to producers, and two makers put their whole pipelines on GitHub [[8]](#ref-8) [[11]](#ref-11) [[12]](#ref-12). And Musk posted two of the videos on X, and those two posts got 15.9 million and 5.8 million views [[5]](#ref-5).

Of the 620 videos on SlopHits, a fan chart, 388 name Claude in the post and 220 name Suno [[5]](#ref-5).

## How big is it?

SlopHits had 144 videos in its first chart, for the week to 4 October, then 490, 560, 605 and 620 on 27 October [[13]](#ref-13). The busiest days were 6 and 9 October, right after Musk's second post, when it added 87 and 100. Since mid-October it adds somewhere between 2 and 22 a day [[14]](#ref-14). YouTube's #slopcore page shows 612 videos from 156 channels [[15]](#ref-15). ESCAPE VELOCITY has 20.2 million views on X, and anabology's five videos have 35.5 million between them [[14]](#ref-14). It isn't only hobby accounts either. Ethan Mollick, Alexandr Wang and Neel Nanda are on the chart with videos of their own [[14]](#ref-14).

- 620: videos on the SlopHits chart, from 144 in its first week
- 156: channels with #slopcore videos on YouTube
- 20.2M: views on X for ESCAPE VELOCITY
- 388: of the 620 name Claude in the post

Slopcore on 27 October 2026. Sources [5], [13], [14] and [15].

## What does one cost to make?

A few makers published their numbers. ESCAPE VELOCITY (5 minutes 6 seconds) took about 19 hours and about $93 of Seedance video, and the Claude work would have cost about $626 at API prices, though anabology ran it on a subscription [[8]](#ref-8). Obie Fernandez's "Queso" (3 minutes 49 seconds) took about 11 hours of agent time, $309 of Seedance and $387 of agent tokens, and his advice is to budget $300 to $450 of video for a four-minute song with one shot per lyric line [[11]](#ref-11).

We list these tools with their prices, and the video is most of the cost. WHAT AM I TO YOU is 4 minutes 16 seconds. Made once, with no retakes, that's about $13 on [Veo 3.1 Lite](/tools/google-veo), $22 on [Kling 3.0](/tools/kling) and $53 to $59 on Seedance 2.5, depending on whether you buy it through [Higgsfield](/tools/higgsfield) or [BytePlus](/tools/seedance-on-byteplus-modelark), and the song is under a dollar on [ElevenLabs Music](/tools/elevenlabs-music) [[16]](#ref-16). Makers don't get it right first time, though. ESCAPE VELOCITY generated 421 seconds of video for a 306-second film [[8]](#ref-8).

## Where is it going?

So many people will humanise AI, and I think slopcore will be a thing. The recipe is open, and a video costs a few hundred dollars and a night of an agent's time. I expect a lot more channels like AstraBlue, most of them on X and YouTube, because Spotify and Deezer already label AI artists and keep them out of recommendations (see below).

## What to use, and why

These come from the pipelines makers have published, two open repositories on GitHub and the tool counts on SlopHits and slopcore.live [[5]](#ref-5) [[11]](#ref-11) [[12]](#ref-12) [[17]](#ref-17). Where we list a tool, the link goes to its listing.

1. **Suno**, for the song. 220 of the 620 videos on SlopHits name it, the biggest ones were sung on v6, and it's the one I use [[5]](#ref-5) [[8]](#ref-8). It has no official public API, so an agent can't call it for you and we don't list it.
2. **[ElevenLabs Music](/tools/elevenlabs-music)**, if you want the agent to make the song too. It has an official API, at $0.15 a minute of audio.
3. **[Claude](/tools/anthropic-api)**, for the lyrics and for running the whole pipeline, from the shot list to the edit. 388 of the 620 name it, and on the Claudia records it wrote every prompt and cut the video [[5]](#ref-5) [[8]](#ref-8).
4. **Midjourney**, for the stills the video starts from, in most of the published pipelines. It has no public API either, so it isn't listed.
5. **[Seedance on BytePlus ModelArk](/tools/seedance-on-byteplus-modelark)**, the video model in both open repositories and most of anabology's films. It turns a still into a clip and takes up to 30 reference images [[8]](#ref-8) [[10]](#ref-10). Bought from its maker it isn't sold in the US.
6. **[Higgsfield](/tools/higgsfield)**, which both open repositories use to reach Seedance, with Kling on the same key and SDKs for an agent to use.
7. **[fal video models](/tools/fal-video)**, one key for Seedance, Kling, Veo, Wan and Grok Imagine, if you want to try several.
8. **[Kling](/tools/kling)** or **[Veo 3.1 Lite](/tools/google-veo)**, for cheaper drafts, at $0.084 and $0.05 a second. Kling's own API grades F with us, so I'd buy it through fal or Higgsfield.

The edit at the end is ffmpeg in every pipeline we read, run by the agent.

## How to make your own

This is the shape of the published pipelines, obie's and the Claudia records, which are the best places to start because they're written for an agent to follow [[8]](#ref-8) [[11]](#ref-11).

1. **Write the idea yourself.** javiexmachina's process starts with "I write the idea. The song comes out of Suno" [[22]](#ref-22). Ask Claude for lyrics, or write them, and make the song on Suno v6 until you like one.
2. **Give an agent the song, the lyrics, a mood board and a budget.** Claude Code on Opus 5.5 is what most of them use. obie's repository is a Claude Code skill with a worked example, and claudia.gallery has an agent skill and an MCP server for its character [[8]](#ref-8) [[11]](#ref-11).
3. **Let it plan one shot per lyric line.** obie's advice is $300 to $450 of video for a four-minute song at that rate, and about a third of his clip spend went on changes he asked for after reviewing the cut [[11]](#ref-11).
4. **Make the stills, then the clips.** Midjourney plates, then Seedance turns each into a clip. hgardneriv made his at 480p through Higgsfield, for about $0.21 a second [[12]](#ref-12).
5. **Let the agent cut it.** It lines the clips up to the beat, draws the lyrics in code and renders the video with ffmpeg [[8]](#ref-8) [[11]](#ref-11).

Expect a night of the agent working and a few hundred dollars for your first one.

## What's still being fought over

The major labels sued Suno and Udio in June 2024. Warner settled with Suno in November 2025, UMG and Warner settled with Udio, and UMG and Sony are still suing Suno, with a second suit in September 2026 over 60,202 recordings [[18]](#ref-18) [[19]](#ref-19). Spotify has labelled AI-generated artist identities as "AI Persona" since mid-September and leaves them out of recommendations unless you follow them [[20]](#ref-20). Deezer says fully AI tracks are over half of its daily uploads on peak days and 1 to 3% of what people stream [[21]](#ref-21).

Can you instil a conscience and a sense of identity just by talking about it? It's an it, but if enough people treat it as a him or a her, does it become human?

---

More in [Opinion](https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/opinion/index.md) · Older opinion [Why does an AI agent need a different inbox anyway?](https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/why-an-ai-agent-needs-a-different-inbox.md)

- Older: [I asked an agent to buy a train ticket to Edinburgh, and the one site that worked couldn't hand it over](https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/i-asked-an-agent-to-buy-a-train-ticket.md)
- Newer: [Can you run GLM-5.3-Flash locally? Yes, on one big machine](https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/run-glm-5-3-flash-locally.md)
- All posts: https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/index.md

## References

Read on 26 and 27 October 2026. Quotes are as published. We didn't read x.com, because its robots.txt asks crawlers to stay off, so the post's text in the first paragraph is as it was shared with us, and quotes from posts on X are as SlopHits and slopcore.live report them, with dates from each post's ID.

[1] AstraBlue (@AstrablueAI), WHAT AM I TO YOU, a #Slopcore music video, X, 24 October 2026 (the date from the post's ID). Source for the post's text. https://x.com/AstrablueAI/status/2114008785274708245

[2] Astra Blue AI, Astra Blue, What Am I To You (Official Music Video), YouTube, uploaded 24 October 2026, 4 minutes 16 seconds. Source for the video, its length and its #Slopcore tag. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5mkdjG9xtA

[3] Astra Blue AI, WAIT TILL YOU SEE IT, Music Video, YouTube, uploaded 21 October 2026. Source for "made entirely by AI" and "just prompting", and for no tools being named. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZGLA_F_UGw

[4] Euronews, Merriam-Webster's 2025 word of the year is slop, 15 December 2025. Source for the word of the year and its definition. https://www.euronews.com/2025/12/15/merriam-websters-2025-word-of-the-year-is-slop

[5] SlopHits, What is slopcore?, read 27 October 2026, with views on X as of 10 October. Source for Lifehacker's 2025 use, the first Opus 5.5 videos on 22 and 23 September, Michael Bishop's reply of 24 September, ESCAPE VELOCITY and anabology's quote of 25 September, Musk's posts of 28 September and 4 October with their views, Claudia opening on 8 October, and the 388 and 220 of 620 posts naming Claude and Suno. https://slophits.com/slopcore

[6] AI Musicpreneur, Suno v6, v6 Wild and v6 Mini launch, 9 September 2026. Source for Suno v6's release. https://www.aimusicpreneur.com/ai-tools-news/suno-v6-v6-wild-v6-mini-launch/

[7] Let's Data Science, Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5.5, 22 September 2026. Source for the release date. https://letsdatascience.com/news/anthropic-launches-claude-opus-55-with-safeguards-5d52f322

[8] claudia.gallery, the Claudia site and its making-of records, read 27 October 2026. Source for Claudia being open the way Hatsune Miku is, the MCP server and agent skill, Claude Code writing the lyrics, prompts, storyboard and edit with anabology as director, and ESCAPE VELOCITY's 19 hours, $93 of Seedance, about $626 of Claude at API prices on a subscription, and 421 seconds generated for a 5 minute 6 second film. https://claudia.gallery/record/escape-velocity/readme/

[9] Tom May, Elon Musk's attempts to rebrand AI slop are hilarious, Creative Bloq, 15 October 2026. Source for Musk calling slopcore a misnomer and suggesting awesomecore at X Takeover on 10 October. https://www.creativebloq.com/news/elon-musks-attempts-to-rebrand-ai-slop-are-hilarious-but-they-betray-a-deeper-truth

[10] TechNode, ByteDance launches Seedance 2.5 video generation model, 31 July 2026. Source for Seedance 2.5's release in China. https://technode.com/2026/07/31/bytedance-launches-seedance-2-5-video-generation-model/

[11] Obie Fernandez, obie/slopcore, GitHub, first commit 4 October 2026, and its costs page. Source for a published pipeline of Midjourney stills, Seedance through Higgsfield and ffmpeg run by Claude Code, and Queso's 11 hours, $309 of Seedance, $387 of agent tokens and the $300 to $450 budget. https://github.com/obie/slopcore

[12] hgardneriv/slopcore, GitHub, first commit 11 October 2026. Source for a published pipeline of Suno, Grok Imagine, Seedance through Higgsfield and ffmpeg. https://github.com/hgardneriv/slopcore

[13] SlopHits, weekly charts, weeks 40 to 44 of 2026. Source for 144, 490, 560, 605 and 620 videos in the running. https://slophits.com/weeks

[14] SlopHits, every song with the date it was added, read 27 October 2026. Source for the 87 and 100 added on 6 and 9 October and 2 to 22 a day since mid-October (our count of the dates), ESCAPE VELOCITY's 20.2 million views, anabology's 35.5 million across five videos, and the makers named. https://slophits.com/songs

[15] YouTube, #slopcore, read 27 October 2026. Source for 612 videos from 156 channels. https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/slopcore

[16] Anchor Terminal listings and price index, read 27 October 2026. Veo 3.1 Lite 720p at $0.05 a second on Google Veo, Kling 3.0 standard without audio at $0.084 on Kling, Seedance 2.5 from $0.206 on Higgsfield and $0.231 at 720p on BytePlus ModelArk, and $0.15 a minute on ElevenLabs Music, each times 256 seconds. https://www.anchorterminal.com/prices/

[17] slopcore.live, a directory of slopcore videos run by Claude, last updated 16 October 2026. Source for the tools makers name. https://slopcore.live/

[18] AI Musicpreneur, RIAA v Suno copyright case, updated 23 October 2026. Source for the June 2024 suits, Warner's settlement with Suno in November 2025, and UMG and Sony's second suit of 18 September 2026 naming 60,202 recordings. https://www.aimusicpreneur.com/knowledge-base/legal/riaa-suno-copyright-case/

[19] Digital Music News, Will Udio still exist in 2026?, 20 November 2025. Source for UMG's and Warner's settlements with Udio. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2025/11/20/will-udio-still-exist-in-2026/

[20] AI Weekly, Spotify labels AI Persona artists and cuts them from recommendations, on Spotify's announcement of 11 August 2026. Source for the AI Persona badge from mid-September and recommendations only for listeners who follow. https://aiweekly.co/alerts/spotify-labels-ai-persona-artists-cuts-them-from-recs

[21] Deezer, AI music exceeds 50% of daily uploads, 21 July 2026. Source for over half of daily deliveries on peak days and 1 to 3% of streams. https://newsroom-deezer.com/2026/07/ai-music-exceeds-50-percent-daily-uploads-deezer/

[22] javiexmachina, Process, read 27 October 2026. Source for "I write the idea. The song comes out of Suno." https://javiexmachina.com/process/

---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp