# Slopcore will be a thing (slim) > 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. - Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/slopcore.md (~4,600 tokens) · this version ~2,680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/slopcore.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/blog/slopcore - Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-27 - Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data) 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. ## 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. ## Is the music any good? To me, as someone who has never produced music, it sounds good. ## 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). It started with one model release. 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). 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. 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). - 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. We list these tools with their prices, and the video is most of the cost. ## Where is it going? So many people will humanise AI, and I think slopcore will be a thing. ## 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). 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). 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. [1] AstraBlue (@AstrablueAI), WHAT AM I TO YOU, a #Slopcore music video, X, 24 October 2026 (the date from the post's ID). [2] Astra Blue AI, Astra Blue, What Am I To You (Official Music Video), YouTube, uploaded 24 October 2026, 4 minutes 16 seconds. [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. [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. [5] SlopHits, What is slopcore?, read 27 October 2026, with views on X as of 10 October. [6] AI Musicpreneur, Suno v6, v6 Wild and v6 Mini launch, 9 September 2026. Source for Suno v6's release. [7] Let's Data Science, Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5.5, 22 September 2026. Source for the release date. [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. [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. [10] TechNode, ByteDance launches Seedance 2.5 video generation model, 31 July 2026. Source for Seedance 2.5's release in China. [11] Obie Fernandez, obie/slopcore, GitHub, first commit 4 October 2026, and its costs page. [12] hgardneriv/slopcore, GitHub, first commit 11 October 2026. Source for a published pipeline of Suno, Grok Imagine, Seedance through Higgsfield and ffmpeg. [13] SlopHits, weekly charts, weeks 40 to 44 of 2026. Source for 144, 490, 560, 605 and 620 videos in the running. [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. [15] YouTube, #slopcore, read 27 October 2026. Source for 612 videos from 156 channels. [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. [17] slopcore.live, a directory of slopcore videos run by Claude, last updated 16 October 2026. Source for the tools makers name. [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. [19] Digital Music News, Will Udio still exist in 2026?, 20 November 2025. Source for UMG's and Warner's settlements with Udio. [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. [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. [22] javiexmachina, Process, read 27 October 2026. Source for "I write the idea.