Japanese indie alt-rock band THE MOTEL have taken their latest track ‘NO’ to No. 1 on Japan’s iTunes Alternative chart, days after a studio clip of the single passed almost 15 million views on X. The song also reached No. 13 on the all-genre iTunes chart. Its rise has come with growing questions over whether generative AI was used to produce it, and the band have yet to say how their music is made.
Released on September 13th, ‘NO’ credits MOY on lyrics, composition, vocals, and guitar, with RYO and NAOTO on guitar, Leo on bass, and R1N on drums. The five-piece posted a short studio clip on September 21st, and listeners soon praised its grungy, 90s British rock-inspired sound and MOY’s fluent English.
NO/THE MOTEL#band pic.twitter.com/J0gQJUqcdr
— THE MOTEL (@THEMOTEL_BAND) September 20, 2026
Much of that reach came from quote posts reacting in disbelief that the band were Japanese, with the most widely shared passing 27 million views. As the track picked up traction, users began questioning MOY’s vocals and unusually fluent English, the looping chord progression, and the lack of any concert footage.
Some pushed back on claims that the band themselves were fabricated, pointing to releases dating back to 2025. Others argued AI use would not necessarily be a problem, and that the bigger issue was whether listeners know who, or what, created the music.
THE MOTEL’s only public response so far is a YouTube Short posted on September 23rd, titled AI ga Kowaremashita (The AI broke), in which MOY and a guitarist perform ‘NO’ acoustically in the back of a car. Some took the title as a joke, while others felt the vocals sounded so unlike the release it deepened their suspicions.
Music commentator Mino has been among the most high-profile voices arguing that AI was used. In a September 24th video on his Mino Music channel, he said he believed the band were miming to a song generated with Suno, citing its “fizzy, low-quality feel”, repetitive chords, and the gap between MOY’s English on the release and in the acoustic Short. He put the likelihood of AI use at “99.99%”, while conceding that “in this day and age, you never know”. If proven wrong, he has promised to send 100 melons from Senbikiya, Tokyo’s famously expensive fruit parlour, to one of their shows.
Other musicians have been more cautious. Vocal coach SACON suggested the vocals could be “a hybrid” made by feeding the band’s own singing or demos into AI, while DTM blogger Kazuchi found their tempos “pretty AI-like” but stopped short of calling that proof.
Suno’s own tools make that distinction harder to draw. Its Voices feature, added in March, lets users “record or upload your own audio” to create a profile of their singing voice, then use it to sing new lyrics on AI-generated songs. An AI-generated track could therefore still feature a voice derived from the singer’s own recordings.
THE MOTEL distribute through TuneCore Japan, which accepts releases made with generative AI but not tracks that are 100% AI-generated with no human creative expression. Uploaders must declare audio made with music-generation AI and supply proof of a licence, but whether THE MOTEL have done so is not public.
On September 25th, iCharts, which republishes chart data from Apple’s Japan storefront, listed seven THE MOTEL songs in the top 31 of its daily Alternative chart, including ‘How r u ?’ at No. 4.
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Earlier releases, starting with the two-track debut ‘MOTEL’ in October 2025, credit every role to THE MOTEL as a whole, while ‘NO’ is the first to name individual players. The band’s TuneCore biography says R1N and Leo joined in 2026, leaving it unclear who played bass and drums on the 2025 recordings.
So far, the clearest link to generative AI is the artwork for March single ‘Broken Amp’, which carries a four-point sparkle matching the “Gemini sparkle” Google adds to AI-generated images. No other THE MOTEL cover shows it, and it reveals nothing about how the music was made.
R1N had already given a simpler reason for the lack of concert footage. Writing on her personal Note blog on August 31st, three weeks before the clip went viral, she said THE MOTEL had not yet played live. “I want to play live too”, she wrote, adding that she was practising drums almost every day and spending her days off in band meetings and rehearsals as the members worked towards their first show.
Other members have a mixed public history. Guitarist RYO, who calls himself the band’s leader, dates THE MOTEL to February 2021 on his Instagram, more than four years before their first release. Leo played bass in Tokyo and Chiba-based grunge and emo band marbh, active from 2017 to 2025. Little is publicly documented about MOY or NAOTO before THE MOTEL.
Electric Bloom Webzine has contacted THE MOTEL via their official Instagram account for comment on the production of ‘NO’. No response had been received at the time of publication.
THE MOTEL
NO
Release Date: 13/09/2026
Label: Independent
Stream: Links
About THE MOTEL
THE MOTEL are a five-piece alternative band based in Japan, formed around childhood friends and guitarists NAOTO and RYO. Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist MOY later joined and helped shape the band's sound and creative direction. Drummer R1N joined in 2026, followed by bassist Leo, completing the current line-up. The band describe British rock as the foundation of their sound, which also draws from alternative rock, metal, post-hardcore, shoegaze, and electronica. Their recorded debut came in October 2025 with the two-track release 'MOTEL', followed by a series of singles across 2026. THE MOTEL drew widespread attention in September 2026 when a studio clip of 'NO' went viral on X. The single reached No. 1 on Japan's iTunes Alternative chart and No. 13 on the country's all-genre iTunes songs chart, and the surge of interest carried several earlier tracks into Apple's Japan Alternative rankings. The viral response also prompted public debate over whether generative AI had been used in the band's recordings. As of September 25th 2026, THE MOTEL had not publicly explained their production process.
