King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard has pulled their music from Spotify.
That includes all 27 studio albums by the prolific Australian rock band, plus live albums and compilations.
Explaining the decision, the band wrote in a statement posted to Instagram: “Hello friends. A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology. We just removed our music from the platform. Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better? Join us on another platform.”
The band’s statement is seemingly referencing Ek’s ties to the European defense company Helsing, for which Ek’s investment fund Prima Materia recently raised more than $600 million.
Earlier today, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard published an Instagram post about a new collection of demos, writing that the songs are “out everywhere except Spotify (fuck Spotify). You can bootleg it if you wanna.”
King Gizzard is the latest music act in recent weeks to leave the world’s largest music streaming service. On Thursday, the experimental rock band Xiu Xiu announced plans to remove their catalog from Spotify, writing in a statement, “Spotify uses music money to invest in AI war drones. … Although the financial practices of all streaming services is acutely anti-musician, the actions of Spotify to use the profits they made from essentially stealing music in order to murder people to make even more money is almost beyond comprehension,” Xiu Xiu’s statement continued. Their Spotify exit followed the rock act Deerhoof, who also removed their music from the platform, citing Prima Materia’s investments.
These artists are not the first to abandon Spotify over ideological beliefs. In 2022, Neil Young ignited a media firestorm after he requested his music be taken off the platform, calling it “the home of life threatening Covid misinformation” due to its partnership with the controversial podcast host Joe Rogan.
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From Variety US