Godspeed You! Black Emperor have removed their music from Spotify and other streaming platforms.
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The Canadian experimental rock band have removed their entire discography from Spotify, but have also pulled their releases from Tidal and Apple Music. At the time of writing, only two albums 1998’s ‘F# A# ∞’ and 2000’s ‘Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas To Heaven’ are available on Apple Music, while Tidal has been wiped clean.
While the band have yet to formally address the withdrawal of their releases from streaming platforms, a rep for Kranky Records – on which the two aforementioned albums were released – confirmed to Pitchfork that the Godspeed You! Black Emperor albums are in the process of being removed from Apple Music.
The rep said in a statement: “Kranky has always granted artists control over how their music is presented and disseminated.” The only platform on which Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s music is still available is Bandcamp.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor are now the latest band to remove their music from Spotify, joining King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof. All three bands have cited Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s investments in Helsing, a Munich-based company creating drones and artificial intelligence for military operations, as their reason for leaving the platform.
In recent years, people have been divided about streaming platforms and their impact on the music industry. In 2024, for example, Ek sparked backlash for his comments relating to the cost of “creating content”, with countless users and musicians describing him as “out of touch”.
Ek later walked back on his comments, explaining in an apology that he had no intention of dismissing the struggles faced by musicians and using the “reductive” label of “content”. The negative response to this was heightened as, around the same time, it was confirmed that Spotify had made profits of over €1billion (£860m), following staff being laid off and subscription prices rising.
The streaming platform also received criticism after it officially demonetised all songs on the platform with less than 1,000 streams – making it harder for artists to generate royalties from their music and restricting new artists looking to crack the music industry.