Prolific Australian psych rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard took a public stand against Spotify earlier this year, pulling their music from the service in response to the divisive actions of the streaming company’s co-founder/CEO (soon to be chairman) Daniel Ek. The latter’s involvement in leading a $693.6 million round of funding for Helsing proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for King Gizzard.
Ek led that funding via his Prima Materia venture capital firm. As the months have shown since, Helsing have proven to be a controversial investment due to their ongoing development of AI technology for use in modern warfare. In light of Ek‘s involvement, numerous other artists staged a similar protest against Spotify, deleting their music from the service.
Objecting to having their life’s work associated with companies like Helsing, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard themselves removed their catalog from Spotify this past July, offering the following parting shot:
“Hello friends
A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology
We just removed out music from the platform
Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better?
Join us on another platform”
Speaking later to the Los Angeles Times about the bold decision, the group’s vocalist/guitarist Stu Mackenzie said in part:
“I don’t really consider myself an activist, and I don’t feel comfortable soapboxing. But this feels like a decision staying true to ourselves, and doing what we think is is right for our music, having our music in places that we feel all right about.”
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard were but one of many to exit the streaming service in response to the aforementioned military tech-related investments, but by no means were they the first to take issue with Spotify. The popular digital service provider has been weathering numerous controversies in recent years, with artists initially fleeing for financial and ideological reasons. Others have taken issue with ICE advertisements airing on the service. Spotify‘s decision to embrace AI-created music has also come into question, with AI-generated material having since been found to be directly competing with the bands their algorithms have been modeled after.
Just last week fledgling post-rock outfit Jagged City staged a mid-song protest against Spotify via their songs uploaded to the service. A day later, Sumerian Records founder Ash Avildsen railed against labels and big tech for hosting AI-generated music. He further suggested that this January will see the launch of a potential solution to the thorny issue.
Outside of those concerns, waves of fake AI-generated songs have repeatedly shown up on the profiles of established artists, bringing about confusion and causing frustration for the artists impacted by it. Be it advantageous or not, despite King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard‘s public decision to exit the service, a self-titled EP by an ‘artist’ named ‘King Lizard Wizard‘ popped up on Spotify back on November 14th of this year and remains available as of press time.
That 5-song outing features rather generic, suspected AI-generated covers of a handful of songs from the King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard catalog. Interestingly, the credits for the songs included on that EP credit Mackenzie as the writer.
Be it an advantageous fan, someone looking to fill the void left behind by the band on the streaming service, or an outright troll job, the existence of these poor facsimiles of the songs on the service at least seem morally compromised.
It should be noted however that the ‘King Lizard Wizard‘ EP isn’t exclusive to Spotify and also appears on other leading streaming services, appearing Tidal at least as well. As of press time, ‘King Lizard Wizard‘ have accrued 29,303 monthly listeners on Spotify — a far cry from the 1.1 million monthly listeners King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard had on the service when they pulled their music. Whether or not that headcount stems from mere curiosity or cope from fans of the band unwilling to follow them to other DSPs remains to be seen.
And in case you were wondering what became of the 1.1 million listeners King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard sacrificed to make their point, that total has dropped to 56,763 monthly listeners as of press time, due to only one guest appearance track remaining available on the service.
Upon pulling their music from Spotify, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard did extend an olive branch to those disrupted by the protest, adopting a name your price payment plan via Bandcamp for their extensive catalog that remains in place to this day.
