Photo by Kieran Frost/Redferns
Godspeed You! Black Emperor have joined the ever-growing list of artists that have removed their music from Spotify. The Canadian post-rock band have also taken their entire catalog off Tidal as well. The band’s full catalog remains streaming via Bandcamp. The FADER has reached out to a representative for comment.
At the time of writing two Godspeed albums (1998’s F# A# ∞ and 2000’s Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven) are still streaming on Apple Music. Those albums were released via Kranky with a spokesperson for the label telling Pitchfork that they are also in the process of being removed. “Kranky has always granted artists control over how their music is presented and disseminated,” they said.
In the last few month artists including Deerhoof and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have left Spotify in protest over the $700 million military investments made by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek through his investment fund Prima Materia.
Xiu Xiu also made a similar protest with the band’s Jamie Stewart telling The FADER in a recent interview that “the idea of even being 0000.1% involved in something like this is impossible for us to deal with.”
