SAN FRANCISCO (CelebrityAccess) — San Francisco-based experimental rock band Deerhoof announced on social media that they are pulling their entire catalog of music from the streaming platform Spotify.
According to a statement from the band, the decision comes in response to Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek’s significant financial investment in a company developing military artificial intelligence technology.
Formed in San Francisco in 1994, Deerhoof is known for their genre-defying sound that fuses Satomi Matsuzaki’s child-like vocal style with avant-garde noise rock. The band recently released its 20th studio album, Noble and Godlike in Ruin, in April via Joyful Noise Recordings.
Deerhoof is currently preparing for their 31 Flavours Tour, with shows kicking off in the U.K. on July 22 at Strange Brew in Bristol. The U.S. leg begins September 26 at the Chop Shop in Chicago.
Read the band’s full statement on their decision to part ways with Spotify below:
“We’re taking Deerhoof off Spotify.
‘Daniel Ek uses $700 million of his Spotify fortune to become chairman of AI battle tech company’ was not a headline we enjoyed reading this week. We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech.
We are privileged that it was a pretty easy decision for us. Spotify only pays a pittance anyway, and we earn a lot more from touring. But we also understand that other artists and labels do rely on Spotify for a bigger chunk of their income, and don’t judge those who can’t make the same move in the short term.
AI battle tech is clearly emerging as the hot new big-ticket item for the super-rich. It’s increasingly clear that the military and police exist primarily as the security detail for the billionaire class. The more of the killing you can get computers to do, the better your bottom line.
Computerized targeting, computerized extermination, computerized destabilization for profit—successfully tested on the people of Gaza—also finally solves the perennial inconvenience to war-makers: it takes human compassion and morality out of the equation.
Spotify is flushing itself down the toilet. Eventually, artists will want to leave this already widely hated data-mining scam masquerading as a ‘music company.’ It’s creepy for users and crappy for artists. Music-making lasts forever, but this or that digital get-rich-quick scheme is sure to become obsolete.
One of the claims often made about Spotify is that it theoretically makes one’s music discoverable by anyone who signs up, no matter how remote they may be from the self-proclaimed centers of hipness. But just because someone is far from Western gatekeepers does not mean they lack culture or need to hear our band. Deerhoof is a small mom-and-pop operation and knows when enough is enough. We aren’t capitalists and don’t wish to take over the world. Especially if the price of ‘discoverability’ is letting oligarchs fill the globe with computerized weaponry, we’re going to pass on the supposed benefits.
The big picture is this: our politico-economic system increasingly presents humanity with a hideous fait accompli: buy from me, vote for me, consume my media, use my service. Yes, it means mass deportation, mass detainment, and mass extermination of those deemed unprofitable by a handful of rich white people living in enclaves protected by AI weaponry. But if you don’t, you cannot have a job. We think this dilemma is coming to a head soon, and we predict that most people aren’t going to take the billionaires’ side.
We aren’t sure exactly how soon the takedowns can happen, but it will be as soon as possible. We want to thank our various labels for their support on this tricky decision. The grunt work of pulling content off of Spotify is something they’re now tasked with, and they are sharing the financial hit. We know we are asking them to make a sacrifice, and it means a lot to us.”
