Another one bites the dust: Young Widows are pulling their music from Spotify. The Louisville post-hardcore band, who released their first album in over a decade back in March, announced the news in an Instagram post today that cited CEO Daniel Ek's recent investment in military AI.
In June it was announced that Ek, who's also a chairman of a German military AI software startup called Helsing, had invested over a half a billion dollars into that company. Young Widows join a long, ever-growing list of artists fleeing Spotify since then, following WU LYF, Hotline TNT, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof, and Xiu Xiu. Young Widows' statement reads:
We've decided to remove our discography from Spotify. The disgusting news of their CEO Daniel Elk investing profits in Helsing to create Al warfare is a breaking point.
We do not support genocide.
We do not support war of any kind.
To think that our fans money is being used to invest in future machines to kill the innocent is beyond inhumane and unacceptable. We do understand that there is truly no just capitalism and every large company in existence has either direct ties or personnel within that are funding means to control, exploit and manipulate the people. We are more than aware that every streaming platform has its flaws and until people value artists enough to realize streaming has an overall negative impact on music, we will continue to use the other platforms currently available.
We do not apologize for the inconvenience.
Just as alarming as funding war from art is Spotify's use of Al to "create" music/bands, even making new albums from deceased artists. Not only does this diminish artists and degrades their legacy, but it makes something that than aware that Al is not going anywhere anytime soon, but it's a tool that should be used to help humanity, not take joy from us.
Ostensibly in response to the recent Spotify backlash, Apple Music launched a feature last month that allows users to import their playlists from other streaming platforms into Apple Music.
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