King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Declares War on Spotify. Fans Become Collateral Damage in a Case of Virtue Signaling Gone Wrong
By Michael Kelman Portney
misinformationsucks.com
I. The Opening Shot
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Australia’s genre-bending psych-rock juggernaut, has made headlines again—not for a surprise album, not for melting genre lines, but for pulling their entire discography off Spotify. Their stated reason? Protest.
Not protest over artist royalties. Not protest over algorithmic exploitation. Not even protest over data privacy. No, this time, it’s because Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is investing in a military artificial intelligence company called Helsing, which develops battlefield analytics and drone targeting systems.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, the band wrote:
“Hello friends. A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology. We just removed our music from the platform. Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better? Join us on another platform.”
They followed this up with a post simply captioned:
“fuck Spotify.”
And just like that, in one self-righteous swoop, they declared war on the largest music streaming platform in the world—and left their fans as collateral damage.
II. The Virtue Signal Heard 'Round the Internet
Let’s call this what it is: a symbolic purge, dressed in moral outrage.
Spotify, to be sure, isn’t a beacon of ethical purity. Ek’s investment arm, Prima Materia, has poured hundreds of millions of euros into Helsing, a German “AI defense” startup. According to reports, Helsing builds decision-making software to support NATO allies—AI tools that assist in drone surveillance and tactical assessments in warzones. Whether you see this as national security infrastructure or Skynet’s baby steps, it’s not hard to understand why artists might raise an eyebrow.
But here’s the rub: Spotify isn’t Helsing. Spotify isn’t building AI drones. It’s distributing music. And King Gizzard—like nearly every other artist—has been cashing their Spotify checks for years while these global financial ties have been in plain sight.
This wasn't a decision made in a vacuum. It was made for attention. And it got it. The Guardian, Pitchfork, NME, Billboard—they all gave King Gizzard glowing coverage for their "principled stand." But no one asked the obvious question: If you're against war tech, why are you still on Apple Music? YouTube? Amazon?
Spotify was simply the easiest symbolic target. Ek became a scapegoat for broader tech-industry sins. The move was strategic. And cynical.
III. Who Pays the Price? Not Spotify
Let’s be brutally honest: Spotify doesn’t lose in this equation. King Gizzard is an important band with a cult following, but they’re not Taylor Swift. They don’t move the needle on subscriber retention or shareholder confidence.
What this really does is punish:
New fans who discover music through algorithmic curation
Loyal fans who built years of playlists around Gizzard’s prolific output
Casual listeners who stream rather than pirate or jump through platform hoops
Many fans have voiced their frustration online. Reddit threads are full of disillusionment. Some express admiration for the stand, others just feel screwed. One fan wrote:
“This is a big letdown and inconvenience, and to fans not Spotify… this only hurts the fans.”
Spotify, meanwhile, keeps collecting ad dollars, hosting podcasts, and getting ready to roll out its next AI-powered feature. Nothing about this move hurts Ek or alters Helsing's trajectory. If anything, it’s free PR for a tech CEO whose profile just got elevated by a bunch of righteous musicians.
IV. The Performative Contradiction
Let’s not forget: King Gizzard is still on Apple Music. Still on YouTube. Still on Amazon.
All three are actively complicit in modern warfare:
Apple partners with defense contractors for data analytics and reportedly sells devices that assist military navigation and logistics.
Google’s infamous Project Maven was a contract with the Pentagon for AI drone footage analysis.
Amazon Web Services runs the backbone of the U.S. intelligence cloud through their $10B deal with the CIA.
If this were about principle, the band would go dark from all tech platforms. But that’s not the play. This is about visibility. Spotify was the easiest target with the biggest splash potential. It's a big red button that says “push me if you want attention.”
V. The War on Fans
The worst part is how nakedly the burden of this “protest” falls on the fans.
King Gizzard has told people to “bootleg it if you wanna.” That’s not punk. That’s lazy. It’s them saying, “we’re not going to make this easy on you, but if you love us, you’ll work for it.” That’s not resistance. That’s coercion. And worse—it’s entitled.
They act like they’ve taken a vow of artistic poverty for the cause. But this is a band that releases deluxe vinyl box sets, monetizes merch with stunning efficiency, and tours internationally. Spotify revenue was likely the smallest piece of their income stream. It costs them very little to do this, but it costs fans a lot.
What about the 16-year-old in rural America who just discovered “Nonagon Infinity”? What about the college student whose playlist was anchored around Gizz tracks? Those people are now expected to jump through hoops to find music they used to access with a tap.
That’s not ethical. That’s abusive.
VI. The Echo Chamber of Artist Solidarity
Other artists have joined in. Deerhoof, the experimental rock band, pulled their music too, stating:
“We don’t want our music killing people.”
Xiu Xiu chimed in with:
“Spotify is a violent Armageddon portal.”
The dramatic language would be laughable if it weren’t so desperately earnest. The irony is that these same artists have, for years, participated in a global entertainment-industrial complex that profits off war, exploitation, and inequality at a scale Spotify could only dream of.
You don’t get to perform revolution by deleting tracks from one streaming platform while selling band tees manufactured in sweatshops and posting announcements on Instagram, a company owned by Meta, the kingpin of surveillance capitalism.
VII. Protest Theater in a Corporate World
This isn’t resistance. It’s protest theater. Spotify becomes the “bad guy” because it’s relatively easy to pick on, compared to Apple or Amazon, whose platforms are more entrenched and whose retaliatory capacity is more severe.
In some ways, this is a mirror of larger cultural trends:
Gesture over action.
Optics over outcomes.
Symbolism over substance.
The digital age makes it so damn easy to look principled while changing absolutely nothing. Pulling music from Spotify is the equivalent of a billionaire “taking a knee” at a gala. It feels good, but it risks nothing.
VIII. The Cost of Alienating Your Base
King Gizzard has always had a uniquely devoted fan base—people who order rare cassettes, collect every live bootleg, decode cryptic lore. But even the most loyal fans have limits.
The backlash isn’t just from casual listeners. Hardcore Gizzheads are starting to call this what it is: a stunt. A sloppy, self-righteous, poorly thought-out gesture that offers no off-ramp for the people it impacts most.
You want to fight Spotify? Fine. Organize. Build alternative platforms. Create new models. But don’t expect your fans to be your collateral damage while you wage a war you’re not even fully committing to.
IX. What Would Real Protest Look Like?
Here’s what meaningful action might actually look like:
A cross-platform exodus, joined by hundreds of mid-tier artists—not just a few noise bands and psych-rockers
Open letters signed by major labels and high-profile artists demanding oversight of tech investments
The creation of artist-owned streaming alternatives, backed by equity and transparency
A coordinated blackout week, where artists remove or silence their content across all DSPs
Fan education campaigns, explaining not just what Ek funds, but what all these platforms support behind the curtain
But that’s hard work. It requires sacrifice. Not just symbolic gestures, but real coordination and political will. And it probably doesn’t go viral.
X. The Final Riff
At the end of the day, this isn’t about Daniel Ek. It’s not about drones. It’s about a band that decided to take a moral stand in the most convenient, attention-grabbing, fan-punishing way possible.
They won headlines. They got applause from their peers. But they alienated the very community that got them here.
King Gizzard declared war on Spotify.
And the people caught in the crossfire weren’t tech execs.
They were fans.
