Godspeed You! Black Emperor have removed their entire discography from Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music, Apple Music and all major streaming services.
In recent months a number of independent artists - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu among them - have pulled their catalog from Spotify in protest at the company's CEO Daniel Ek’s decision to invest in a military technology company. Ek's venture capital firm Prima Materia had invested heavily in German defense technology startup Helsing, and he also happens to be the chairman of the company.
Announcing their decision to leave the Swedish company In a subsequent post on Instagram Stories, King Gizzard wrote, "A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Eks 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."
As yet, Godspeed You! Black Emperor have made no official statement to explain their withdrawal from the streaming platforms.
Burt given that the Montreal collective's current album, last October's No Title As of 13 February 2024, 28,340 Dead, was titled in recognition of the utterly shameful death toll inflicted upon the people of Gaza by the IDF following the orders of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, it isn't a huge stretch of imagination to see that that their actions may be related. Were that album released today, incidentally, it would bear the title No Title As of 18 August 2025, 62,004 Dead.
Israel has been accused of carrying out genocidal acts during the ongoing assault on Gaza by numerous humanitarian organisations, including the UN Human Rights Council. The IDF's actions in the territory were.sparked by the October 7,2023 terrorist attack by Hamas on Israeli soil that saw around 1,200 people killed and 251 people taken hostage, Around 50 Israeli hostages from the attack remain held in captivity by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has denied any genocidal intent, which requires certain thresholds to be met in order to be legally recognised; a case brought forward by South Africa to The International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians is ongoing.
The conflict has been on-going for decades, with official UN figures for the 15 years before the 2023 escalation recording 7277 Palestinian deaths and 162,121 Palestinian injuries in occupied Palestinian territory and Israel since 2008, and 368 Israeli deaths and 6,670 Israeli injuries during the same time span in the region.
You can now hear or purchase the band's catalog here.
