Godspeed You! Black Emperor Pulls Out of Streaming Services

Photo Credit: Spotify

Canadian indie band Godspeed You! Black Emperor is going one step further and removing their music from nearly all major streaming services—not just Spotify.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor has become the latest indie band to pull their music from Spotify. But the Canadian rockers are taking it one step further: they’re removing nearly all their music from all major streaming services. A representative for the band’s label, Constellation Records, confirmed the move to Pitchfork.

The band has already removed their records from Spotify, Tidal, and Amazon Music. On Spotify, all that remains is a single compilation track called “Outro.”

Two of their albums for label Kranky—F# A# ∞ (1998) and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000)—are still available on Apple Music. However, a label representative confirmed they are in the process of being removed as well.

“Kranky has always granted artists control over how their music is presented and disseminated,” said the representative.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s entire catalog can still be purchased and streamed on Bandcamp.

In the last two months, indie bands Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have all pulled their catalogs from Spotify. All have cited Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s military investments through his investment fund Prima Materia as the final straw. In fact, Prima Materia has been investing in defense company Helsing—which sells software that uses AI intelligence to inform military decisions—since 2021.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor has had two albums chart on the Billboard 200. They’ve also had five albums on Billboard’s Top Album Sales, and five albums on the Vinyl Albums chart. Their most recent album, 2024’s No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead, was named for the death toll of Palestinians reported at the time by Gaza’s Health Ministry, since Israel’s war against Hamas began.