Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Refusing to Rent Their Music to the War Economy

From now on, their music will be exclusively available through Bandcamp. The move is part of an intensifying wave of resistance within the independent music scene. In recent months, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof, and Xiu Xiu have taken similar action. At the center stands Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, whose venture fund Prima Materia has poured billions into Helsing, a German company developing AI-powered military technologies, surveillance networks, and combat drones in cooperation with NATO programs.

For years, streaming platforms were criticized for low payments and exploitative royalties. But today the issue is starker: every song streamed on Spotify indirectly helps bankroll militarism. Art is no longer just commodified—it is folded into the financing of empire’s weapons.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s refusal is not symbolic. It is a material act of resistance against the alignment between culture, capital, and war.

This gesture continues a tradition of artistic defiance: 1970s jazz collectives founding their own labels to bypass the majors; 1980s hardcore-punk building DIY distribution networks; 1990s political bands openly confronting corporate and state power. What is new today: the adversary is not only cultural monopolies but the direct fusion of finance capital with the arms industry.

The Commoning of Music and A Cultural Front

Independent artists walking away from Spotify is not passive boycott—it is a call for collective reorganization. If this tendency grows:

• Listeners and musicians can reconnect directly, excluding corporate intermediaries.
• Cooperative infrastructures and collective platforms could emerge.
• Music can again become a commons rather than a content-commodity for tech monopolies.

This confrontation is not limited to artists. Listeners, too, are political actors. Every choice—where we listen, whom we pay, whom we refuse to enrich—shapes the cultural field. To buy an album on Bandcamp, support an independent tour, or fund a small collective is not a matter of taste. It is a matter of solidarity.

Spotify boycotts are not simply music industry protests—they are political interventions. When listeners cease to see themselves as consumers and begin to recognize their position as political subjects, the possibility of cultural liberation becomes tangible.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s action is not merely the decision of one band. It is a line drawn against the militarization of culture itself. The essential question is this: will the future of music be dictated by corporate algorithms tied to war capital, or reclaimed as a commons by the artists and listeners who sustain it?

The answer lies in our headphones, in our collective choices. ✪