Turns Out Björk Is Not a Fan of Spotify

She had harsh words for the platform in a recent interview

Björk in 2022
Björk performs onstage at Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on February 13, 2022.
antiago Felipe/Getty Images for ABA

Spotify might seem ubiquitous in the music industry right now, but that doesn’t mean prominent musicians have to like it. In 2022, Neil Young pulled his music from the service over his concerns with Joe Rogan and vaccine disinformation. Indie rock veteran Damon Krukowski has written at length about the impact Spotify has on the livelihoods of working musicians. And the latest musician to take umbrage with the service is none other than Björk, who critiqued Spotify’s impact on music in a recent interview.

As reported by NME, the Icelandic musician called the service “probably the worst thing that has happened to musicians” while talking to the Swedish publication Dagens Nyheter. “The streaming culture has changed an entire society and an entire generation of artists,” she continued — arguing that this was not a change for the better.

Björk’s critiques of Spotify come at a time when the service faces an increased amount of scrutiny. The publication earlier this month of Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist has seen the book garner positive reviews. In a recent piece on the book in Hell Gate, Adlan Jackson noted that Pelly “argues, with compelling detail, that streaming is actively changing the decisions that go into how the artists that mean the most to you make music.”

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Whether or not this sustained critique of Spotify will endure remains to be seen. But it’s not necessarily surprising to see Björk making a cultural and political critique of Spotify; after all, her early band K.U.K.L. worked closely with the pioneering anarcho-punk band Crass. One suspects she’s always had an eye on the bigger picture — and, as NME‘s Liberty Dunworth pointed out, this isn’t the first time she’s pushed back against Spotify’s streaming dominance.

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