Spotify is experiencing a modest artist exodus in 2025, marked by several indie acts removing their music from the platform. Recent departures include Hotline TNT, Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Many artists previously resisted Spotify before ultimately joining as the service became ubiquitous. That shift often coincided with closer ties between Spotify and major record labels. Spotify paid out $10bn in royalties last year, but only a small fraction typically reaches individual artists after label deductions. Some bands cite a misalignment of values as a reason for leaving.
At the moment, the Spotify exodus of 2025 is a trickle rather than a flood. A noticeable trickle, like a leak from the upstairs bathroom dribbling down the living room wall, but nothing existential yet. The five notable bands who have left Spotify in the past month shoegazers Hotline TNT last week, joining Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Godspeed You! Black Emperor (GY!BE) and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are well liked in indie circles, but aren't the sorts to rack up billions of listens.
But at some point there seemed to a collective recognition that resistance was futile, that Spotify had won and those bands would have to bend to its less-than-appealing model. That realisation was best summed up by the Black Keys, a legitimately big rock band at the time of Spotify's emergence who refused to put the albums they released around then 2011's El Camino and 2014's Turn Blue on the platform.
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