Wu Lyf have removed their latest single ‘A New Life Is Coming’ from Spotify – find out more below.
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In April, Wu Lyf released ‘A New Life Is Coming’, marking their first release in 13 years. Now, just five months later, the band have pulled the song from Spotify – and other streaming platforms. While the band haven’t addressed its removal from Apple Music and other platforms, they did confirm on social media that its removal from Spotify was largely due to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s investment in AI military drone tech.
Wu Lyf wrote on Instagram over the weekend: “A few months ago we pulled ‘Go Tell Fire to the Mountain’ from streaming services, clearing ground for a new life to take root. There were several conversations that led to this decision, circling around a disdain for what the Spotify algorithm & economics has done to music culture. Since then we’ve all learned about the Spotify CEO’s investment in A.I. weaponry and seen several bands we respect make statements about removing their music.”
“Now, following some lengthy debate we’ve decided to take ‘A New Life Is Coming’ down as well. Nothing ever changes unless we have the courage to try (& perhaps fail) to do things differently. Today on worldunite.org we’re sharing an early demo of ‘Letting Go’ for LYF members. This take was recorded shortly after the initial idea emerged out of some soul making blues, and though the song has evolved somewhat since then we think it captures something special…”
With the move, Wy Lyf join King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Xiu Xiu – who also recently announced that they are in the process of removing their music from the platform over Ek’s “investment in AI war drones” – and Deerhoof, who pulled their catalogue from the streamer for the same reason, stating: “We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech,” Deerhoof said in a statement.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard frontman Stu Mackenzie said: “We’ve been saying fuck Spotify for years. In our circle of musician friends, that’s what people say all the time, for all of these other reasons which are well documented.” He went on to explain that while he doesn’t “really consider myself an activist, and I don’t feel comfortable soapboxing,” the band “don’t really want our music to be here, at least right now”.
In recent years, people have been divided about streaming platforms and their impact on the music industry. In 2024, for example, Ek sparked backlash for his comments relating to the cost of “creating content”, with countless users and musicians describing him as “out of touch”.
Ek later walked back on his comments, explaining in an apology that he had no intention of dismissing the struggles faced by musicians and using the “reductive” label of “content”. The negative response to this was heightened as, around the same time, it was confirmed that Spotify had made profits of over €1billion (£860m), following staff being laid off and subscription prices rising.
The streaming platform also received criticism after it officially demonetised all songs on the platform with less than 1,000 streams – making it harder for artists to generate royalties from their music and restricting new artists looking to crack the music industry.
