Björk condemns Spotify as "probably the worst thing that has happened" to musicians

Björk isn’t staying oh so quiet about how much she hates Spotify. In fact, the streaming platform is “probably the worst thing that has happened to musicians,” the “Army Of Me” singer proclaimed in a recent interview with Swedish news outlet Dagens Nyheter (via Consequence).

“I’m lucky because I no longer have to raise money on touring, which younger musicians are often forced to do,” she elaborated. “The streaming culture has changed an entire society and an entire generation of artists.” 

Reflecting on a state of affairs that hasn’t been afforded to so many of her younger counterparts, the singer expressed how thankful she was to have come up in a prior era. “For the seed to grow into a healthy and vigorous plant, you need privacy,” she said of her creative process. “You need a few years of no one knowing what you are doing, not even yourself.” Things are very different now for artists like Chappell Roan, for example, due not only to streaming but also the advent of social media and the expectation of constant fan interaction and access. 

Björk isn’t the only musician to criticize the platform in recent weeks. Four out of five Grammy-nominated songwriters declined their invites to Spotify’s annual party in their honor, after the service changed their royalty model to one that would pay them approximately $150 million less per year. Liz Pelly’s book Mood Machine, which investigates Spotify’s practice of stuffing playlists with “ghost artists” in order to avoid paying royalties to major labels like Sony and Warner, further eroded good will. Oh, and there’s the fact that they just hosted a celebratory brunch for Donald Trump, which probably didn’t help. 

Björk has been on this train for longer than most. The artist kept her 2015 album Vulnicura off the platform at first, telling Rolling Stone at the time, “This streaming thing just does not feel right. I don’t know why, but it just seems insane…to work on something for two or three years and then just, ‘Oh, here it is for free.’ It’s not about the money; it’s about respect, you know? Respect for the craft and the amount of work you put into it.”