Spotify has removed protest album against it’s own poor royalties

Rock band The Pocket Gods had their latest LP, released on 19^th June 2022, removed from Spotify, the music streaming platform, due to its lyrics which expose the poor royalties Spotify awards its artists.

The album Daniel Ek is not the anti-Christ, he’s just a very naughty boy! named in reference to Monty Python’s Life of Brian, “He’s not the Messiah, he’s just a naughty boy” has been banned. The album contains 100 songs, each just 30 seconds each, because Spotify only pays £.002 per stream after a track surpasses 30 seconds in length.

Other artists who have protested against the poor royalties Spotify pays include Taylor Swift, who boycotted the music platform for three years over the paltry sum per song.

Having campaigned for fairer royalties since 2015, this is not the first protest album by The Pocket Gods, who’s previous releases include 1000×30 Nobody Makes Money Anymore, which contained 1,000 songs, each 30 seconds in length.

The band’s members have spoken out on twitter about the injustice of having their album banned just for criticising the “crap royalties” artists are entitled to on Spotify. 

Likewise,  Nub Music’s Mark Lee have expressed their upset over Spotify’s removal of the album. “The album itself is one person and a guitar critiquing the music industry as a whole and is meant to be funny and was all recorded in one take.”

Lee is particularly perplexed because the album contains “nothing hateful”, no offensive or discriminatory lyrics, which a lot of music on Spotify does contain, by the likes of artists such as Skepta or Kendrick Lamar.

The album can still be streamed on sites like Deezer and SoundCloud. Listen here.

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