95bFM Why artists are removing their music from Spotify
24 September, 2025
Interview by Alex Fox, adapted by Samantha Watson-Tayler
Recently, many musicians who had music on the music streaming service, Spotify, have left the platform and are taking their music with them.
Such artists include The Recitals, Xiu Xiu, King Gizzard, and New Zealand’s own The Bats and Tiki Taane.
Tiki Taane, in announcing his departure from the platform, released the single ‘Bye Bye Spotify,’ criticising the platform for its complicity in the genocide of Palestinians and the prolific rise of AI music on the service.
Recently, Spotify CEO David Ek invested €600 million (NZ$1.2b) in Helsing, a European military technology company, which is selling its products to Israel in their war on Gaza.
Another criticism Spotify has received is how little it pays its artists, with estimates of roughly $0.0005 per stream.
Dr Michael Holland, a Lecturer in Music Production at the University of Otago, told 95bFM’s The Wire that many of these concerns artists have had with the platform are not new.
“Going back as early as, you know, 2014, you had very high-profile artists like Taylor Swift pulling her music from the platform [over how little Spotify paid artists].”
Holland also questions the parameters for an artist to get paid through the service.
“… what exactly is one stream? And what does that mean? And also, in what ways is that revenue allocated? Because to say that this is a question of how much Spotify pays an artist per stream sort of ignores the fact that that's not actually how they distribute revenue.”
He says Spotify’s revenue distribution goes against the best interests of independent artists.
“Spotify celebrated last year that they had distributed $10 billion US in royalties, but less than 5% of musicians were generating over about $130,000 a year.
“So unless you're at a sort of 1000 monthly listeners or above, as of last year, Spotify is not paying you anything.”
Although smaller artists will not lose much money and listenership by leaving Spotify due to how little the platform pays them in the first place, Holland says this is different for larger artists.
He estimates Tiki Taane will lose 150,000 monthly listeners by leaving the platform.
For smaller artists, however, Holland says this could affect some artists’ ability to receive funding for this work from New Zealand Music Funding, for example, as these grants base their funding on the number of streams an artist receives.
As Spotify has the largest share in the music streaming market, he says this would make it more difficult for artists to receive funding.
He says this allows artists to reassess how to best engage with their audiences.
“… yes, having a lot of people streaming your work could mean that you have a really engaged audience, but actually perhaps this is a call to think about, you know, the quality of that engagement.
“Exactly how many of those people who are streaming your work in the background are those audience members who are going to do all those things that are going to help you to have a meaningful, sustainable relationship with your fan base?”
