Welsh duo Rogue Jones have removed albums VU (2016) and Dos Bebes (2023) from streaming platform Spotify in protest at the company’s lower than a snake’s belly ethics.
Bethan Mai and Ynyr Morgan Ifan posted on Instagram on Wednesday, listing the reasons for the decision. They join a plethora of artists including King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, Massive Attack, Hotline TNT, Godspeed! You Black Emperor and WU LYF who have removed their work from Spotify.
We asked the band about this week’s announcement.
In what ways do you think your decision to leave Spotify will affect your relationship with your potential/audience, if at all?
‘We hope it won’t impact it too much, time will tell. We’re always saying that our main aim is to get our music heard as widely as possible and this move obviously will make that harder. But the pay-outs from Spotify are so negligible, and their ethics and investments are so terrible that it made the choice much easier. Our fans tend to be people who really love music and care about music so hopefully many will move away from Spotify with us. That’s the hope.’
What was the final straw affecting the move?
‘We’ve been thinking about it for a while, the exploitative nature of it and how they don’t pay artists fairly has never sat right. Then there’s the pays for plays, the huge investment in Joe Rogan and his links to Trump, and also I think no one really talks about the sound quality of Spotify being very bad either, but the final straw was the A.I. – both in terms of music being scraped on Spotify to make A.I. tracks but most worryingly the massive investment of $600m in Military A.I. We don’t want our music contributing to that even in a miniscule way.
In these turbulent and scary political times we find ourselves in, we think the need to make a stand on our principles is really important and think it’s about waking up to the injustices and speaking out about them whenever we can. And supporting those companies and businesses that strive for good things in our communities.’
What’s the best way audiences can support you – and other artists?
‘Buying physical copies, buying digital copies, merch, coming to gigs – and if you can’t afford to do that, sharing on social media and telling your friends about bands you like can help too and is free! If you want to stream music, obviously Bandcamp is great, or for a Spotify alternative – using a platform that pays artists more fairly and is more music-centred like Quobuz.’
With any streaming platform surely it’s case of none are 100% ethical, what are your thoughts about that? How do we decrease dependency on Spotify?
‘That was one of the things that held us up in getting off Spotify, the fact that we knew most of the other streamers, like most big corporations, if you look into them they tend to have some unpleasantness. So we were considering taking our music off mutliple streamers or a select few – but we got to the point where Spotify were such cartoonish villains that they stood out as the obvious ones to start with. As we said in our announcement, we’re looking into the other big streaming platforms and will go from there but starting with the obvious – Spotify.‘
Also, Spotify are the market leaders that the majority of people use to stream so should be held up to higher standard.
We’ve found Quobuz which is a more music/musician centred and more ethical version of Spotify from what we can see – so there is a choice for consumers to make. It started by looking at it from a consumer / user perspective, when we switched our personal account from Spotify to Quobuz (thanks to Pixy Jones for the tip). And once we’d made that move it just felt wrong to have our music on Spotify.
If anyone is on the fence as a musician or a consumer : It feels really good, would highly recommend.‘
The perceived value of music creatively and financially – how do we change that?
‘As with everything knowledge is power. We were talking to a friends about it yesterday who were asking how much we’d get for the hundreds of times their son had streamed us on Spotify, and they were shocked that we would get nothing, or a fraction of a penny or something ridiculous for it. So talking about it is the first step; then we just need to remind ourselves that change IS possible, and doing something, however small, is better than nothing. Voting with our feet is powerful.
From our food to our clothes to our music – we need to empower ourselves and each other, and know that we have a choice every time we consume anything as to how we do it. If there’s someone in the chain being exploited and a man at the top making loads of money, then spend your money elsewhere.
Musicians need the support to carry on doing what they’re doing, as do music venues, record shops and the people that are the backbone of the music industry, otherwise the only people who will be able to make music will be rich people and robots. And no one wants to hear that.‘
Dos Bebes (Two Babies) by Rogue Jones won the Welsh Music Prize in 2023.
