It seems like Spotify is always surrounded by controversies these days, and their latest AI fiasco has King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard saying what most musicians are already thinking: if streaming monopolies like Spotify continue to define the entire music ecosystem, we should all be worried.
Months after the rock band from down under pulled their entire catalogue from the streaming service in protest of CEO Daniel Ek, who is busy pouring the money he makes from Spotify into an AI-driven military tech company Helsing (Ek is the chairman of the company and owns the majority stake through his investment firm, Prima Materia), a knockoff act calling itself King Lizard Wizard suddenly emerged on the platform, complete with AI-generated psych-rock tracks, identical song titles, and artwork that kinda looks like a cheap fever-dream mimicry of the band’s signature album covers.
To no one’s surprise except maybe Spotify’s, the whole thing was an impersonation scam that even made it to the latest Spotify Release Radar roundup. What’s more, the song was called “Rattlesnake” and was eerily similar to the real King Gizz’s 2016 track of the same name, right down to the lyrics.
The company eventually removed the fake band, insisting it “strictly prohibits any form of artist impersonation” and that no royalties were paid out. But it certainly is worrying how easily these fake AI artists can make their way onto the biggest streaming service there is, and Spotify did not even do anything until the fans and the band itself pointed out the existence of the fake band.
King Gizzard frontman Stu Mackenzie summed it up in his statement: “[I’m] trying to see the irony in this situation. But seriously w%f we are truly doomed.”
All these big tech companies that own the majority of the marketplace continue to push for an ecosystem that is completely depedent on digital media and streaming. We do not own anything anymore, and the streaming ecosystem and the internet is rapidly being flooded with AI-generated soundalikes, clones, and pseudo-artists engineered to exploit payouts while piggybacking on the aesthetics of real musicians.
What is disgustingly funny about all of this is that the streaming giant, which itself admitted to removing 75 million AI-made tracks last year, is gearing up to charge you an extra buck for their services, with their latest price hike expected to hit sometime in Q1 of 2026. It would be Spotify’s first U.S. hike since July 2024, but globally the company has been quietly nudging prices upward across Europe, Africa, and Asia throughout the year.
Projections from JP Morgan analysts suggest that tacking on just one extra dollar per month could net the company an additional $500 million annually. That’s another half a billion dollars to probably fund Ek’s military venture, while its users continue to be confused between “King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard” and “King Lizard Wizard.”
King Gizzard left Spotify on principle, and an algorithm immediately tried to replace them. That may be the future Spotify and these tech companies are quietly building, a platform where the humans go, but the content never stops.