Open Letter: Chicago Musicians Are Pulling Their Music From Spotify

I have, like the other musicians so far who have signed this letter, begun removing the bulk of the Half Gringa catalog from Spotify. I encourage you to read the above letter in full, but I also have a few additional things to say.

This decision felt relatively easy due to the fact that I own my masters and publishing rights and do not have an agreement with a label that would make taking my music off of this platform complicated. 

I make roughly $50 every couple months from streaming. All of this money goes to me, but it feels almost comical in the face of my regular expenses as an artist. It can’t cover a cellphone bill. It certainly can’t cover what I pay for a rehearsal space, daily studio rental, musician fee, guitar set up, etc. About a third of this money comes directly from Spotify, and yet because of recent updates to payment terms, most of my back catalog has now been demonetized for having fewer than 1000 streams per year. I have also noticed the huge shift from editorial playlists to algorithm-based playlists from my last record to my most recent one. The democracy of content that this platform initially promised is an illusion. It is unlikely that playlists will result in more long term fans or tickets to shows being sold. That’s not how this system is meant to work, it’s meant to work like most apps are: to keep you on their platform.

To the artists out there who are hesitant about doing anything right now: I hear you, and I offer no judgement. But I ask you to consider treating this platform appropriately for what it is, what it is rapidly becoming, which is a tool for promotion that is getting increasingly worse because the people who run it have already moved on to other deeply despicable things to make money. They have little interest and investment in Spotify now and that will continue to decrease until it’s all homogeneous AI Muzak that they own. You don’t need to thank them, and if for some reason you are contractually obligated to, I have always been fond of malicious compliance as a way to deal with unjust systems flexing power.

If you consider yourself a music enjoyer and still subscribe to this platform, this is more than Spotify. It is about streaming culture, scrolling culture, the amount and ways we consume. Consider what you are doing when you let music play 24/7 via an algorithm. In a lot of ways, it is an endless scroll. It keeps you numb to the pain we are experiencing as a collective right now. It is certainly the opposite of what I would like for my music to be, which is: a call to action, a salve, an antidote, an understanding. I make it with intention, and I would hope it is being listened to with intention.

Reading Mood Machine, Liz Pelly’s book, and putting out a record in 2025 has pushed me to think really hard about what I want to be as an artist, how I have, at times, felt trapped in the machine of the industry in ways that don’t feel good or sustainable. The things I want haven’t greatly changed, but they have helped me see and separate what I want from how the industry actually works. It has given me a clarity I needed. I don’t want to be the it girl of the hour. I don’t want a bajillion dollars or eighteen Grammys. I don’t want a brand deal with someone objectively horrible and I don’t want to be on tour nonstop for years on end. I want to be respected for the work I do because it is work, and it is important, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong about what art has done and can do for them. I want to write songs and have fun with other musicians and hope that with the end result someone out there is moved. Moved to keep going, moved to consider other ways of being, to consider each other.

my best to you,

HG