After King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard boycotted Spotify over ethical concerns, an uncanny algorithmic copycat tried—and failed—to steal the throne.
- A Principled Exodus: Genre-defying rock icons King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard pulled their catalog from Spotify following CEO Daniel Ek’s controversial investment in AI military technology.
- The Rise of the Clone: Shortly after the band’s departure, an AI-generated impostor named “King Lizard Wizard” appeared, uploading tracks with identical titles and lyrics to the original band’s hits.
- Triumph on Bandcamp: Despite the digital mimicry, the real band found massive independent success, dominating the Bandcamp charts and proving that fans value human artistry over algorithmic convenience.
The relationship between musicians and streaming giants has always been tenuous, but a recent saga involving one of rock’s most prolific bands, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, has highlighted a bizarre new frontier in the industry: the rise of the AI strikebreaker. When the beloved Australian group removed their music from Spotify in a principled stand against the platform’s corporate ethics, they left a vacuum. But nature abhors a vacuum, and apparently, so does artificial intelligence.
The Great Spotify Exodus
The trouble began in July, when King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard decided to pull their extensive discography from the world’s largest streaming service. The decision was not made lightly. The band cited Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s decision to invest nearly $700 million in a company developing AI military software as the “final straw.”
This wasn’t an isolated incident of discontent. The platform has faced growing backlash regarding its corporate conduct, including the running of ICE recruitment ads in October—a move that angered artists who object to the detention of undocumented immigrants. Consequently, a wave of artists, including Deerhoof, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Massive Attack, and My Bloody Valentine, have stripped their music from the library.
For King Gizzard frontman Stu Mackenzie, the decision was about integrity over revenue. “I don’t really care about making money from streaming,” Mackenzie told the Los Angeles Times. “[For] me personally, I just want to make music, and I want people to be able to listen to it.”
Enter the “King Lizard Wizard”
With the real band gone, a “Lizard Wizard-shaped hole” remained on the platform. On December 8, Futurism reported a strange discovery made by a Reddit user: Spotify’s Release Radar was recommending a track titled “Rattlesnake” by an artist named “King Lizard Wizard.”
The parallels were immediate and unsettling. King Gizzard has a famous track called “Rattlesnake,” and this new iteration was a blatant, albeit artificial, copy. Reports indicated that the song featured “identical lyrics to King Gizzard’s original version, along with a notably similar composition,” yet was “clearly A.I.-generated.” It was a case of a digital pretender to the throne.
The mimicry went deep. Every song uploaded by the impostor account shared a title with an actual King Gizzard track, with lyrics ripped straight from the source. In a brazen move, some of these tracks even listed Stu Mackenzie as the composer and lyricist. The technological sloppiness of the operation was exposed further on YouTube Music, where users found a five-song EP by “King Lizard Wizard” featuring the same album art but completely different audio tracks—a hallmark of mass-produced AI “slop.”
The Platform Scrambles
The presence of an AI scab replacing a protesting human band created an optical nightmare for Spotify. Shortly after the story broke, the “King Lizard Wizard” account vanished.
A spokesperson for Spotify addressed the controversy, stating to Parade, “Spotify strictly prohibits any form of artist impersonation. The content in question was removed for violating our platform policies, and no royalties were paid out for any streams generated.” While the swift removal solved the immediate problem, the incident served as a stark warning of how easily AI can be weaponized to fill artistic voids.
Finding Sanctuary on Bandcamp
While the bots were busy mimicking them, the actual members of King Gizzard—Mackenzie, Joey Walker, Michael Cavanaugh, Lucas Harwood, Crook Craig, and Ambrose Kenny-Smith—were proving that they didn’t need the streaming giant to survive.
The band moved their catalog to the artist-friendly platform Bandcamp, and the response was overwhelming. In a stunning display of fan loyalty, KGLW occupied the top 31 spots on Bandcamp’s Best-Selling list immediately following the move. Even months later, they remain a dominant force on the site, with albums like Mango Sticky Rice and PetroDragonic Apocalypse holding firm in the top 10.
The saga of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard serves as a modern parable for the music industry. It demonstrates that while AI can replicate lyrics and mimic compositions, it cannot replicate the connection between a band and its fans—nor can it replace the principles that drive artists to say “enough is enough.”