Toronto psych folk band Beams have finally had their album Requiem for a Planet returned to streaming services after a "predatory AI playlister" added their music to a playlist and resulted in them getting banned from Spotify.
Requiem for a Planet came out in May of this year. In July, an AI playlister named Chartmob added one of Beams songs for a reported 12 hours — according to drummer Mike Mērnieks-Duffield, in the hopes that "we'd see a small uptick in streams and potentially use their services as their marketing strategy."
The result was that Spotify flagged Beams for supposedly buying fake streams, and distributor AWAL removed the album from streaming services. Mērnieks-Duffield explained in an email to Exclaim!, "Three years worth of love/work and tens of thousands dollars went into making the album a reality and then 'poof' it's gone to what amounts to about 1,000 streams from a predator, right after we signed a sync deal, finished a very successful tour and finally feeling a sense of momentum after the uncertainty of life after the pandemic. Needless to say, it's a bummer!"
More than three months since Requiem for a Planet was taken offline, it's finally back, with AWAL having redelivered the release. Mērnieks-Duffield didn't blame the label for the situation, instead noting, "The real villains are the predatory playlisters."