What music owes to the war machine

Investigating popular culture's complicated ties to the military

Bands are upset that Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is investing in military technology, and several have pulled their music from the streaming service over his ties to the machines of war.

I understand why artists like King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, Hotline TNT, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor might want to distance themselves from a culture of violence, but they’ve pulled a thread that raises some fundamental questions about the technology we use to listen to music.

Let’s take a look at the long history of military technology in the entertainment industry so you can decide how much war you can stand in your record collection. Warning: The Beatles will make a prominent appearance in our story.

Spotify the military contractor

It’s important to note that Daniel Ek has made so much money streaming other people’s music that he’s now the head of Prima Materia, a venture capital fund founded in partnership with early Spotify investor Shakil Khan.

Prima Materia has invested $693.6 millon in Helsing, a defense startup that aims to use AI to make inform battlefield decisions in real time. Skynet, here we come.

Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier made the connection between Spotify and the war in the Middle East in an interview with the LA Times. “Every time someone listens to our music on Spotify, does that mean another dollar siphoned off to make all that we’ve seen in Gaza more frequent and profitable?”

First, I should retract something in I wrote in the first paragraph of this section. It’s not fair to say that Ek has made all his money “streaming other people’s music.” Spotify has made serious bank by promoting anonymous work-for-hire music that it commissions and owns 100% of the copyrights. No royalties required, and it’s his music because he paid for it.

There are plenty of reasons to ditch Spotify, starting with the service’s inferior audio quality. If you’re looking for your favorites who’ve pulled their music, all of the bands mentioned above have kept their catalogs up on Apple Music, Tidal, and Qobuz. Plenty of their songs are available on Bandcamp.

Apple Music just added a tool to help you migrate your Spotify playlists if you decide to make the switch. If you’re looking to move to Tidal or Qobuz, I wrote about some apps that will help you with the transition at TechHive.

Bear Family’s Next Stop Is Vietnam The War on Record 1961-2008 box set is both a great listen and one of the finest pieces of scholarship on the era.

How defense contractors built the music industry

The music industry was a tiny sliver of the economy for its first few decades, but things finally took off after World War II. We can thank massive capital investment from companies who were major players in the new military industrial complex and the technologies originally developed for war that were handed down to the entertainment economy.

I used to teach a course called the History of Recording Technology at the Atlanta branch of SAE, back in the day when its corporate owners allowed each campus to develop its own curriculum. Once they decided to standardize the classes and dumb it down, my course was one of the first to go. All the research that went into that class made this a relatively easy one to write, so at least I’ve found a way to put it to use now.

This is a list that can help you make your own decisions about how much military you want in your music. You may dismiss all of it, adopt some of it, or unplug all your gear and revert to 1880 by buying yourself a piano for the front parlor.

Microphones and electrical recording

Western Electric introduced Westrex in 1924. This electrical recording system revolutionized both movies and record making by introducing powered microphones to the process. Audiophiles of the era thought that these new amplified recordings sounded “fake,” but everyone else rejoiced.

Western Electric developed the technology that powered Westrex as a military contractor in World War I. They built radio systems for early military aircraft and perfected the vacuum tubes that would be essential to all recording until the transistor took over in the late ’50s.

Radio

The Westinghouse Corporation turned radio technology into a viable commercial product in the 1920s. They launched the first commercial radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh in 1920 and went on to manufacture millions of receivers over the decade. Radio remains the best marketing tool ever discovered by the music industry.

Westinghouse made a mint during World War I manufacturing rifles and grenades, generating the R&D capital that allowed them to invest in crazy ideas like commercial radio.

Magnetic tape

Tape recording revolutionized the industry after World War II, allowing engineers to develop multitrack recording, overdubs, and all the other effects that made records so exciting in the ’60s.

While there were dozens of competing formats, the tape that we all love was developed in the ’30s by scientist Fritz Pfleumer in collaboration with German manufacturer AEG to develop the Magnetophon recorder. Once fellow German Walter Weber developed AC bias to reduce tape noise, this technology was set to revolutionize the world.

Unfortunately for AEG, there was a war on. After the Allied invasion of Europe, American troops were mystified by what they thought where 3am live orchestra performances broadcast on German radio.

Once the Allied Forces took Frankfurt, Major Jack Mullin discovered the Magnetophon recorders that had recorded the performances and shipped two recorders and 50 reels of BASF tape back to the USA. The German surrender voided all the nation’s patents, so Mullin was able to pitch the invention around the USA without any financial ties.

Bing Crosby saw one of Mullin’s demonstrations and immediately understood that the low-noise recordings would allow him to tape his live radio show in advance and leave more time for playing golf and going to the track. Bing invested in the technology and Mullin collaborated with AMPEX to popularize tape recording in America, a move that transformed the music industry.

AEG was a military contractor that used forced labor from Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz.

BASF developed chemical weapons for the German military in World War I and became a partner in the IG Farben corporation in 1925. IG Farben manufactured the Zyklon B poison gas used to murder prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.

AMPEX was formed in 1944 to develop power supplies for H2X airborne radar systems used by the U.S. military. That was the radar system critical to the bombing of Dresden in 1945.

If anyone wants to stop reading now, I understand.

Transistors

Transistors replaced vacuum tubes in the ’50s and were the first major step in the miniaturization of electronic gear. Portable pocket radios were the single most important factor in creating a teenage audience for music. Transistors gave us every rock and soul artist you love from the ’60s.

While transistors weren’t specifically invented for military use in 1947, the military quickly moved to redesign anything that used vacuum tubes and it was profits from those early sales that allowed for the research and development that led to transistors being used for consumer tech a decade later.

Cassette tapes and CDs

Philips introduced the cassette tape in 1963 and developed the technology behind the compact disc in partnership with Sony. CDs hit the market in 1982. Their Polygram Records division owned the Polydor, Mercury, Casablanca, MGM, Verve, RSO, Island and A&M labels before merging with Seagram in the late ’80s.

Philips acquired the Signaal company from the Dutch government in 1956 and went on to be a major player in the European military electronics business until they unloaded Signaal to the French company Thomson-CSF in 1990.

Records released by Philips when they were in the military business: Saturday Night Fever, Donna Summer Bad Girls, KISS Double Platinum, the Velvet Underground VU, Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet, Def Leppard Pyromania, Rush Permanent Waves, Tears for Fears Songs From the Big Chair.

RCA Records and Elvis

RCA was one of the most important military contractors during World War II, building radios and radar systems that were central to the United States war effort. The company was behind many of the missile guidance systems that were the centerpiece of U.S. defense during the Cold War era.

RCA Records was essentially a division designed to develop software (music) for the company’s hardware (record players and stereo systems). Those government contracts subsidized a lot of the technological innovation that RCA put into stereo.

When Elvis got drafted, what was RCA going to do? The corporation was making millions from its military contracts. Young Mr. Presley was a rounding error on their balance sheet. Imagine if the kid hadn’t lost those two years at the peak of his career.

EMI Records and the Beatles

You can look at the Thorn EMI merger from a few angles. In 1979, the biggest British record company EMI (Electrical and Musical Industries) merged with Thorn Electrical Industries to form Thorn EMI. They remained together until they split up again in 1996.

Thorn began as a lamp company but became a military contractor in 1957, manufacturing electrical components for guided missiles. The company remained in the war business for the rest of the century.

Here’s one way to look at it: The first three Wire albums were released before the merger, with 154 coming out a few weeks before EMI became Thorn EMI. Duran Duran signed after the merger, so they’re tools of the military state. Same goes for all the Beatles, Beach Boys, and Pink Floyd CD reissues.

Here’s another way: At the same time Thorn got into the military business in 1957, they signed an exclusive deal with EMI to manufacture HMV and Marconiphone radio and television receivers. The 1996 merger was just the final step in a partnership that began years before the Beatles signed to EMI’s Parlophone label. “I Wanna Hold Your Hand (Grenade),” indeed.

Columbia Records and Bob Dylan

You’ll be happy to know that, aside from some questionable collaboration with the CIA at the height of the Cold War, CBS stayed out of the defense business. Continue to enjoy your Bruce Springsteen and Sly & the Family Stone music if you can reconcile yourself with the military technology used to record and distribute their songs.

Internet

Those of us who grew up during the glory years of WIRED Magazine and the early utopian online culture may not realize that Silicon Valley was built during the Cold War as a hub for defense contractors. All the basic R&D that led to the internet and home computers was funded through federal defense contracts.

ARPANET was the computer network created by the U.S. Department of Defense to ensure communications after a nuclear attack. Universities were included on that network, and researchers at various schools started using the ’net to communicate with each other. By the time the (non-military) development of the web browser in the early ’90s, the idea of worldwide online communication had established itself with a generation of college students.

Every app, every phone, every computer, every tablet, every e-reader, and every streaming music player exists because of technology created by the military.

Cutting the Gordian knot

Unless you’re ready to drop out and go off the grid, it’s impossible to separate the technology that powers our everyday lives from the military economy. I’m not sure I know anyone who’s going to pass a purity test, but that’s probably because anyone who could doesn’t have the ability to make contact with the rest of us.

If an investment in military AI is the last straw for you and Spotify, that’s understandable. If it’s the main reason you want to pull your music or subscription from the service and you’re looking to be ethically consistent, you may want to evaluate how much war machine in your music is too much war machine.

The 20th century brought us inconceivable leaps forward in technology and economic growth, and a lot of that innovation was in service of the war. Would the world be a better place with no magnetic tape or internet? That’s certainly worth considering, but none of us were around to make those decisions.

Most of us who grew up glued to the radio didn't have the maturity or context to think about any of this and I know that I was too devoted to music to quit when I finally learned how the economy works. Protest in whatever way makes sense to you, but you’ll have to go a long way to divorce military technology from popular culture. Good luck with your purification ritual.

8-track of the day

U.S. Army PFC Jimi Hendrix is yet another product of the American military industrial complex.