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Neil Young isn’t known for keeping his opinions to himself. Neil recently gave Spotify and ultimatum: it’s either him or Joe Rogan. As we know, Rogan would rather eat horse-dewormer than promote safe science. So Neil posted a letter to his team and label demanding they pull his music from Spotify unless they drop Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE). Neil specified Rogan’s spreading of misinformation on vaccines as the cause.
Neil Young posted a since-deleted letter to his management team and record label demanding that they remove his music from Spotify. “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them,” he wrote. “Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”
“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” he continued. “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.” Young is referencing the steady stream of misinformation about vaccines that Joe Rogan has peddled on The Joe Rogan Experience. Last month, 270 doctors, physicians, and science educators signed an open letter asking Spotify to stop spreading Rogan’s baseless claims.
“With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence,” the letter reads. “Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.”
[From Rolling Stone]
It was a valid stance to take. I wouldn’t want to share a platform with someone spreading dangerous information either. But Spotify didn’t see it that way. They felt it was more important to keep Joe and his foolhardy ignorance than Neil’s catalogue, so they’re removing it.
Spotify is in the process of removing Neil Young’s catalog of music from its service after the artist published — then took down — an open letter with an ultimatum: Deal with the vaccine misinformation coming from Joe Rogan’s podcast, or lose Young’s music.
Two days after the letter was published, Spotify is now in the process of removing Young’s music from the streaming service, a Spotify spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon,” the spokesperson told THR.
In a follow-up letter published on Wednesday, Young said that Spotify represented 60 percent of his streaming revenue globally, which amounted to “a huge loss for [his] record company to absorb,” but that he moved forward with removing his catalog because he “could not continue to support Spotify’s life threatening misinformation to the music loving public.”
“I truly want to thank the many, many people who have reached out to me thanking me for taking this position — people who are health professionals on the front lines, people who have lost loved ones to COVID or who are worried for their own children and families. I have never felt so much love coming from so many,” Young wrote in Wednesday’s letter. “I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the Spotify platform and stop supporting Spotify’s deadly misinformation about COVID.”
[From The Hollywood Reporter]
This is Spotify calling Neil’s bluff. Neil boycotted them a few years ago over sound quality. Ultimately, he caved because he claimed his fans just wanted to hear his music. So Spotify is counting on him doing it again. This way they don’t have to lose JRE and can play the victors once again if Neil comes back. I understand why this is happening but I’m angry about it. I really don’t want to live in a time when Joe Rogan and his stupid experience has more pull than Neil Young.
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