Neil Young Is Not Happy Going Back In Spotify

Neil Young has reluctantly returned his catalog to Spotify.

In 2022, the singer-songwriter demanded that Spotify remove all of his music from their streaming platform. Young is an outspoken advocate for Covid-19 safety and prevention. He said he doesn’t want his music to share a home with vaccine misinformation spread by podcaster Joe Rogan on the streaming service.

At that time, the 76-year-old singer wrote an open letter to his manager and record label criticizing Rogan and Spotify. It has since been removed from his website. After that, Spotify‘s market value dropped by more than $2 billion over three days.

Although, that was not the first time Young asked to remove his material from Spotify. In 2015, he pulled his songs from the streaming site and other platforms in protest of low streaming audio quality.

After the statement, many fellow musicians have voiced their support for Young on the issue, including Joni Mitchell, Sebastian Bach, David Crosby, and Nils Lofgren of the E Street Band and Young’s Crazy Horse backup group who also want his catalog deleted on the streaming platform.

In more recent news, Young talked about his dislike for the streaming platform and his reaction to Rogan’s misinformation statement. He wrote on his website:

“Spotify, the number one streamer of low-res music in the world – Spotify, where you get less quality than we made – will now be home of my music again.
“My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify.
“I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all, so I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it.”

He noted:

“I hope all you millions of Spotify users enjoy my songs! They will now all be there for you except for the full sound we created.
“Spotify, you can do it! Really be number one in all ways. You have the music and the listeners! Start with a limited hi res tier and build from there!”