Neil Young Wants His Music Removed In Spotify
Image via assets.rollingstone.com
Neil Young recently demanded for Spotify to 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.
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.
“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. Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform,”
Young wrote in the open letter, relayed by Rolling Stone.
“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform… They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”
“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 added.
“Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”
Young continued, referencing the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” which is currently Spotify’s most popular podcast and also tops Apple’s podcasting charts. It became controversial for vaccine misinformation promoted by its host and guests.
In December 2021, 270 doctors, scientists and medical experts signed an open letter to Spotify condemning the streamer for platforming Rogan and calling on Spotify to warn its listeners about misinformation.
This is actually 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. He said at that time:
“I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution. I don’t feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It’s bad for my music.”
