Neil Young will return to Spotify after boycotting Joe Rogan podcast
Two years after he pulled all his music from Spotify, Neil Young has announced he's putting his music back on the streaming service.
In a message that the "Heart of Gold" singer shared on his Archives website, he said that Spotify "will now be home of my music again."
"I hope all you millions of Spotify users enjoy my songs!" he said. "They will now all be there for you except for the full sound we created."
Young said his decision to return to Spotify "comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at SPOTIFY."
In 2022, Spotify announced that it had officially removed Young's music from its platform because he didn't want to share the platform with Joe Rogan's podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience," which Young had accused at the time of spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and the pandemic.
"We want all the world's music and audio content to be available to Spotify users," a Spotify spokesperson said in a statement at the time. "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-19 since the start of the pandemic," the statement continued. "We regret Neil's decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon."
Young also took to his website when his music was removed to say that Spotify had "recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID."
"Most of the listeners hearing the unfactual, misleading and false COVID information on SPOTIFY are 24 years old, impressionable and easy to swing to the wrong side of the truth," he added. "These young people believe SPOTIFY would never present grossly unfactual information. They unfortunately are wrong. I knew I had to try to point that out."
While Apple Music and Amazon Music also stream Rogan's podcast, Young said he can't leave Apple and Amazon "because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all."
He also expressed hope that Spotify would improve its sound quality so "people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it."
"Hopefully Spotify will turn to Hi Res as the answer and serve all the music to everyone," he said. "Spotify, you can do it! Really be #1 in all ways. You have the music and the listeners!!!! Start with a limited Hi res tier and build from there!"
"Thanks for your support folks!" he added, signing the message, "Neil."
