The singer Neil Young has backtracked and returned to Spotify two years after pulling his music in protest over the streaming service featuring the popular “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.
Young Returns To Spotify
Variety reported that back in January of 2022, Young pulled his music from Spotify in protest over what he described as the company’s failure to curb COVID misinformation in “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, saying that the streaming service “can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”
“Spotify has recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID,” Young said at the time.
Now, however, the 78 year-old young has come crawling back to Spotify with his tail between his legs.
“Spotify, the #1 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,” Young announced in a post on his website on Tuesday. “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 continued. “Qobuz and Tidal, where my music is presented, are all High res as well.”
Related: Spotify Removes Neil Young Catalogue After Joe Rogan Controversy
Young Doubles Down
While Rogan did not go into further detail about what he feels is the podcast “disinformation” that Apple and Amazon are allegedly carrying, he may have been referring to Joe Rogan’s multiyear deal renewal with Spotify inked last month, under which “The Joe Rogan Experience” will no longer be exclusively available on Spotify, and will now also be on Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
“I hope all you millions of Spotify users enjoy my songs!” Young added. “They will now all be there for you except for the full sound we created.”
“Hopefully Spotify will turn to Hi Res as the answer and serve all the music to everyone,” Young concluded. “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!”
Related: Neil Young Calls Trump A ‘Disgrace To My Country’ In Fiery Open Letter
Young’s Anti-Spotify Rant
After leaving Spotify in 2022, Young ranted about “the sh***y, degraded and neutered sound of Spotify.”
“If you support Spotify, you are destroying an art form. Business over art. Spotify plays the artists’s music at 5% of its quality and charges you like it was the real thing,” Young argued. “Switch to one of the alternatives, companies that support the arts. Real sound is available there… You just have to leave Spotify and go to a place that truly cares about music quality.”
How embarrassing for Young that he had to come crawling back to Spotify after going so hard against the streaming service. This serves as a reminder that liberal elites like Young can pretend that their radically liberal ideologies mean everything to them, but in the end, they really only care about the almighty dollar.
More About:Music
Read This Next
