It seems that Neil Young might have a movement brewing behind him. Joni Mitchell is removing her music from Spotify now.
Young decided to pull his music from the streaming platform in response to comments Joe Rogan made on his podcast. The Joe Rogan Experience is sponsored and hosted exclusively by Spotify. Rogan has come under fire for remarks about COVID-19 vaccines and for comments some of his guests have made on the podcast.
In typical Young fashion, the singer wrote a letter to Spotify. In the letter, he explained why he was pulling his music. Now, it appears that fellow songwriter, Joni Mitchell is joining the protest of sorts.
“I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify. Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”
Pitchfork reported that they had reached out to the audio platform. However, it seems they have not made a comment on this most recent matter. After his initial statements about Spotify and the Rogan issue, Young doubled down on his statements.
“Amazon, Apple Music and Qobuz deliver up to 100% of the music today and it sounds a lot better than the shi**y, degraded and neutered sound of Spotify,” the artist said.
“If you support Spotify, you are destroying an art form,” the artist said while speaking to Variety. “Business over art. Spotify plays the artist’s music at 5% of its quality and charges you like it was the real thing.”
Joni Mitchell is now joining the iconic singer in his small protest. It will be very interesting how many other artists decide to jump on this train. Will Spotify actually do anything? While it looks bad to have artists leave the platform, Rogan’s podcast is the most listened to in the world.
Joni Mitchell and Neil Young Split from Spotify
While Spotify has not made an official statement on the Joni Mitchell decision, they have responded to Young’s initial decision. It doesn’t seem like they are too bothered by all of this. But, that was before another joined the iconic singer. So, what does the streaming giant think of all of this?
“We want all of 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 statement read.
So, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young have decided to split from Spotify. Will there be more to join them? These are two artists that have been outspoken for various causes and reasons throughout their lives. So, they might have some other allies willing to stand up and join them. In the meantime, competitors like Apple Music and Amazon are trying to capitalize off of this news by promoting Young’s music. They will likely do the same with Mitchell’s catalog.
