Neil Young dropped by Spotify after ultimatum on Joe Rogan

Spotify has begun removing Neil Young’s music from its catalog after the songwriter made it choose between his music or Joe Rogan’s podcast.

“I want all my music off their platform. They can have Rogan or Young. Not both,” Young wrote in an open letter on Monday, which he also sent to his management and Warner Music, his record label. He accused Rogan’s show of spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.

Warner Music formally requested the Swedish music streaming company to remove Young’s music on Wednesday.

“We want all 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,” a Spotify spokesman told the Wall Street Journal. The company has detailed content policies in place and has removed over 20,000 Covid-19-related podcast episodes since the start of the pandemic, he added.

“We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon,” he said.

Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, is the world’s most popular podcast in the world with an estimated 11 million listeners per episode. His reported $100 million deal with Spotify was part of the company’s pivot into other forms of media.

Young thanked his management and label for supporting his decision in a response, where he noted Spotify accounted for “60% of the streaming of my music to listeners around the world.”

“I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the Spotify platform and stop supporting Spotify’s deadly misinformation about COVID,” Young added in the open letter.

Young himself was subject to a corporate censorship scandal in the late 1980’s for the music video for his song This Note’s For You. The video parodied corporate rock and music marketing and included a Michael Jackson lookalike whose hair catches fire.

MTV banned the music video on its release in 1988 after Michael Jackson’s attorneys threatened legal action, but reversed their decision and eventually awarded it Best Video of the Year in 1989.

Rogan’s fans and supporters of free speech celebrated Spotify’s decision, along with some of Young’s musician peers.

“[Spotify CEO Daniel Ek] I applaud you and @Spotify for making the RIGHT call, preserving #FreeSpeech and not capitulating to the mob. I may not agree with everything @joerogan or his guests say, but they’re entitled to have the forum to say it,” tweeted David Draiman, frontman of the heavy metal band Disturbed.

@eldsjal I applaud you and @Spotify for making the RIGHT call, preserving #FreeSpeech and not capitulating to the mob. I may not agree with everything @joerogan or his guests say, but they’re entitled to have the forum to say it.

— David Draiman (@davidmdraiman) January 27, 2022