Canadian Singer and Writer Neil Young Returns to Spotify

Neil Young says he’s returning to Spotify, two years after pulling music in protest over Joe Rogan’s Podcast.  Neil said, Apple and Amazon have “started presenting the same disinformation” in podcasts that drove him to quit Spotify more than two years ago.  And Young said he can’t boycott Apple Music and Amazon Music, because then his music would have “very little streaming capabilities for music lovers.”  In January 2022, Young demanded that Spotify pull his tracks off its service in protest of the company’s failure to curb COVID misinformation in “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. He said Spotify “can have Rogan or Young.  Not both.”  Shortly after, Joni Mitchell joined the boycott and removed most of her music from Spotify, where it remains unavailable today. Representatives for Mitchell did not immediately return requests for comment.  Both musicians contracted polio as children before a vaccine was  developed in the early 1950s.  After Neil Young’s ultimatum, “Rogan or Young. Not both”, Spotify removed Young’s songs on January 26th. “Spotify has recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID,” Young wrote at the time.  Now the 78-year-old rock icon, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, is coming back to Spotify. But he said it’s because Apple and Amazon have also become fonts of disinformation.  “Spotify, the #1 streamer of low res music in the world — Spotify, where you get less quality than we made, will now be home for my music again,” Young announced in a post on his website.  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.  Qobuz and Tidal, where my music is also played, are all High res.”