Neil Young’s back catalogue includes classic rock albums like After The Goldrush, Harvest and Rust Never Sleeps
By Mark Savage
Music correspondent, BBC News
Neil Young has said his music will return to Spotify, ending a two-year boycott over Joe Rogan’s podcast.
In 2022, Young told the streaming giant to remove hits like Harvest Moon and Heart of Gold, complaining that Rogan was spreading vaccine misinformation.
However, the singer said his return did not reflect a reversal of his stance.
Instead, the decision came after Rogan signed a $250m deal to make his podcast available on multiple platforms, rather than remaining a Spotify exclusive.
“Other music services [including] Apple, Amazon, Qobuz, Tidal… have started serving the same disinformation podcast I had opposed at Spotify,” Young wrote on his website.
“Because I cannot leave all those services like I did Spotify, because my music would have no streaming outlet to music lovers at all, I have returned.”
Young said in January 2022 that Spotify represented 60% of his streaming revenue globally, which amounted to “a huge loss for [his] record company to absorb”, but that he removed his music because he “could not continue to support Spotify’s life-threatening misinformation to the music loving public”.
Other artists, including Joni Mitchell and India Arie, also removed their songs in solidarity.
At the time of writing, Young’s back catalogue has yet to be reinstated on Spotify. Mitchell’s Spotify page only contains live recordings, while Arie’s music returned last year.
The Joe Rogan Experience is consistently the most-played podcast on Spotify. The long-form shows, which often run for several hours, feature wide-ranging interviews with a variety of guests, including comedians, athletes, scientists and conspiracy theorists.
It has frequently been a source of controversy for Spotify. In 2022, the host was forced to apologise for using racist language in early episodes of the podcast, which launched in 2009.
He signed a new deal with Spotify last month, under which the programme will become available on rival services including YouTube and Apple Music.
He previously expressed his disappointment with Young’s decision to withdraw from Spotify, and said he was not intentionally giving a platform to Covid-19 vaccine misinformation.
“I’m not trying to promote misinformation,” he said at the time. “I’m not trying to be controversial. I’ve never tried to do anything with this podcast other than to just talk to people.
“I do not know if they’re right. I don’t know because I’m not a doctor; I’m not a scientist. I’m just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them.”
However, Neil Young’s squabble with Spotify is not entirely over.
In his statement, the star criticised the platform for not offering hi-fi quality, lossless audio to its users.
“[I have] 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 wrote.
“Hopefully Spotify will return to Hi Res[olution] as the answer and serve all the music to everyone. Spotify, you can do it!”
Most of Spotify’s biggest rivals – including Apple, Tidal, Amazon Music and Qobuz – offer lossless audio, which is closer to CD quality than the compressed files served by Spotify.
