Neil Young announced his music is back on Spotify after the singer had issued an ultimatum to the music streaming platform in 2022 to pull Joe Rogan from its site or lose him.
In a statement on his website on Wednesday, the 78-year-old rocker didn’t directly address his previous threat that “they can have Rogan or Young. Not both,” which came after “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast host’s alleged “misinformation” about the COVID vaccine on his show, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
Instead, the veteran rocker labeled Spotify “low-res,” stating it’s the site “where you get less quality than we made” and wrote that he was returning because other major streaming services will now distribute Rogan’s podcasts and he can’t pull his music from all those platforms.
“My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I opposed at SPOTIFY,” Young wrote without naming the podcast.
Two years after he pulled all his music from Spotify, Neil Young has announced he’s putting his music back on the streaming service. https://t.co/R4Wro2uNMJ pic.twitter.com/tDi2XSwUDl
— ABC News (@ABC) March 13, 2024
“I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did with Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all,” he added. “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.”
“Hopefully Spotify will turn to Hi Res as the answer and serve all the music to everyone,” the rocker continued. “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!”
In January 2022, Young issued an ultimatum to Spotify that he would pull his entire music catalog until they cut ties with Rogan, as previously reported.
“Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule,” Young shared in the since-deleted message to his management team and label.
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“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” he added. “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”
“With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence,” the letter continued. “Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.”
At the time, Spotify issued a statement that, “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,” it added.