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Neil Young is bringing his music back to Spotify because, he said, Apple and Amazon “started offering the same misinformation” on podcasts that led him to leave 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 outlet for music lovers.”
In January 2022, Young demanded that Spotify remove his tracks from its service in protest of the company’s failure to curb COVID misinformation on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. He said Spotify “can have Rogan or Young. Not both.” Spotify removed Young’s songs on January 26. “Spotify has recently become a very damaging force through 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, returns to Spotify. But he said it’s because Apple and Amazon have also become sources of misinformation.
“Spotify, the number one streamer of low-res music in the world; Spotify, where you get less quality than ours, will now once again be the home of my music,” Young announced Tuesday in a post on his website.
Young continued: “My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have begun offering the same misinformation podcast features I had opposed at SPOTIFY. I can’t just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did with Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming output for music lovers, so I’ve returned to Spotify, sincerely hoping that Spotify’s sound quality improves and people can hear and feel all the music the way we made it. Qobuz and Tidal, where my music is featured, are also high resolution.”
Young did not elaborate on which “misinformation” podcast Apple and Amazon are supposedly broadcasting. But that may be a reference to the renewal of Rogan’s multi-year deal with Spotify signed last month, under which “The Joe Rogan Experience” will no longer be available exclusively on Spotify. The podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts and YouTube and is coming to Amazon Music, according to Spotify.
“I hope all of you, millions of Spotify users, enjoy my songs!” Young wrote in the post. “Now they’ll all be there for you, except the whole sound we created.”
He urged Spotify to introduce a high-quality level of audio, something the audio streamer had previously promised but has yet to deliver. “Hopefully, Spotify will turn to high resolution as an answer and offer all the music to everyone,” Young wrote. “Spotify, you can do it! To truly be number one in every way. You have the music and the listeners!!!! Start with a limited high resolution level and build from there!
Young, after leaving Spotify in 2022, criticized the quality of its audio compression for offering a “shitty, degraded, emasculated sound… If you support Spotify, you are destroying an art form.”