Neil Young's music has been removed from Spotify after the rocker issued an ultimatum to the streaming service after he claimed 'The Joe Rogan Experience' was spreading misinformation about vaccinations.
Earlier this week Young penned a letter to his management demanding that his music is removed from Spotify unless the Swedish streaming service added a disclaimer to 'The Joe Rogan Experience' after the podcast aired an episode surrounding vaccinations.
Young had taken issue with 'The Joe Rogan Experience' writing "With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, 'The Joe Rogan Experience' which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence."
"Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy."
In December 2021 over 270 doctors, scientists, healthcare professionals and professors wrote an open letter to Spotify, expressing concern about medical misinformation on Rogan’s podcast.
“This is not only a scientific or medical concern; it is a sociological issue of devastating proportions and Spotify is responsible for allowing this activity to thrive on its platform,” the letter from the medical professionals read.
On Tuesday, Young issued an ultimatum to the streaming service, saying "I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform. They can have Rogan or Young - not both."
A spokesperson for Spotify told The Hollywood Reporter "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."
"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."
In a follow-up letter published on Wednesday, Young said that Spotify represented 60% of his streaming revenue globally, which amounted to “a huge loss for his record company to absorb,” but he removed his catalogue as he “could not continue to support Spotify’s life-threatening misinformation to the music-loving public.”
“I truly want to thank the many, many people who have reached out to me thanking me for taking this position — people who are health professionals on the front lines, people who have lost loved ones to COVID or who are worried for their own children and families. I have never felt so much love coming from so many,” Young wrote in Wednesday’s letter.
“I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the Spotify platform and stop supporting Spotify’s deadly misinformation about COVID," he said.
As of Thursday morning, all of Young's albums are no longer streaming on Spotify in Ireland, with the only surviving music being hits like 'Heart Of Gold' and 'Rockin' In The Free World' which are available as part of compilation albums.
Young currently has over 6 million monthly listeners on Spotify and his lifetime record sales are estimated to be around the 90 million mark.
The rock star is renowned as one of the most politically-charged artists in musical history, with the singer writing a song titled 'Ohio' in direct response to Kent State shootings in 1970, and later wrote 'Rockin' In The Free World' as a response to the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush dominated American political landscape of the 80s.
