The American-Canadian singer accused the Swedish CVIV-19 disinformation platform by hosting the popular and controversial podcast Joe Rogan.
Le Monde with AFP
The American-Canadian singer Neil Young puts his threat to execution: after having accused Spotify of misinformation on the CVIV-19 by hosting the podcast of the popular and controversial Joe Rogan, he confirmed, Wednesday, January 26, his spectacular decision of Remove his music from the streaming platform.
“I want to thank my very large and solidarity house of records Warner Brothers-recovery records that supports me in my decision to withdraw all my music from Spotify,” wrote the 76 year musician on his website, pointing out that The platform represents 60% of its revenue generated by streaming.
Neil Young has 2.4 million subscribers and more than six million listeners per month on Spotify, world leader in music streaming. But Joe Rogan’s podcast, an exclusive content of the Swedish platform, which accumulates millions of listening, was number one on Spotify in 2021.
“Spotify has become a potentially deadly misinformation place on COVID. Lies sold against money”, Assene Neil Young in his message.
“They can have Rogan or Young. Not the two “
The prolific singer, known for his Heart of Gold and Harvest Moon titles, also cites a letter of more than 200 doctors and scientists, who recently requested the platform to act after a “very controversial” episode of The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE), distributed on December 31st. “This episode is criticized for promoting the theories of the compliment without foundation and JRE has a disturbing past of disseminating false information, particularly regarding the pandemic of Covid-19”, they wrote.
At midnight Thursday, his music was still available on the platform, but it should be removed in the coming hours, According to the Wall Street Journal .
“We have deleted more than 20,000 COVID-related podcast episodes since the beginning of the pandemic. We regret the decision of Neil from withdrawing his music from Spotify, but we hope to welcome him soon,”, also Confirmed a spokesperson for the platform, cited by several American media.
The popular Joe Rogan, whose contract signed with Spotify last year is estimated at $ 100 million, is accused of having discouraged youth vaccination and pushing the use of treatment Unauthorized, ivermectin, against the virus.
“They can have rogan or Young. Not the two,” said Neil Young, whose last album, Barn, came out at the end of 2021. The singer of Folk-Rock in the long career had said that others Artists and record companies follow him.