Rock musician Neil Young got a bee up his bonnet about Joe Rogan spreading Unapproved Thought, and told Spotify that they needed to either remove Rogan or remove his music. It wasn’t a hard choice.
Spotify has sided with its podcast superstar over Neil Young.
The legendary folk singer gave the streaming behemoth an ultimatum earlier this week, saying he refused to allow his music on the same platform as Joe Rogan. The “Heart of Gold” singer accused Rogan and his podcast of spreading false information about COVID-19 vaccines.
Spotify reportedly paid more than $100 million deal to be the exclusive home of Rogan’s show. Young, meanwhile, stands to lose 60% of his streaming income from his defiant stance, he said in a statement on his website.
“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users,” a spokesperson for the company told the Wall Street Journal. “With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators.”
This is bunk. Spotify should have jack squat concern about safety for it’s listeners, at least beyond slapping a warning on lethal pranks like the Fork In the Electric Outlet Challenge.
Since the start of the pandemic, the spokesman noted, Spotify has removed more than 20,000 COVID-related podcast episodes. Still, Young’s protests were not sufficient for it to drop its lucrative star talker.
“We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon,” the spokesperson added.
Rogan’s podcast has attracted an estimated 11 million listeners.
Never mind the Lynyrd Skynyrd references, how little money most artists make out of streaming, or the irony of the “This Note’s For You” guy wanting to censor someone for not toting the government/big pharma line. If this was anything more than a publicity ploy (of the “Wait, you’re still alive?” type) on Young’s part, he’s badly overplayed his hand. But I want to talk about the oddity of Rock’s Eternal Now.
Because it was the music boomers grew up with, and it’s still on the radio and used in tons of movies, rock music of the 60s and 70s has stayed an active part of the culture much longer than the popular music of earlier eras did.
Neil Young had one only one number one hit, “Heart of Gold,” in April of 1972. That’s a few months shy of half a century ago. Go back half a century before that, to April of 1922, and this is the song that was topping the charts:
If people remember the name Fanny Brice at all today, it’s because Barbara Streisand played her in a movie in 1968 (which is to say more than half a century ago). How many rock musicians were listening to Fanny Brice songs in 1972? Approximate answer: None.
Which makes you wonder how many of today’s musicians are listening to Neil Young, a half-century after his heyday. I’m guessing more than Fanny Brice, but not many.
Just as we only know bits of the early 20th century songbook because they were featured on Looney Tunes (“Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal…”), it’s likely that any Neil Young listeners under the age of 50 or so only know of him from TV sound tracks or Jimmy Fallon imitating him. And most of his hardcore fans are not in Spotify’s demographic, since they already have the CDs they bought to replace the records and 8-tracks they bought in their youth.
One repeated line from “Heart of Gold” is “And I’m getting old.” So is the entire cohort of golden age Rock and Roll.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Tags: Fanny Brice, Joe Rogan, music, Neil Young, Rock and Roll, Spotify, video
Neil Young: “Remove Joe Rogan or remove my music.”
Spotify: “Your terms are acceptable. Who are you again?”
Re Fanny Brice and contemporary period music. Your observation is correct and well taken, but part of the explanation is that recording technology back in 1921 was primitive at best, and whatever recordings were made back then didn’t survive for the following fifty years.
By contrast, the stuff made in the 50s and beyond was done with much more sophisticated methods and stored on much more sturdy media. And of course, today’s digital technologies are even a greater leap from Neil Young in 1972 than from Fanny Brice in 1921 to 1972.
I’m a longtime fan of Neil Young (especially the Crazy Horse stuff), despite the fact that he’s just flat full of it on a great many things…like this. Somehow it’s part of his charm. Last albums of his I bought were Ragged Glory and Harvest Moon, though.
Sure has changed his tune from the days when he put out songs like “Powderfinger.”
“ By contrast, the stuff made in the 50s and beyond was done with much more sophisticated methods and stored on much more sturdy media.”
More sturdy right up to the point where your record company’s warehouse catches fire and burns your masters up.
Looks like you forgot to include the link (fixed now).
@Dwight Brown
Yes, that’s true too, but the Universal fire only serves to remind us to back everything up–as redundantly as possible.
How much will last? Very little. What novels? I think Tom Wolfe will be read in a hundred years to understand our age. Music? Hope it’s Foo Fighters, might be Taylor Swift.
Any art or architecture that we want our current age to be remembered for? None that I know of.
Went to the opera last week, not normally a high brow guy, but it was a fun spectacle. Now, a plaything for the rich.
No point, just that everything ends and we don’t know what will endure.
Probably Sweet Home Alabama, with Neil as a footnote to the song.