Left-wing rocker Neil Young is now pushing for other artists to pull their music from Spotify, calling the audio streaming service a “damaging force” that is causing “24 year old’s” to end up on “the wrong side of the truth.”
Young’s call comes after Spotify said it would pull the singer’s music from its platform following his demand that the company either remove his music or blacklist Joe Rogan and his popular podcast.
On Wednesday, Young continued his attacks against Spotify on his website, claiming that the company “has recently become a very damaging force,” and urged others to join him in removing their music from the platform. “I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the Spotify platform and stop supporting Spotify’s deadly misinformation about Covid.”
In his diatribe, the former Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young member also suggested that content needs to be censored on Spotify because most of its listeners are “24 years old,” which makes them “impressionable.”
“Most of the listeners hearing the unfactual, misleading and false COVID information on SPOTIFY are 24 years old, impressionable and easy to swing to the wrong side of the truth,” the singer wrote.
Spotify represents 60 percent of the streaming of his music to listeners around the world, added Young, who went on to claim that he was “losing 60% of my world wide streaming income in the name of Truth.”
Young also thanked Warner Brothers for standing with him and “taking the hit.”
Before the removal, Young had 2.4 million followers and over six million monthly listeners on Spotify, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
At the time of Young’s music being pulled, a Spotify spokesperson said the following in a statement:
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.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.