

The firm could properly face questions on this from Wall Street analysts when it publicizes its fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. Many customers have taken to social media to declare they had been canceling their subscriptions. So far the industrial affect of the controversy is unclear. Apple advertised itself as “the home of Neil Young,” and SiriusXM revived a Neil Young channel. Young’s withdrawal led to fast advertising and marketing strikes by Spotify’s rivals. Then the R&B singer India.Arie and two musicians who’ve performed with Young - the guitarist Nils Lofgren and Graham Nash - mentioned they’d additionally pull their music from Spotify in solidarity. He was shortly adopted by Joni Mitchell, one other musical icon whose cultural affect far exceeds her industrial affect on-line. He was protesting the corporate’s assist of Joe Rogan, its star podcaster, who has been criticized for selling misinformation concerning the coronavirus and vaccines. Last week, Neil Young kicked off a storm within the music enterprise and on social media when he demanded that his music - together with rock classics like “Heart of Gold” and “Cinnamon Girl” - be faraway from Spotify. It could have additionally set the corporate on a collision course with artists, and left listeners with a less-than-complete library of songs. The transfer made the service a smorgasbord of audio leisure - half music service, half information outlet, half always-on gabfest. But a few years in the past it pivoted so as to add a buzzy format to its portfolio: podcasts. Spotify stays the largest music streaming service. It made the platform a prime energy within the music enterprise and ushered in rivals like Apple Music, Amazon Music and Tidal, serving to reverse the trade’s nosedive. Joni Mitchell arrives for the formal Artist's Dinner honoring the recipients of the 44th Annual Kennedy Center Honors at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in December 2021.Spotify arrived greater than a decade in the past with an interesting proposition: Listeners may go away their CDs and downloads behind and stream nearly each music ever launched. There was no immediate response to a request for comment from Spotify. “I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front line health care workers who risk their lives every day to help others.” “Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information,” he wrote.

In a message on his website Friday, Young said that “when I left Spotify, I felt better.” Her songs “Big Yellow Taxi” and “A Case of You” have both been streamed more than 100 million times on the service.

While Mitchell, 78, is not a current hitmaker, the Canadian native’s Spotify page said she had 3.7 million monthly listeners to her music. Young had called on other artists to support him following his action. Rogan is one of the streaming service’s biggest stars, with a contract that could earn him more than $100 million. Robert Malone, an infectious disease specialist who has been banned from Twitter for spreading COVID misinformation. Last month Rogan interviewed on his podcast Dr. “I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”įollowing Young’s action this week, Spotify said it had policies in place to remove misleading content from its platform and has removed more than 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.īut the service has said nothing about comedian Joe Rogan, whose podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” is the centerpiece of the controversy. “Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives,” Mitchell said Friday in a message posted on her website. Mitchell, who like Young is a California-based songwriter who had much of her success in the 1970s, is the first prominent musician to join Young’s effort. NEW YORK - Joni Mitchell said Friday she is seeking to remove all of her music from Spotify in solidarity with Neil Young, who ignited a protest against the streaming service for airing a podcast that featured a figure who has spread misinformation about the coronavirus.
