Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young have reunited—at least when it comes to having their music removed from Spotify in protest of podcaster Joe Rogan spreading anti-vaxx disinformation. David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash posted a statement on Stills’ Twitter page supporting former bandmate Neil Young’s decision to have his music removed from the Spotify streaming service. They asked their music labels to remove their recordings from Spotify.
The trio’s statement read:
“We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast. While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences. Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music – or the music we made together – to be on the same platform.”
Crosby went further in his own tweets. He urged Taylor Swift to join the Spotify protest, writing “She is the only one who has successfully kicked Spotifys ass.”
In 2014, Swift removed her music from Spotify as a means for getting the streaming service to provide better payouts to artists. She returned to Spotify in 2017. In another tweet, Crosby called out Rogan for promoting “anti-vaxer shit that is getting people killed Dead … he’s not that stupid so he knows it’s a lie. He sells it anyway to make a lot of money.”
Rogan has an exclusive, multi-year deal with Spotify, reportedly worth more than $100 million, to stream his podcasts. It became effective on Sept. 1, 2021.
Among the other musicians who’ve joined Young’s Spotify protest are Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren, who played in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and Young’s Crazy Horse. R&B singer India.Arie posted on Instagram that she is removing her music and podcast from Spotify for a different reason—Rogan’s “language about race.”
On a recent podcast, Rogan said: “Unless you’re talking to someone who is like 100% African, from the darkest place, where they’re not wearing any clothes all day, and they’ve developed all that melanin to protect themselves from the sun, you know, even the term ‘Black’ is weird.”
On Sunday, Spotify’s CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek said the streaming service would add “content advisory” flags on podcast episodes about the COVID-19 pandemic, but he added, “It is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor.” Rogan promised to offer more “balance” on his show, whatever that means.
CSNY has had a turbulent history of breakups, estrangements, reconciliations and reunions over the decades. But Spotify and Joe Rogan have given them cause to reunite once again in a worthy cause. And here are two tunes that hopefully will not be streamed on Spotify, but you can listen to them right here: