Two years after taking his music off Spotify, Neil Young has announced the return of his catalog to the “low res” streaming platform. Young originally pulled his music from Spotify in response to the service’s exclusive streaming deal with The Joe Rogan Experience, which is now available across Apple Music and Amazon.
The venerable singer-songwriter announced his decision in a post to his Neil Young Archives website that reads like an angry letter to the editor.
“Spotify, the #1 streamer of low res music in the world — Spotify, where you get less quality than we made, will now be home of my music again,” Young wrote, going on to lambast Apple and Amazon for “serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at SPOTIFY.”
Young publicly left Spotify back in January 2022 when the platform struck an exclusive deal with The Joe Rogan Experience. The two-time Grammy-winner (and 28-time nominee) accused host Joe Rogan of purposefully spreading misinformation about COVID and the vaccine, giving Spotify an ultimatum: him or me. Spotify ultimately chose the most successful podcast in the world, with Young staying true to his word and pulling his music from the service, followed by Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and more. Though Spotify did not give in to Young’s demands and pull the JRE, the platform did begin adding “content advisory” warnings to any discussions of COVID with links to trusted medical resources.
While Young still decries Spotify, Apple, and Amazon for their dissemination of alleged misinformation, Young wrote on Tuesday that for the sake of “music lovers” he cannot take his catalog off all the major streaming services.
“I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all,” Young wrote, “so I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it.”
Young ended his complaint to the manager by pleading with Spotify to introduce options for high-quality audio streaming.
“Hopefully Spotify will turn to Hi Res as the answer to serve all the music to everyone,” he concluded. “Spotify, you can do it! Really be #1 in all ways. You have the music and the listeners!!!! Start with a limited Hi res tier and build from there!”
This return to the world’s most popular music streaming platform comes ahead of Young’s new album with Crazy Horse, FU##IN’ UP, out digitally on April 26th following an April 20th physical release for Record Store Day. Young and his longtime on-again off-again backing band will hit the road in support of the album on the Love Earth Tour beginning in late April, the ensemble’s first tour together in over a decade.
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