The music world has become the latest COVID-19 battleground, with Neil Young and Kid Rock — performers who sing very different tunes about the …
The music world has become the latest COVID-19 battleground, with Neil Young and Kid Rock — performers who sing very different tunes about the best way to confront the pandemic — setting down their six strings and picking up headlines. Spotify removed Young’s music from its service last week after the “Heart of Gold” singer gave it an ultimatum, saying it could not provide a platform to both him and Joe Rogan because of what he called COVID-19 misinformation from the popular podcast host. “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines — potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them,” Young,76, said in an open letter. The move by the Grammy Hall of Famer kicked off a weeklong back-and-forth with Spotify, which sided with Rogan but acknowledged it had a “great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators.” The altercation has rapidly ballooned into a multi-artist protest. “Woodstock” songwriter Joni Mitchell and guitarist Nils Lofgren joined Young’s effort, pulling their song catalogs from Spotify in a show of unity. On Sunday, Spotify announced it would add a content advisory to podcasts that feature discussions about the coronavirus, which has killed more than 850,000 people in the United States. And Rogan, whose show, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” reportedly boasts an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, said in an Instagram post that same day that he would work to balance “controversial viewpoints” on his podcast. The faceoff with Spotify was hardly out of character for politically active Young, whose Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Ohio,” which he wrote in response to the deadly 1970 National Guard shootings at Kent State University, has been dubbed the “greatest protest record” of all time. “It’s hard to think of anybody whose activism has been part of the conversation in that particular way for that long,” Danny Goldberg, a music industry expert who managed artists including Nirvana and Bonnie Raitt, said in a Monday interview. The Farm Aid co-founder’s showdown with Spotify came just days after more than 200 health care professionals urged the streaming service to take action against COVID-19 vaccine misinformation that they said was spread on Rogan’s show. Young moving the needle speaks to “the power of music and popular culture,” said longtime Boston Globe culture writer James Sullivan, “to get ideas across that sort of the grownups, the scientists, the politicians and the leaders cannot always get across.
