Joni Mitchell Joins Neil Young in Boycotting Spotify For Letting Joe Rogan Podcast
Tasos Katopodis, Getty
Singer Joni Mitchell, famous for such songs as “Big Yellow Taxi” (1970), “A Case of You<” (1971), and “Both Sides, Now” (1969), has joined singer Neil Young (“Heart of Gold” [1972], “Down by the River” [1969]) in demanding that streaming service Spotify remove all of her music in lieu of kicking massively successful podcaster Joe Rogan off the service.
Young’s original letter demanded that Rogan be removed for “potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread” by his show, and therefore by Spotify.
“Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform,” he wrote.
Like Young, Mitchell’s music was on the service as available for streaming, though she had no other deal with Spotify beyond that. In a statement on her website, in which she refers readers to the open letter to Spotify from several hundred people, some of whom are in medically related fields, Mitchell says she “stands with Neil Young.”
“I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify,” it reads. “Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”
Mitchell was a 2021 Kennedy Center honoree and is pictured above at s White House event President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden hosted in December for those awarded.
Earlier this week, Neil Young appealed to others in the entertainment industry to join him in attempting to force Spotify’s hand, presumably because given the choice between his music and Rogan’s podcast the service chose the latter without blinking.
“They can have Rogan or Young. Not both,” said Young’s letter. Rogan is still there.
“I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the Spotify platform and stop supporting Spotify’s deadly misinformation about Covid,” Young said this week following massive media attention.
Other artists are rumored to be considering the same move Mitchell and Young have made, which certainly has put the pair’s names in the news in a way they haven’t been in many, many years.
