David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash have joined their former bandmate Neil Young in requesting their music be removed from Spotify.
Young asked for his music to be removed from the streaming platform last week, after airing his views that the service was knowingly spreading misinformation, singling out Joe Rogan's podcast specifically.
“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,” he wrote in a since-deleted message to his management and record label, posted on his website.
“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” he added. “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”
Now, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash – who together with Neil Young formed folk rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – have asked for their music to be removed from the streaming giant in “solidarity” with their bandmate.
The removal will affect the recordings of CSNY, CSN, CN, as well as Crosby and Still's respective solo projects.
“We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast,” the trio say in a new unified statement.
“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.”
Prior to Young's statement of intent to leave Spotify, Joe Rogan had interviewed a medical doctor named Robert Malone, who believes that Americans have been “hypnotized” into mask-wearing and vaccines, and said that the US population is suffering from “mass formation psychosis” (per Rolling Stone).
Following the interview, 270 members of the scientific and medical community penned an open letter lambasting Rogan, calling the episode “not only objectionable and offensive, but also medically and culturally dangerous”.
Spotify has since announced that it will add a disclaimer to any future podcasts pertaining to Covid-19.
In a blog post on the company's website on January 30, CEO Daniel Ek wrote: “We are working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about Covid-19. This advisory will direct listeners to our dedicated Covid-19 hub, a resource that provides easy access to data-driven facts, up-to-date information as shared by scientists, physicians, academics and public health authorities around the world, as well as links to trusted sources.”
In a new 10-minute podcast episode posted on January 31, Joe Rogan said he agrees with Spotify placing a disclaimer at the beginning of “controversial podcasts, specifically ones about Covid”.
He also notes that he's “very sorry” that Neil Young has removed his music from the platform, adding that he's “always been a Neil Young fan”.
