Spotify Agrees to Remove Neil Young’s Music From Platform

“We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon,” the streamer says

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Spotify/Getty Images

Spotify agreed to remove Neil Young’s catalog from their platform on Wednesday, after the rocker directly asked for his music to be taken down on Monday.

“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators,” a Spotify spokesperson said in a statement to TheWrap. “We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”

In a letter provided to “Rolling Stone” Monday, Young demanded his manager Frank Girond and the chief operating officer of his record label, Tom Corson immediately pull his music off the music streaming service, because the streaming service also carries “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.

Young did not want to be associated with a platform that hosts a program that the music icon says spreads “fake information about vaccines.”

“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. “Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”

Young added, “I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform. They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

It wasn’t the “today” Young specifically asked for, but his music is expected to be taken off Spotify later today (Wednesday). As of this writing, the songs were still available on Spotify.

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