LOS ANGELES — David Crosby and Stephen Stills have joined Neil Young and Graham Nash in asking their labels to remove their collective recordings from Spotify.
According to the announcement, in support of stopping harmful misinformation about Covid-19 on Joe Rogan’s Spotify-hosted podcast, the musicians have decided to remove their records from the streaming platform including the recordings of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crosby-Nash, as well as Crosby’s and Stills’ solo projects. Nash has already begun the process to take down his solo recordings.
In a unified statement, the band members commented, "We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast. 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."
Reps for Spotify did not immediately respond to Variety’s request for comment.
Following a similar request by Joni Mitchell, the move reunites the five artists, who have been friends and collaborators since the 1960s, in a stance that they certainly could not have imagined 50 years ago. While only longtime Young and Bruce Springsteen guitarist Nils Lofgren has joined their stance, many musicians have said that they would like to remove their music from the streaming giant — the world’s largest paid music-subscription service — but either can’t legally do so, since their music is actually owned by record labels, or cannot afford to.
Young started this movement last week by demanding that his music be removed from Spotify, citing the streaming service’s distribution paxjmtzywrtnership with Joe Rogan and accusing Rogan’s podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience" of spreading false information regarding COVID-19 and vaccines.
The musician posted a since-deleted open letter to his official website that read in part,"Please immediately inform Spotify that I am actively canceling all my music availability on Spotify as soon as possible. I am doing this because Spotify is spreading false information about vaccines — potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them.
"Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule," the statement continues. "I want you to let Spotify know immediately today that I want all of my music off their platform. They can have Rogan or Young. Not both."
Some public health officials have also urged Spotify to take action against Rogan, accusing the massively popular "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast of possessing a "concerning history of broadcasting misinformation, particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic."
Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek issued a statement on Sunday saying the company was not in the business of censorship but would post Covid information and warnings before relevant podcasts, but the controversy has continued.
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David Crosby arrives at the 62nd annual Grammy Awards on Jan. 26, 2020, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
