Crosby, Stills & Nash return to Spotify after taking a stand against Joe Rogan
Crosby, Stills & Nash songs are back on Spotify five months after the band mates took a stand against the streaming platform and one of its biggest moneymakers, Joe Rogan.
As of Saturday, music by David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash is available to stream again on Spotify, according to Billboard. The musicians will reportedly donate streaming profits to COVID-19 charities for a month or more.
The folk rockers’ Spotify return comes nearly half a year after they ditched the app in solidarity with their former band mate, Neil Young. In January, Young threatened to pull his work from Spotify unless the company cut ties with Rogan, a comedian and divisive podcast host who has criticized pandemic lockdown protocols, expressed skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines, complained about vaccine mandates and recommended treatments for the coronavirus that have not been approved by medical professionals.
Ava DuVernay, Joni Mitchell and India Arie have abandoned Spotify in the wake of Neil Young’s protest against the streaming platform and podcast host Joe Rogan.
(For the record, vaccines and booster shots have proved to be the most effective method of preventing severe illness caused by the coronavirus.)
“While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences,†Crosby, Stills and Nash said in a joint statement in February.
“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.â€
The remaining members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young answered Neil Young’s call to ditch Spotify, citing ‘disinformation’ on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
It’s unclear whether Young’s solo library, which is still missing from the app, will reappear on Spotify too. Other entertainment figures who followed Young’s lead and renounced the streaming service earlier this year include author Roxane Gay and director Ava DuVernay, as well as singer-songwriters India Arie and Joni Mitchell.
In response to the backlash, Rogan vowed in January to “try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives,†and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek acknowledged the tech giant’s “obligation to do more to provide balance and access to widely accepted information from the medical and scientific communities.â€
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