Joe Rogan has shared his reaction to Neil Young's return to Spotify, more than two years after the latter quit the streaming platform over the powerhouse podcaster.
In January 2022, Young announced that he would have his music pulled from Spotify if the company did not remove Rogan's podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. At the time, Young was among a number of artists who accused Rogan of circulating COVID-19 misinformation on his popular show.
During Thursday's installment of his show, Rogan paused his conversation with writer and political commentator James Lindsay to acknowledge Young's return.
"By the way, Neil Young came back to Spotify. Congratulations, Neil," Rogan quipped. "And his excuse was he said that because all of the platforms are now allowing my disinformation, he's just going back on Spotify too."
"Great to know you've got some ethics," Rogan added with a laugh, before guest Lindsay said: "Well, everybody's doing it these days—disinformation."
Newsweek has contacted a representative of Young vial email for comment.
Rogan's repeated use of the podcast to disseminate fringe COVID-19 viewpoints led a group of 270 scientists and healthcare professionals to publish a letter in January 2022 calling on Spotify to take action against the spread of misinformation on its platform.
While Spotify responded to the medical professionals' request, saying it would publish its platform policy regarding the promotion of medical information and "add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID-19," it stopped short of meeting Young's demand to remove the JRE.
Young subsequently departed Spotify after the platform stuck with Rogan. Other artists, including Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren, also removed their music from the platform at the time.
Young this week announced that he had made a return to Spotify, citing the expansion of Rogan's show onto other streaming platforms as his reason. In February, Rogan inked a new multiyear deal—estimated to be worth up to $250 million—with Spotify that saw the streamer drop the exclusive part of their contract, allowing his show to air elsewhere.
"I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all," veteran musician Young explained in a statement posted to his website. "So I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it."
In his initial open letter back in 2022, Young said he was taking action "because Spotify is spreading fake 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.
"I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off its platform," he continued. "They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both."
While Rogan had defended his "very highly credentialed, highly intelligent, very accomplished" podcast guests Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone, who were accused of spreading Covid misinformation at the time, he also vowed to add more balance to his show.
He said in a video shared on Instagram amid the backlash: "If there's anything I've done that I could do better, that is to have more experts with differing opinions right after I have the controversial ones. I would most certainly be open to doing that.
"I would like to talk to some people that have differing opinions on those podcasts in the future. We'll see. I do all the scheduling myself. I don't always get it right."
Rogan told his listeners: "My pledge to you is that I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people's perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.
"I don't want to just show the contrary opinion to what the narrative is. I want to show all kinds of opinions, so that we can all figure out what's going on—and not just about COVID, about everything. About health, about fitness wellness, the state of the world itself."
The former Fear Factor host also said that he was "not mad" at Young for speaking out against him, sharing that he was a "huge fan" of the legendary musician.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Ryan Smith is a Newsweek Senior Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on ... Read more
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