Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young Reunite… in Removing Their Music From Spotify
David Crosby, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills have not agreed on much of anything since they dissolved their group back in 2015 after a bitter dispute, but Neil Young’s move to remove his music from Spotify has inspired them to come together and do the same.
In a new group statement, they are asking their labels to remove the CSN catalog from Spotify along with their solo works. “We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast,” they said. “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.”
Nash began the process of taking his music off Spotify earlier this week, but Crosby indicated he was unable to make such a move after selling his publishing last year. As of press time, every CSN/CSNY album was available on Spotify along with the complete solo catalogs of David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash. It’s unclear when that will change, or if they have the power to remove their albums simply by issuing a public request.
Neil Young’s albums were taken down from the service last week due to Covid-19 misinformation being platformed on Rogan’s podcast. “I support free speech,” Young wrote. “I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information.”
Rogan responded with a video where he pledged to do a better job at presenting both sides of the vaccine debate. “Maybe [I’ll] try harder to get people with differing opinions on right afterward — I do think that that’s important,” he said, “and do my best to make sure that I’ve researched these topics, the controversial ones in particular, and have all the pertinent facts at hand before I discuss them.”
For their part, Spotify pledged to add a “content advisory” to any podcast that discusses Covid-19. “Based on the feedback over the last several weeks, it’s become clear to me that we have an obligation to do more to provide balance and access to widely-accepted information from the medical and scientific communities guiding us through this unprecedented time,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in a statement. “These issues are incredibly complex.”
In the aftermath of Young’s move, Nils Lofgren and India.Arie has also removed their music from Spotify.
