In an Astonishingly Hypocritical and Completely Expected Move Apple (Of All Companies) Stands with Neil Young

Apple Music Declares “We Love Neil” After Artist Pulls Music from Spotify

Personally I use Spotify for my music streaming pleasure. I like it cause it has a nice algorithm that allows me to discover a ton of new music I otherwise would never find and just about every artist and song ever recorded can be found on it.

What I don’t look for in a music streaming platform is whether I agree with its perceived politics. I mean, really who cares.

Joe Rogan might be a bit of a nutcase, but he’s America’s nutcase and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Say what you will about his stance on the COVID pandemic, vaccines, and treatment for coronavirus, Spotify is paying him too damn much for them to boot him off because some (very small groups) of people don’t care for him much. Because it turns out millions of people do care for him…a lot.

So when viral news this week of Neil Young asking Spotify to pull his music in a twisted ex-girlfriend “it’s either him or me” standoff with Rogan hit, it was no surprise that Spotify capitulated and removed Young from the app instead of censoring Rogan. Apparently Neil doesn’t care too much for Joe’s beliefs around “misinformation.”

I like Neil Young. I like his music, I like that he’s Canadian, I like that he’s just trying to rock in a free world. All things I can respect.

Comma however, he’s gotta know this is pointless. And probably more than a little hypocritical. I mean his music is still all over Youtube which regularly gets criticized for censorship on relatively innocent content, or lack of censorship on really wild content. There’s no shortage of very right wing political content on Youtube that remains monetized by Youtube.

The logic really falls apart when you just look at the fact his music is just generally on the internet which is just generally full of absolute toxic garbage and lies about everything. Should we only listen to Neil Young in analog from now on? It just seems a little specific to go after Spotify for one thing he disagrees with, instead of going after literally any other music outlet for things he disagrees with them on.

For example Apple Music, Spotify’s biggest competitor, of course came out in support of Neil Young and reminded everyone today that they “Love Neil” and of course you can still hear all his music on Apple.

Apple is also of course famous for using suppliers for years on end that exploit child labor in third world countries. Doubt Neil would care too much for Apple’s endorsement here either.

Now I’ve never used premium Apple Music before (rip itunes btw), but I’m also gonna guess and say few people are going to jump ship from Spotify to Apple over losing Neil Young. As great as Rust Never Sleeps is.