BY 

July 5, 2022

-Newsweek

 

The supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash have made a quiet return to Spotify, five months after boycotting the platform in protest against comments made by controversial podcast host Joe Rogan about COVID-19.

In February, the group’s sometimes bandmate Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify in protest of vaccine “disinformation” promoted by Rogan on his popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, sparking a wave of artists to do the same, including Crosby, Stills & Nash.

“We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast,” the band, comprised of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, wrote on social media in support of Young. “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.”

As of now, most of the band’s music catalog is once again on Spotify. The music of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the title of the band when Neil Young joins them, is also available on Spotify, though Young’s solo work is still absent.

Responding to a fan on Twitter, Crosby explained that the music is back on Spotify because “I don’t own it now and the people who do are in business to make money,” pointing the finger of blame at the Iconic Artist’s Group who bought the band’s back catalog in March 2021.

Some social media users took their return as an opportunity to openly mock the band after their five-month-long protest of the music streaming service. The Twitter account @libsoftiktok posted a screenshot of an article highlighting their return, alongside a picture of Joe Rogan laughing.

“So Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young back on Spotify… LOL… just all those people who never left America when Bush and Trump won…..” Twitter user @SuchHate posted, while @THXCP30 tweeted, “5 months was the longest they could manage.”

Others went out of their way to rub salt into the wound by returning to the comment section of the band’s February Instagram post. “Nice conviction you pieces of s**t” wrote @realtimelaundry. And @bigguytubs said, “Are these the sellouts that crawled back to Spotify? I just wanted to slide through and say “Haaahaaa!” Guess you don’t represent the common man.”

As of July 5, Neil Young’s music remains off Spotify, except for a few of his songs which appear on movie soundtracks and compilation albums. Other artists who joined Young’s protest include Joni Mitchell and India.Arie, whose music also remains off the platform. Celebrities like Sharon Stone also vowed to delete Spotify at the time, joining Young’s boycott.

When Spotify removed Young’s music, it was seen by conservatives as a show of support for Rogan, which was met with celebration by some online. Rather than taking down Rogan’s episodes, the platform now labels podcasts discussing COVID-19 with content advisory labels.

Newsweek reached out to representatives of Crosby, Stills & Nash for comment.

c. NEWSWEEK