Althouse: Neil Young is back on Spotify!

February 13, 2022

Neil Young is back on Spotify!

Joni too:

And David Crosby:

40 comments:

David Begley said...: They needed that 0.003 per download.; 2/13/22, 9:40 AM
One Eye said...: Akin to when I ran away from home at age 5.

Made it all of 3 blocks away.; 2/13/22, 9:40 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Am guessing that the copyright ownership agreements don't allow them to tell Spotify what they can and cannot do with the music.; 2/13/22, 9:41 AM
wendybar said...: He sold his catalog. Maybe whomever bought it decided they love Joe Rogan.; 2/13/22, 9:42 AM
daskol said...: Publicity for that Amazon music launch. What a disgraceful coda to Neil Young’s career. Better to burn out than to fade away.; 2/13/22, 9:44 AM
Curious George said...: Why the "!"?; 2/13/22, 9:45 AM
Fernandinande said...: Maybe they'll be on Rogan's show.; 2/13/22, 9:47 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: Heh. They showed 'em!; 2/13/22, 9:47 AM
Ice Nine said...: They never left Spotify. They are a smattering of live performances recorded at benefit concerts, movie soundtrack stuff, etc. that were not part of his (removed) large Warner/Reprise catalog.; 2/13/22, 9:49 AM
narciso said...: more to the point, he sold it to blackrock, which is a majority investor in Moderna; 2/13/22, 9:49 AM
John Althouse Cohen said...: Very little content. Click “See discography” for Neil or Joni. It doesn’t have their classic albums.; 2/13/22, 9:50 AM
rehajm said...: What turds.

Most if these political moves are coldly calculated in some DC law office or PR firm paid for with PAC money, or Act Blue money, or lightly laundered taxpayer money. Did Neil and Joni gat a cut?; 2/13/22, 9:55 AM
narciso said...: this was all part of the meidas campaign that coordinated with the cdc, when they are telling the same tune,; 2/13/22, 9:58 AM
narciso said...: which had raised 4 million (dr evil) for the effort, one per likes,; 2/13/22, 9:59 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: I hope not. The holy and precious leftists certainly do not want to dirty themselves next to free-Speech Rogan.

icky!; 2/13/22, 10:00 AM
Not Sure said...: How can we miss him when he won't go away?; 2/13/22, 10:04 AM
Mark said...: That sure doesn't look like their top albums, just a bunch of random covers and one offs from compilation albums.

I doubt they can remove their stuff that was put on compilations or where they signed the rights off (benefits).

Weak sauce, Althouse.; 2/13/22, 10:05 AM
Gerda Sprinchorn said...: If it's true that Neil Young sold his rights to his music, does the current owner of those rights have a claim against him for his actions? Neil may have even violated the terms of the sale by acting as if he is still the owner of those rights.; 2/13/22, 10:06 AM
zipity said...: Aaaaaaand. As before when this all began. Nobody. Cares.; 2/13/22, 10:16 AM
Achilles said...: The fascists are losing.

Mandates are only popular with the oligarchs and their simps.; 2/13/22, 10:30 AM
Big Mike said...: But, but, they promised us they’d leave and not come back!

Money talks; bullshit … puts their music back onto Spotify.; 2/13/22, 10:33 AM
Skeptical Voter said...: Dude or "Dud" can't make up his mind.; 2/13/22, 10:33 AM
Bob Boyd said...: It doesn’t have their classic albums.

Were they on there before?; 2/13/22, 10:42 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Neil does it Bert Lahr mode "If I only had some Courage".
BIG YAWN.; 2/13/22, 10:49 AM
Scott Patton said...: Semi-OT...
Back in the late 70s early 80s, I mentioned to my Uncle that I was going to the city to see CSN (and sometimes Y - can't remember).
He addressed me as "Comrade" the rest of the summer. At the time, I had no idea why.; 2/13/22, 11:14 AM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: Gerda Sprinchorn said...

If it's true that Neil Young sold his rights to his music, does the current owner of those rights have a claim against him for his actions? Neil may have even violated the terms of the sale by acting as if he is still the owner of those rights.

When songwriters sell off their catalog they usually sell off the publishing rights. That means they get no royalty if the song is published in sheet music form or recorded by another artist for general release or use in a movie or tv show. They do not sell off their performance rights that allow them to control the use of their original recordings of their work, as well as gives them a royalty if the original recording is used in a movie, tv show, commercial, etc.

That was always the dilemma that Lennon & McCartney faced; they'd sold their publishing rights to Dick James Music in 1962, because that was the way that the music industry worked at the time, and never had control over their publishing rights. Harrison and Starr, who's song writing came later, didn't make that mistake because by then artists (Dylan was one of the first) had figured out that the could create their own publishing companies for a small outlay and retain all of their publishing rights.; 2/13/22, 11:36 AM
Douglas B. Levene said...: “Cinnamon Girl” was a great song. The stuff after that, not so much. The only time I listen to Neil Young these days is when he comes up on one of the classic rock stations that I occasionally listen to in the car. This last gasp grasp for relevancy? Who cares.; 2/13/22, 11:57 AM
Critter said...: Anyone else notice that 3 of the top 10 songs for Young are covers of Bob Dylan songs? Young is a second tier talent. Mitchell is/was a much better songwriter. A big part of the difference seems to be that Young has little of artistic value to say. Even his best songs are banal pop lyrics. My belief is that anyone who could put out so many hard to listen to songs is seeking to create something artistic with music that he can’t do with words.; 2/13/22, 12:16 PM
William said...: Win win for everybody. I imagine Young got some extra plays because of the publicity, and fans of Rogan bonded more strongly with Rogan after such attempts to silence him. I'm not a fan of either person, but I've listened to some of Young's music with enjoyment and I respect how Rogan carries on his conversations....I disapprove of Rogan's support of Bernie, but I disapprove of Young's attempts to remove such a notable Bernie bro from the public forum.....My cynicism is not total. I don't think Young entered into this controversy to gain play time. Young does, however, look like a self righteous jerk.; 2/13/22, 12:16 PM
BtheNorth said...: Fake news; 2/13/22, 1:41 PM
Darkisland said...: So now we see another example of the Chik-Fil-A/Memory Pizza effect.

It would be interesting to see how many new subscribers Spotifly got as a result of all this publicity.

It would be interesting to see how many people signed up just to see what Rogan was all about?

All the yammering on the news made millions, tens of millions? of people aware of Joe Rogan.

It would be interesting to see how much Neal Young's royalty checks, from all sources, increased since this stunt.

All publicity is good publicity!

John LGBTQBNY Henry; 2/13/22, 2:03 PM
john burger said...: Rogan for the win.

jvb; 2/13/22, 2:07 PM
john burger said...: Rogan for the win.

jvb; 2/13/22, 2:07 PM
Jupiter said...: No "Chucky's In Love"?; 2/13/22, 2:29 PM
PM said...: CS&N didn't need him.
But he wrote some damn good songs. And the Bridge School work was exemplary.
Never liked his voice. Always sounded whiny.
Now I know why.; 2/13/22, 3:27 PM
guitar joe said...: "They needed that 0.003 per download."

Young and Mitchell make about 500k from Spotify. Not nothing, but small potatoes for them.

"If it's true that Neil Young sold his rights to his music, does the current owner of those rights have a claim against him for his actions? Neil may have even violated the terms of the sale by acting as if he is still the owner of those rights."

I think we've been over this on the other postings, but one more time: Young, Dylan, and the rest sold publishing rights, not recording rights. Dylan sold those to Sony, I believe Young still owns his. From what I've read, Dylan retains control over how his recordings are used, and as long as Young owns is recordings, so does he. So, they can have them pulled from broadcast, just as they can demand that politicians and others stop using them.; 2/13/22, 3:42 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Whatever they are paying the Spotify CEO, is nothing; in comparison to what it must've took to keep that ship from sinking. He managed to 1-keep Rogan, 2-get the dissenters back, and 3-become the free speech hero few big platform CEO's heretofore had the cojones to become.

Now I definitely got to switch from iTunes to Spotify. I got zero excuse. The only one I can think of... I'm going to have to buy a few hundred cd's to back it all up in case not everything goes over.

It took me years to get everything just the way i wanted. I know not everything is going to go smoothly. fuck.; 2/13/22, 3:51 PM
Tom said...: SiriusXM was testing a Neil Young Radio channel. It doesn’t appear it took.; 2/13/22, 5:08 PM
guitar joe said...: A follow up to my earlier post about publishing vs. recording rights:

I don't know the intricacies of entertainment law, but it appears that the Young songs on the list are mostly live tracks from performances not controlled by his label and, therefore, not controlled by him. Journey Through the Past is a soundtrack album and, again, might be handled differently from a typical Young studio or live release strictly under his name.

The Joni Mitchell tracks are from her Geffen LPs, not her Reprise and Asylum recordings. The former are with Universal Music, the latter with Warner Music Group. She may have less say with Geffen, for some reason. Her most popular music is with Reprise and Asylum, and I dare anyone but hard core fans of hers to recognize the tracks on her Spotify list. Young and Mitchell can probably call the shots on their own recordings owned by Warners, but less on other labels.

No one really cares about Crosby solo, and the tunes on the list that I looked up were, for the most part, Crosby Nash tunes. People care a tiny bit more about them as a duo, and Crosby alone very likely can't determine how the recordings are used. Wooden Ships is CSN, and that's another case where he might not have any say in whether they get to be played or not.; 2/13/22, 8:21 PM
320Busdriver said...: Yeah, but no.

I saw it on Twitter too, so I looked. Neils catalog is definitely N O T back up on Spotify.

Which is a shame because every so often I have to listen to “ powderfinger” turned up to 11.

Neil is an asshat, but he knew how to make great music, even if some of it missed the mark, biggly.; 2/14/22, 4:39 PM