“Get out of this place before it eats your soul”

Neil Young follows suit. After renewed debates about the controversial video podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” on Spotify, he now turns directly to the staff of the streaming platform. “Get out of this place before it eats your soul,” he wrote in an appeal titled “I say” on his website, The Neil Young Archive. Musicians should also look for a better address for the distribution of their art as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the main battle line has shifted for Young. The main problem is no longer moderator Joe Rogan, but Spotify boss Daniel Ek. “I tell the Spotify staff that Daniel Ek is your problem – not Joe Rogan. Ek pulls the strings. (…) The goals mentioned by Ek are about numbers – not about art, not about creativity.”

Young openly calls for his business to be drained. With sober customer logic, he calls on the financially strong baby boomers in particular to set other priorities. The banks that take care of the payment processing at the Swedish group get away in fat. “In our age of communication, misinformation is becoming a problem. Just ditch those fakers and find a good, clean place to support with your monthly checks. You have the real power. Use them!”

Completely furious, Young also puts a punch on Spotify technology: “Spotify plays the music at 5 percent of its quality and bills it as if it were real.” Make what you will of Neil Young’s all-encompassing furor . In any case, Daniel Ek, who hardly expected such a headwind and is not dealing with it with much confidence, is facing a massive image problem. And that affects business more than a few withdrawn songs from CSNY: Spotify threatens to become uncool.