Folk rockers’ Spotify spat ends
IT’LL be music to the ears of Crosby, Stills & Nash fans – their songs are back on Spotify five months after the folk-rock supergroup withdrew them in a row over Covid vaccines.
The band – key members of the 1960s US counter-culture – quit the music streaming service in protest at its £80million podcast deal with a US comedian who criticised giving jabs to the young and fit.
Following the example of fellow musicians Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, group members David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash pulled their songs in February, criticising ‘dangerous disinformation’ on the Joe Rogan podcast.
They claimed the boycott would last ‘until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce’.
But fans noticed last week that Crosby, Stills & Nash songs, which include Teach Your Children and Marrakesh Express, had returned to Spotify, although tracks by Mitchell and Young are still absent.
Crosby, in a reply to a fan who asked on Twitter why the group’s songs were back on Spotify, suggested it could be linked to the sale of his back catalogue last year to the management firm Iconic Artists Group. He said: ‘I don’t own it now and the people who do are in business to make money.’
The group’s representatives have not commented.
The boycott came after Rogan told his millions of listeners that young and healthy people did not need Covid vaccines, leading to a backlash from the White House that forced him to backpedal and deny being an anti-vaxxer. Spotify boss Daniel Ek has promised to spend £80million on content from ‘marginalised groups’ and now labels podcasts that discuss Covid.