Neil Young Waves White Flag, Returns to Spotify ** UPDATED
Rocker's anti-free speech stance fails while podcaster Joe Rogan's reach expands
UC Berkeley, the former home of the ’60s free speech movement, now lets fascist mobs run wild on campus.
The ACLU, once the go-to group against speech suppression, looks the other way when the Biden administration censors social media users.
And Neil Young, the rocker who headlined the Freedom of Speech Tour in 2006, no longer cherishes dissent.
Young proved it in 2022 when he declared war on comic podcaster Joe Rogan for his contrarian views on COVID-19. He tried to rally fellow singers to push Rogan off the streaming platform. He snagged a few compatriots, but his mission failed.
The extent of his failure came to light this week.
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The 78-year-old musician announced his music is returning to Spotify two years after he yanked it off the platform to protest Rogan’s content.
Why?
Rogan recently signed a new Spotify deal that allows “The Joe Rogan Experience” to be found on YouTube, iTunes and other podcast platforms.
In short, Rogan grew too big to be silenced.
“I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all, so I have returned to Spotify.”
And what was the “life-threatening misinformation” that Rogan spread, according to Young? The “Fear Factor” alum shared why young, healthy people likely don’t need the COVID-19 vaccine. That proved more accurate than much of the information peddled by the mainstream media.
The vaccines didn’t live up to the hype.
Young fell for the media narratives surrounding the pandemic, including the notion that the vaccines would prevent people from getting or spreading the virus. He also forgot why free speech is so important in Western culture.
The American people are entitled to hear all opinions, not just those shared by the government and the press.
Debate matters. So does the ability to question authority, share alternative points of view and press public officials for the truth.
Young ignored his inner hippie and tried to curry favor with The Man. His failure may have taken a while to come to fruition, but his return to Spotify makes it complete.
UPDATE: Rogan addressed Young’s return to Spotify on the March 14th episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
The comic podcaster, chatting with “Reformers” author and academic James Lindsay, noted the rocker’s return.
“Congratulations, Neil!” Rogan cracked. “His excuse was, he said that because all of the platforms are now allowing my ‘disinformation’ so he should just go back on Spotify, too.
“Great to know you’ve got some ethics,” Rogan added with a smile.
He’s still around? I didn’t listen to him then, I won’t be listening now. He didn’t return to Spotify for his fans, he returned for the money. When the revenue stream shrank, his alleged principles shrank with them. As a group with actual talent once said, a Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.
Neil Young is still alive. And he still makes ”music,” does he?
“Keep on rockin’ in the free world!” Hahaha!
“the rocker Neil Young”…. Rocker? WTF?
How old was the writer/editor that had that in there?
Seems a fair question for me to ask when I was buying some of his albums back in the early ’70’s – and NOT because he was supposedly a rock artist. He wasn’t then, he isn’t now.
What he was then, as well as now, is a far left angry Marxist Useful Idiot whining and complaining people who think like him should have what they want – they’re victims some way or another. Lynard Skinnard’s response to him back then says it all.
Neil Young, typical liberal leftist ~ greedy with no integrity.
Spotify should tell him to get bent.
Who is Mr. Young?
Gotta slam these rich entitled liberals right where it hurts! In their pocket!
Nothing more completely drives me away as a fan than when a performer rubs their liberalism in my face, and then punishes me for disagreeing. In this case it was virtue signaling about the fake vaxx, but like global warming, an opinion doesn’t need to be grounded in facts for a liberal to latch onto it, just emotion.
“Is there anything more disingenuous than an old hippie on a pension?” – Dennis Miller
I miss Dennis…
I’ve always loved Neil’s music, even though he was a bit before my time. But crimony the guy has turned into the biggest A-hole in the west. Angry, entitled and wayy too judgemental the guy is. Nothing like what he portrayed himself as when he was up in “O Canada..”
I think he was always like that. I do love his songs,though. I love the music of those times, but it was an incredibly selfish movement with surface level thought.
Did neil say, “I was wrong?”
No?
He should.
Neil who????
Thought that was Freddy Kruger…
I doubt he’ll see any increase in people visiting Spotify for his music.
Young also said ‘rock n roll will never die’ so he’s been wrong about a lot of stuff over the years. If Neal offers stock tips walk away slowly.
I’m glad these 60s rock icons are now showing that the 60s were a lie. They were nothing more then lazy worthless kids who wanted nothing more then sex, drugs and rock n roll. They did not care about any of that social stuff and the only changes they made were turning the USA away from being the United States of America and into what it is now, red state – blue state. They were a bunch of spoiled entitled kids and they still are. They are the worst generation who are trying to push their failures onto the new generations.
Now that they are dying off, history can be rewritten so they are seen for what they are, a bunch of worthless griffters, who have been promoting a lie that was to get them rich and screw everyone else.
Well, I started to comment and then you’d already taken words out of my mouth.
Having lived through the Bay areas 60’s to early 70’s Summer of Love, I can honestly tell you it was not that much different from today’s marxist attempted takeover of America. The music WAS fantastic. But it was punctuated with high crime and revolution. The so-called ” Hippies” were not at all peaceful and were involved in revolution and could be the most violent of all the grps in the 60;s. Neil had some great songs, but now has had a ” Come to Jesus” moment. but he was then and now, a hardcore lefty. He probably needs some money so he came crawling back to Spotify.
Amen
When you buy the line that Neil Young is a 60’s rock icon… you’ve pretty much not only missed the boat, you never even got close to the water the boat was in.
Those “lazy worthless kids” were the ones who fought in Vietnam – feel free to compare them to the acolytes who follow valuable modern kids like AOC and her fellow Soviet Democrat Anti-Semitic Socialist Sisterhood.
They’re the same ones who elected Reagan instead of Carter ten years later.
They’re the ones who are retiring as middle and upper management of many of the largest employers in the USA… pretty good while internet randos are claiming they couldn’t do anything other than “sex, drugs and rock n roll”.
But hey – if you accept Neil Young was or is a rocker, then it should be easy to believe that the youth of today have got it right following behind AOC for “social justice and DEI”. All of them of course, just as all the youth of the 60’s were for nothing but “sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll”.
Nailed it.