Neil Young Removes His Catalog from Spotify Once Again

Neil Young Removes His Catalog from Spotify Once Again

Legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young has once again made headlines with his decision to pull his entire music catalog from Spotify. The move marks a dramatic reversal of his return to the platform last year. This time, Young appears more resolute than ever in his opposition, outlining his grievances in a strikingly urgent post on his Neil Young Archives blog, titled “LOW RES SPOTIFY IS EVIL AND ONLY I CAN SEE IT.”

In this latest critique, Young asserts that he now has a newfound clarity regarding Spotify’s inner workings, stating, “I can see the code so clearly now.” He calls for nothing less than “the total prohibition of recorded music until this ancient evil is VANQUISHED.” While Young has previously criticized Spotify for its low audio quality and corporate practices, this latest denunciation goes far beyond those concerns.

Young paints Spotify as a “data-harvesting soul-eater peddling unchecked DISINFORMATION and rotting a whole generation of content-addled cyber-FLUNKIES.” He expresses particular disdain for the platform’s audio fidelity, claiming that the service renders his music as if it had been “recorded on an Ediphone at the bottom of the OCEAN.”

But his criticisms don’t stop at mere sound quality. Young describes experiencing a “high-pitched ringing deep in [his] ears” while using Spotify, leading him to believe he is perceiving “mind-control frequencies.” He vows to focus his future efforts entirely on deciphering these signals and “destroying the source transmitter once and for all.”

The artist even goes so far as to call his return to Spotify “the second worst decision of [his] life, after Trans.” (a reference to his controversial 1982 electronic album). He closes his statement with a dramatic call to action: “I implore you to incinerate all of your streaming devices immediately. Automated vertical integration is here, and any object transmitting information is routing them to your location at this very moment.”

When reached for further comment by Relix, Young simply warned that “the phones aren’t safe” before the call was mysteriously cut off by rhythmic clicking noises.

As of now, only longtime collaborator Nils Lofgren has followed Young’s lead in abandoning the platform. Whether more artists will join him in this latest protest remains to be seen.