Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young Reunite to take their music off Spotify

David Crosby, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills haven't agreed on much since disbanding their band in 2015 due to a severe feud, Neil Young's decision to remove his songs from Spotify has prompted them to do the same.

They've asked their labels to remove the CSN library off Spotify, as well as their individual efforts, in a new group statement. "We endorse Neil and agree with him that the Joe Rogan programme on Spotify is spreading hazardous misinformation," they stated. "While we welcome diversity of viewpoints, intentionally promoting falsehoods during this worldwide pandemic has terrible repercussions." We don't want our music — or the music we produced together — to be on the same platform until meaningful action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce."

Nash started the process of removing his songs from Spotify earlier this week, but Crosby said he wouldn't be able to do so after surrendering his publishing rights last year. Every CSN/CSNY album, as well as the individual catalogues of David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash, was accessible on Spotify at the time of publication. It's unclear when this will change, or whether they will be able to have their albums removed merely by making a public request.

Due to Covid-19 falsehoods being spread on Rogan's show, Neil Young's records were removed from the service last week. Young wrote, "I support free speech." "I've never been a proponent of censorship. Private businesses have the freedom to select what they benefit from, just as I may refuse to sponsor a platform that disseminates damaging material with my music."

Rogan retaliated with a video in which he promised to better convey both sides of the vaccination argument. "Perhaps [I'll] try harder to have people with opposing viewpoints on right thereafter — I do believe that's essential," he added, "and do my best to make sure that I've researched these subjects, particularly the difficult ones, and have all the relevant data at hand before I speak them."

Spotify, for one, has promised to add a "content advisory" to any podcast that mentions Covid-19. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in a statement that "based on feedback over the last several weeks, it's become clear to me that we have an obligation to do more to provide balance and access to widely-accepted information from the medical and scientific communities guiding us through this unprecedented time." "These are really complicated topics."
Nils Lofgren and India.Arie have also taken their songs from Spotify as a result of Young's decision.