I Stand with Neil Young. And Spotify

The streaming giant is getting the full Joe Rogan experience…

Joe Rogan is an idiot.

His words, not mine. The world’s top podcaster has also described himself as a moron and a dummy, and characterized at least some of the utterances from The Joe Rogan Experience as “dumb shit.”

It’s a canny disclaimer the former Fear Factor host is fond of trotting out whenever he catches flack for a false statement, mischaracterization, or tinfoil hat conspiracy theory propagated by him or one of the motley crew of “free thinkers” who frequent his studio. Rogan wriggles out of accountability by portraying himself as “just a guy talking”.

Dumb turned dangerous when COVID-19 began ravaging the world in 2020 — coincidentally right around the time, Rogan signed a $100 million deal making music streaming Goliath, Spotify, the exclusive home of The Joe Rogan Experience.

As the virus claimed lives, jobs, and businesses, Rogan began filling his seemingly endless hours of mic time with a dizzying array of dubiously accredited medical professionals and health experts peddling unproven, outright discredited, and in some cases head-smackingly bizarre snake oil treatments. All the while, Rogan and his guests seemed to revel in casting unsubstantiated aspersions on the recommendations of the government and the medical establishment.

Heat of Gold

After two years of listening to Rogan flood, the public discourse with half-baked conspiracy theories and petulant contrarianism, legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young has finally had enough. In a public statement issued to his record label and management team, Young drew a line in the sand:

I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform. They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.

I say, way to go, Neil!

Too often, those of us who identify as liberal or progressive are quick to serve up erudite essays and impassioned soliloquies decrying the perceived atrocity of the day while offering precious little in the way of action, let alone personal sacrifice, for the greater good.

I have the utmost respect for the integrity Young displayed by cutting ties with a corporation whose brand is inextricably tied to a product he feels presents a clear and present danger to the public good.

It’s worth noting that, contrary to the hyperbole hurled from both sides of the social media peanut gallery, Young never demanded Spotify cut ties with Rogan. He’s simply refusing to share a platform with him.

Young has been famous for a long time. He knows the power of his celebrity and was clearly aware of the media firestorm that his public rebuke would cause. Judging by the tone and wording of his statement, he was under no illusion that his actions would spur a come to Jesus moment for the streaming giant.

His aim was almost certainly to shine a spotlight on the contents of Rogan’s podcast and Spotify’s direct complicity in not only disseminating those messages but financing them. In doing so, he may have even hoped to shake a few Spotify customers out of their apathy and spur them to follow him in putting their money where their tweets are.

The Cost of Freedom

It’s working — probably beyond Young’s wildest dreams. On January 27th, when Spotify formally announced it was complying with Young’s request and removing his catalog, users flooded the platform attempting to cancel subscriptions Spotify stock closed the week down 12.5%, causing an estimated $4 billion loss in market value.

So far, Spotify is standing by Rogan. I commend them for it.

While I questioned the wisdom of Spotify partnering with Rogan in the first place, it would be shortsighted and reactionary to dump him now. It would also set a dangerous precedent. I have to wonder if the people demanding Spotify dump Rogan have truly thought through the implications of what they’re asking for.

There’s a theory in constitutional law known as “slippery slope”. It represents the idea that every relaxation of a principle opens the door for further and increasingly extreme deviation. Removing Joe Rogan because a portion of their customer base objects to his content presents an ice-slicked bluff for Spotify.

If the standard for removal from Spotify becomes strident rebuke, spend some quality time with your Eminem and Tyler the Creator playlists now, because their days are probably numbered. You death metal fans had better pray the Christian Parents Association doesn’t ever decipher what your favorites are shrieking about behind those racing guitars. How long until some opportunistic gubernatorial hopeful tags Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet album “Critical Race Theory”? Before you can say “1989, the number!” you’ll have to break out your old boombox to play “Fight the Power” on cassette like a middle-aged Radio Raheem.

Ironically, many of the Twitter accounts excoriating Spotify for keeping Rogan are the same ones screaming the loudest about school boards banning books like Beloved and Maus. Are we to believe that the people behind the avatars possess a well founded faith in the children of America to properly process the challenging ideas presented in immaculately nuanced works of literature, but don’t trust adults to take the liquor and narcotic fueled ramblings of a B-list nightclub comic with the requisite grain of salt?

Granted, their doubts about the critical thinking abilities of American adults have proven well-founded over the course of the pandemic. The past two years have seen American adults consuming household cleaning products, horse dewormer, and their own urine to ward off COVID, but refusing an FDA-approved vaccine because they “don’t know what’s in it.” Or more gobsmackingly, begging off the vaccine because they’re convinced they know exactly what’s in it: government microchips.

Anecdotal evidence certainly suggests a strong overlap between these “special” souls and Joe Rogan’s core audience, but it would be naive to assume that Rogan single-handedly lured them off the proverbial “reservation”. More likely, most were already wandering in the wilderness of paranoia and conspiracy theories when Rogan was still making blindfolded simpletons eat insects for cash. He simply gave them a convenient weigh station to congregate around.

Rogan is the digital age incarnation of a shock jock. Those of us who grew up during the heyday of the “Hot Talk” FM radio format are all too familiar with the concept of performatively agitated “idiots” saying “dumb shit” in the name of provocation. We took it for the over-the-top entertainment that it was, and went about our lives. We didn’t construct entire world views around the teaching of Mancow.

The fact that a not-insignificant percentage of Americans trust the medical advice of a failed sitcom actor above that of world-class doctors and epidemiologists is not a Spotify problem. It speaks to a much graver breakdown in our very social construct.

There’s Something Happening Here…

As of this writing, fellow musical icons Peter Frampton and Joni Mitchell have joined Neil Young in asking Spotify to remove their music. This is where things could get interesting.

One artist standing on principle is an inspiring story, but unlikely to put any real pressure on Spotify to reconsider their business model. If the big names cutting ties begin to stack up, I guarantee there’ll be some closed-door meeting in the C-suite of Spotify headquarters.

I hope we see just that. Specifically, I’d love to see contemporary stars bowing out of the Spotify ecosystem. Young, Frampton, and Mitchell combined probably don’t bring as much value to the company as Rogan does. Taylor Swift, Adele, and Beyoncé are a different story.

While I’m extremely uncomfortable with the slippery slope of pulling Rogan due to the substance of his content, I’d be absolutely fine with his removal as a dollars and cents business decision.

More importantly, it would be a significant first step for artists asserting their power in dealing with streaming services that built their brands on the backs of musicians only to pay them fractions of pennies on the dollar per stream.

I’ve long felt it was a slap in the face for Spotify to shell out millions of guaranteed dollars to Rogan and other podcasters, while forcing the musicians - the life blood of the platform - to chase pennies.

If the fallout from Young’s exodus lasts longer than a news cycle, it could well pit the two sides of the Spotify world against each other. The possibility grows even more delicious when you realize that the two groups are natural adversaries.

Musicians tend to be collectivists and empaths. They’re constantly banding together to try to save the planet through music, be it “We Are the World” or the annual Global Citizen concert. Podcasters, like Rogan, tend to be individualistic contrarians with a “don’t tread on me” chip on their shoulders.

Spotify may soon find itself at a fork in the road. They might have to decide if they want their brand to be the divisively provocative world of podcasts or the unifying force of music.

However it shakes out, I welcome the disruption.

For now, I tip my hat to both Neil Young and Spotify for providing us that truly rarest of public disputes in which both sides are right.