Neil Young is coming back to Spotify — but he's not happy about it
Neil Young's iconic works will return to Spotify, he announced. But he's still not thrilled about the app's sound quality.
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- Itching for some "Harvest Moon"? Neil Young says his music will return to Spotify.
- Young took his music off Spotify in 2022 over COVID-19 misinformation on Joe Rogan's podcast.
- Young took a dig at Spotify's sound quality as he came back to the platform.
While Neil Young lovers may be rejoicing that the iconic artist is returning to Spotify, Young himself is not.
The 78-year-old singer-songwriter announced his return to Spotify, while also throwing shade at the music streaming platform, in a blog post on his website Tuesday.
"Spotify, the #1 streamer of low res music in the world — Spotify, where you get less quality than we made, will now be home of my music again," Young wrote in the post.
Young took his catalogue off Spotify in 2022 over concerns that it was spreading COVID misinformation through Joe Rogan's podcast, which was the platform's most popular podcast in 2021.
"They can have Rogan or Young. Not both," Young wrote at the time.
But now, Young says other music streaming services like Apple and Amazon "have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify."
"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," Young continued in his post. "So I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it."
Young added that he hopes Spotify will introduce high-res music to its platform, suggesting they start with a high-res tier and "build from there."
If you're itching to go on a binge of Neil Young's nearly 60 years of solo discography, you might not be able to do it on Spotify just yet. At the time of publication, his works haven't returned to the platform.
Spotify did not immediately respond to Business Insider's question about when exactly Young's work would return.
"I hope all you millions of Spotify users enjoy my songs!" Young wrote. "They will now all be there for you except for the full sound we created."