Joni Mitchell returns to Spotify two years after boycott over Joe Rogan’s COVID-19 ‘lies’
Joni Mitchell can look at Spotify from both sides now: before and after her 2022 boycott.
The prolific “Both Sides Now” singer, 80, reinstated her catalog to the music giant before the weekend, ending her two-year protest over the streamer’s platforming of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast and its COVID-19 “misinformation.” She follows rocker Neil Young, who returned his music to Spotify earlier this month.
Scores of fans noticed the Grammy winner’s Spotify comeback last week and celebrated with a range of reaction GIFs and all-caps tweets on X (formerly Twitter). “Suddenly I’m healed and life is actually worth living,” one fan wrote Friday.
Neil Young will return his music to Spotify, as other platforms are now “serving the same disinformation podcast features.”
“Nature has officially healed,” another X user tweeted.
Despite the internet fanfare, Mitchell’s return to Spotify was quiet, with neither her Instagram nor Twitter accounts announcing the comeback. Young unveiled his decision to return to Spotify in a missive shared to his website.
Representatives for Spotify and Mitchell did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment Monday.
In January 2022 on her website, Mitchell proclaimed, “I Stand With Neil Young,” who had withdrawn his catalog from Spotify. Both of the musicians criticized the platform for streaming Rogan’s eponymous podcast, in which he has questioned COVID-19 safety protocols and vaccines and touted coronavirus treatments that have not been approved by medical professionals. Mitchell and Young voiced support for scores of medical experts who penned an open letter to Spotify accusing Rogan of sharing “baseless conspiracy theories” about the pandemic.
Joni Mitchell, longtime friend of Neil Young, has asked to have her music removed from Spotify, in protest of podcaster Joe Rogan’s anti-vaccine misinformation.
“I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify,” Mitchell said in post shared to her website on Jan. 28, 2022. “Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”
While Mitchell and Young briefly left the platform, Rogan and his podcast remained. The streaming giant continues to publish “Joe Rogan Experience” episodes. Additionally, with a new deal signed in February, it seems he isn’t parting ways with Spotify anytime soon.
Since her Spotify protest began, Mitchell has returned to the stage, picked up an honorary doctorate from the Berklee College of Music and achieved double-digit Grammy Award status, winning her 10th prize in February.
Mitchell performed her first full concert in two decades on Saturday, a 24-song, nearly three-hour cavalcade of hits, deep cuts and famous friends and admirers.
Mitchell returns to Spotify amid the 56th anniversary of her debut album, “Song to a Seagull,” which led the singer to a “a lifetime of poetic and soul-stirring melodies,” according to her Instagram.
In January, Mitchell announced she that would take over the Hollywood Bowl for two nights this fall, Oct. 19 and 20.
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