Posts Tagged ‘Neil Young’

Joe Rogan, Neil Young, And Rock’s Eternal Now

Thursday, January 27th, 2022

Rock musician Neil Young got a bee up his bonnet about Joe Rogan spreading Unapproved Thought, and told Spotify that they needed to either remove Rogan or remove his music. It wasn’t a hard choice.

Spotify has sided with its podcast superstar over Neil Young.

The legendary folk singer gave the streaming behemoth an ultimatum earlier this week, saying he refused to allow his music on the same platform as Joe Rogan. The “Heart of Gold” singer accused Rogan and his podcast of spreading false information about COVID-19 vaccines.

Spotify reportedly paid more than $100 million deal to be the exclusive home of Rogan’s show. Young, meanwhile, stands to lose 60% of his streaming income from his defiant stance, he said in a statement on his website.

“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users,” a spokesperson for the company told the Wall Street Journal. “With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators.”

This is bunk. Spotify should have jack squat concern about safety for it’s listeners, at least beyond slapping a warning on lethal pranks like the Fork In the Electric Outlet Challenge.

Since the start of the pandemic, the spokesman noted, Spotify has removed more than 20,000 COVID-related podcast episodes. Still, Young’s protests were not sufficient for it to drop its lucrative star talker.

“We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon,” the spokesperson added.

Rogan’s podcast has attracted an estimated 11 million listeners.

Never mind the Lynyrd Skynyrd references, how little money most artists make out of streaming, or the irony of the “This Note’s For You” guy wanting to censor someone for not toting the government/big pharma line. If this was anything more than a publicity ploy (of the “Wait, you’re still alive?” type) on Young’s part, he’s badly overplayed his hand. But I want to talk about the oddity of Rock’s Eternal Now.

Because it was the music boomers grew up with, and it’s still on the radio and used in tons of movies, rock music of the 60s and 70s has stayed an active part of the culture much longer than the popular music of earlier eras did.

Neil Young had one only one number one hit, “Heart of Gold,” in April of 1972. That’s a few months shy of half a century ago. Go back half a century before that, to April of 1922, and this is the song that was topping the charts:

If people remember the name Fanny Brice at all today, it’s because Barbara Streisand played her in a movie in 1968 (which is to say more than half a century ago). How many rock musicians were listening to Fanny Brice songs in 1972? Approximate answer: None.

Which makes you wonder how many of today’s musicians are listening to Neil Young, a half-century after his heyday. I’m guessing more than Fanny Brice, but not many.

Just as we only know bits of the early 20th century songbook because they were featured on Looney Tunes (“Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal…”), it’s likely that any Neil Young listeners under the age of 50 or so only know of him from TV sound tracks or Jimmy Fallon imitating him. And most of his hardcore fans are not in Spotify’s demographic, since they already have the CDs they bought to replace the records and 8-tracks they bought in their youth.

One repeated line from “Heart of Gold” is “And I’m getting old.” So is the entire cohort of golden age Rock and Roll.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

LinkSwarm for March 21, 2014

Friday, March 21st, 2014

Enjoy your complimentary Friday LinkSwarm, and be sure to tip your waitress!

  • Fourteen different ways you can you can avoid the ObamaCare tax.
  • Joaquin Castro to boycott Buc-ees? He should have almost as much luck in Texas boycotting air conditioning and football. Hey, when Castro can offer outstanding fudge and the largest, cleanest restrooms in the state, let me know…
  • Democratic Senators decide they’d like to avoid committing political suicide by voting for Obama’s gun-grabbing Surgeon general nominee.
  • Colorado Democratic Senator Mark Udall proves once again that taxes are for the little people.
  • Democrats recruit the perfect candidate for congress: an 86-year old ex-felon.
  • Rich liberal environmentalist Tom Steyer is 100% opposed to Keystone pipeline. Well, except when endangered Democratic Senators are involved.
  • What liberals are leaving out of their hagiography of Cesar Chavez: he opposed illegal aliens and would have hated amnesty.
  • Liberals hate the Koch brothers so much they freak out even when they’re donating money to a hospital.
  • How dare some racist Americans call some Muslims pedophiles just because they want to marry 8-year olds?
  • America could hurt Russia by lifting natural gas export restrictions.
  • Swell story of resurrecting a badly damaged B-2. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • It’s gotten to the point I can no longer tell liberal ranting from parody of same.
  • More Yelp hilarity for the Backstreet Pub and Grill owner who went out of his way to insult gun owners.
  • Supporting Neil Young and Scarlet Johansson against the Israel haters.
  • “Set in a futuristic dystopia where society is divided into five factions that each represent a different virtue….” Yeah, that’s pretty much where I stopped reading.
  • Solider adopts dog. Dusty room ensues.