Neil Young’s frustrations go far beyond the COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. A day after his music was removed from the platform, he said he “felt better” after leaving and criticized Spotify for its sound quality compared to other streaming services.
“Amazon, Apple Music and Qobuz deliver up to 100% of the music [quality] today and it sounds so much better than Spotify’s shitty degraded and neutered sound,” Young wrote in published on your website. “If you support Spotify, you are destroying an art form.” He urged fans to switch to “a platform that really cares about the quality of the music.”
Young, who claims that “Spotify streams the artist’s music at five percent of its quality,” has long been troubled by the audio quality on some streaming platforms. He temporarily released his music from them in 2015. Young released his that year, but Pono closed it in 2017.
In February 2021, Spotify said it planned to do this in some markets that year. This did not happened. The company was “excited to offer a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future”, but didn’t offer a timeline.
, and all began offering CD-quality music streaming as part of their standard plans last year. and also offer high resolution streaming.
Earlier this week, Young Spotify allowed Joe Rogan to share misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine and gave the platform a “it’s him or me” ultimatum. Spotify, which reportedly paid more than $100 million and said it took down more than 20,000 COVID-related podcast episodes, barely faltered. The service took down the musician’s songs, though he said he regretted Young’s decision and hoped he would return soon.
Meanwhile, Young wrote that he supported free speech and the right of companies to choose what to profit from, “just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that spreads harmful information.” He said he was “in solidarity with the frontline healthcare workers who risk their lives every day to help others” and “as an unexpected bonus, I look better everywhere else.”
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