Joe Rogan Responds to Spotify Controversy, Neil Young Partners With Amazon Music
Joe Rogan on Sunday (Jan. 30) responded to the controversy surrounding Neil Young and other artists leaving Spotify because of what they said is COVID-19 vaccine misinformation being spread by the host on the platform's The Joe Rogan Experience.
It all started last week when Young first threatened his exit "because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines," the musician said, "potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation."
After Young left the streaming service, artists such as Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren joined him by pulling their music from Spotify. Young has since partnered with Amazon Music to give out free four-month trial subscriptions for those wishing to stream his tunes.
On Sunday, Rogan took to social media to admit in a video that he doesn't "always get it right" on his podcast. He vowed to "do better." The same day, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced the service would start adding a disclaimer to podcasts that discuss COVID.
Meanwhile, Rogan marveled, "These podcasts are very strange because they're just conversations. And oftentimes I have no idea what I'm going to talk about until I sit down and talk to people. And that's why some of my ideas are not that prepared or fleshed out because I'm literally having them in real-time, but I do my best, and they're just conversations."
He continued, "And I think that's also the appeal of the show. It's one of the things that makes it interesting. So I want to thank Spotify for being so supportive during this time, and I'm very sorry that this is happening to them and that they're taking so much from it."
Rogan also said, "I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. I'm just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them. Do I get things wrong? Absolutely. I get things wrong, but I try to correct them whenever I get something wrong. I try to correct it because I'm interested in telling the truth."
The host added, per Deadline, "If there's anything that I've done that I could do better, it's having more experts with differing opinions right after I have the controversial ones. I would most certainly be open to doing that. And I would like to talk to some people who have differing opinions on the podcasts in the future."
Spotify started removing Neil Young's music on Jan. 26 after the veteran singer-songwriter the previous day published and then deleted an open letter on his website that said Spotify "can have Rogan or Young. Not both." He then shared two letters addressing his music's subsequent removal.
Watch Rogan's response video below.