Opinion: Why your soul should (still) care about Joe Rogan vs Spotify

As the social media pile-on continues, one writer explains why it’s still all to play for, and wonders: where’s Taylor Swift in all of this?

Monday 7 February 2022 By George Chesterton

The Spotify boycott instigated by Neil Young looks certain to run out of steam faster than one of his interminable guitar solos. What began as a moral stand against the alleged spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines via the Joe Rogan podcast will have a significance beyond that highly selective gesture. Under tsunamis of this nonsense on social media platforms, plus countless podcasts and even mainstream radio and TV, Young’s beef with Spotify will more likely be remembered for highlighting two other issues: what – and who – is Spotify for?

What is pretty much impossible to ascertain is the extent to which this is a principled walkout and how much is an excuse to have a dig at a platform singularly unpopular with rockers of a certain age. The news that Young’s strike would be joined by Joni Mitchell, then Nils Lofgren and Graham Nash did give the impression you had to have lived in Laurel Canyon in 1973 to take part. It would be easy to see this as the actions of grumpy old men and women who have long resented Spotify’s business model, one that sees payments of an average $0.004 per stream (depending on a complex set of metrics including location and an artist’s share of an overall streaming total that’s skewed towards the biggest stars).

It is often younger or less well-known artists – professionals but not global names like Young – who are worst hit, tied to contracts that not only limit their Spotify earnings, but also disempower them from protesting as Young did. The biggest chunk of cash goes straight to the owners of the recordings, nearly always the record label, which is probably why you don’t hear the labels – three of whom part-own Spotify anyway – complaining as much as the artists. Plus, ça change.

It must stick in the craw of artists to be told they can’t leverage more money out of Spotify because it is merely a streaming service, only to watch it spend $500m on companies generating original podcast content that it will then own.

Is Spotify a streaming service and a content provider, aka publisher? The latter comes with responsibilities and potential regulations it is probably reluctant to embrace, but it is undeniable that it has an exclusive deal with the handsomely paid Rogan, which suggests to many observers that it is a publisher after all.

The pivot into podcasts means Spotify is even less beholden to musicians than before, even those as venerable as Young and Mitchell. Many such titans of yore have sold their back catalogues for hundreds of millions of dollars, often losing their right to leave or join any particular service in the process. Spotify will bank on streaming remaining the default for music fans several generations younger than the icons who are now holding out against the cold 21st century technology they have long suspected works against their interests. Yet another way the ethics of the protest against Rogan is muddied by commerce is that since the advent of streaming, an artist’s only way to make mega money is to tour, a right denied them by the pandemic, the agony of which they feel could be prolonged by low vaccine take-up and conspiracy theories about treatment. No needle and the damage done.

The other interesting side-effect of this has been the invocation of Taylor ‘The Kingmaker’ Swift. Every article written about this row has employed her as a kind of gold standard of cultural clout. If only the singer would boycott Spotify (she already did between 2014 and 2017) the pundits muse, then founder and CEO Daniel Ek really would have to sit up and take notice. It says a lot for Swift’s importance that she is now used as a measurement of potential corporate damage, rather like Wales is used as a measurement of geographical space. The almighty Swift has so far been silent. The Sussexes, on the other hand, expressed their concern but did nothing, which is pretty much what you would expect from a couple with an £18m Spotify deal.

For now, Spotify has pledged to add disclaimers on controversial opinions expressed in its podcasts and offers links to official COVID-19 guidance. The White House says Spotify ‘can do more’, a warning as scary as threatening to withhold broccoli from a child’s dinner. Spotify’s shares went down then back up again. Meanwhile, Young told his fans to listen to him on Amazon instead. Make of that what you will. He can keep on rocking, but this isn’t the free world anymore. It never really was.