Neil, Joni & ... James
January 29, 2022 8:55 AM Subscribe
Neil Young Demands Spotify Remove His Music Over ‘False Information About Vaccines’ ... Joni Mitchell Plans to Follow Neil Young Off Spotify, Citing ‘Lies’ ... James Blunt jokes he will release new music on Spotify in Rogan protest
Spotify Isn’t Really About the Music Anymore [The Atlantic, Archive]
Neil Young says he ‘felt better’ after leaving Spotify and its ‘shitty’ sound quality [The Verge]
Spotify Isn’t Really About the Music Anymore [The Atlantic, Archive]
Neil Young says he ‘felt better’ after leaving Spotify and its ‘shitty’ sound quality [The Verge]
Good for Neil and Joni. It's nice to see artists standing up to platforms irresponsibly sharing dangerous misinformation and hosting bigots.
That said, I'm definitely side-eyeing some of my friends and acquaintances who have made a big show of cancelling Spotify on moral grounds, only to move themselves and all of their listening data over to the megacorporate monoliths (and arguably much more universally "evil" and harmful) Amazon, YouTube and Apple. It's grim to see people enjoying watching Amazon "trolling" Spotify and claiming a moral victory on their behalf, mere months after Amazon's employees staged mass protests over their poor working conditions.
Anyway, here's a good guide I found for artist-friendly streaming and digital music purchasing sites.
posted by fight or flight at 9:09 AM on January 29, 2022 [59 favorites]
That said, I'm definitely side-eyeing some of my friends and acquaintances who have made a big show of cancelling Spotify on moral grounds, only to move themselves and all of their listening data over to the megacorporate monoliths (and arguably much more universally "evil" and harmful) Amazon, YouTube and Apple. It's grim to see people enjoying watching Amazon "trolling" Spotify and claiming a moral victory on their behalf, mere months after Amazon's employees staged mass protests over their poor working conditions.
Anyway, here's a good guide I found for artist-friendly streaming and digital music purchasing sites.
posted by fight or flight at 9:09 AM on January 29, 2022 [59 favorites]
I really hope Neil Young and Joni Mitchell inspire someone who is both popular and currently at the peak of their career to stick it to Spotify, a multimillionaire who could stand to lose the pathetic pay Spotify doles out to artists and can weather the loss of promotion. Someone like Billie Eilish or Taylor Swift, perhaps. A couple of "has-been" (a quote, not my assessment) or a ton of small-fish artists leaving the platform won't move the needle as much as it needs to be.
posted by tclark at 9:09 AM on January 29, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by tclark at 9:09 AM on January 29, 2022 [19 favorites]
I know younger people are all "LOL who?" about this, but Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are listened to mainly by people old enough to be at serious risk from COVID. Their actions may have more real-world impact than if [random whippersnapper] withdrew their music from Spotify.
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:10 AM on January 29, 2022 [26 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:10 AM on January 29, 2022 [26 favorites]
The Verge: Here is the Spotify COVID content policy that lets Joe Rogan slide
posted by tonycpsu at 9:12 AM on January 29, 2022 [88 favorites]
There's a special place in hell for whatever lawyer reverse-engineered these guidelines from the first principle of "how can we protect our most profitable podcaster?"Content that promotes dangerous false or deceptive content about healthcare that may cause offline harm and/or pose a direct threat to public health such as:These guidelines seemingly allow podcasters to say the vaccines cause death — just not that they are designed to cause death. Similarly, they allow podcasters to say wearing a mask is ineffective, just not that wearing masks will cause imminent, life-threatening harm.
Denying the existence of AIDS or COVID-19
Encouraging the deliberate contracting of a serious or life threatening disease or illness
Suggesting that consuming bleach can cure various illnesses and diseases
Suggesting that wearing a mask will cause the wearer imminent, life-threatening physical harm
Promoting or suggesting that the vaccines are designed to cause death
posted by tonycpsu at 9:12 AM on January 29, 2022 [88 favorites]
This is just the beginning. Enrico Caruso and Scott Joplin are also threatening to pull their wax cylinders from the service in solidarity.
posted by dr_dank at 9:16 AM on January 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
posted by dr_dank at 9:16 AM on January 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
I picked Apple Music after Rdio closed. I surveyed the alternatives but Spotify’s recommendation engine was terrible for anything other than the top 20 pop they were promoting (I’m assuming kickbacks here since it stayed bad for so long) and Google was, well, the usual mess of “nobody every got promoted for making an existing feature better”.
Since they paid Rogan $100M and generally trying to close the podcast scene I’ve been glad not to be supporting them in any way. Apple is far from perfect but they’re not actively making either music or podcasting worse.
posted by adamsc at 9:16 AM on January 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
Since they paid Rogan $100M and generally trying to close the podcast scene I’ve been glad not to be supporting them in any way. Apple is far from perfect but they’re not actively making either music or podcasting worse.
posted by adamsc at 9:16 AM on January 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
I just opened Spotify (used in a browser with an adblocker, the free version is pretty okay), and it looks like the only Joni Mitchell material they still have available is her '80s-ish albums Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, Dog Eat Dog, Night Ride Home, and Wild Things Run Fast, all released on Geffen Records, and 2007's Shine, released on Hear Music.
All the Reprise (first few albums up to Blue, plus some '90s releases) and Elektra/Asylum ('70s--For the Roses through Shadows and Light, with Court and Spark and Hejira in there) is gone.
(I would like to say that Joni Mitchell is seeing a surge in popularity with the release of archives and 50th-anniversary remasters, but, well, that's just what an old person who buys a lot of records would say, isn't it?)
posted by box at 9:19 AM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
All the Reprise (first few albums up to Blue, plus some '90s releases) and Elektra/Asylum ('70s--For the Roses through Shadows and Light, with Court and Spark and Hejira in there) is gone.
(I would like to say that Joni Mitchell is seeing a surge in popularity with the release of archives and 50th-anniversary remasters, but, well, that's just what an old person who buys a lot of records would say, isn't it?)
posted by box at 9:19 AM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm switching back to Google Play YouTube Music, which I know isn't enough for purists but I don't have the energy to find anything else that has that big a catalog.
posted by octothorpe at 9:20 AM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 9:20 AM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
It’s not just the loss of music, or loss of subscribers, it’s the loss of stock value. Spotify considered $100 million worth paying to Rogan for his subscriber base, but if every nonfascist listener quits it doesn’t look like such a good deal.
posted by rikschell at 9:21 AM on January 29, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 9:21 AM on January 29, 2022 [13 favorites]
I know that these two are not current pop stars so not gonna have like a Taylor swift effect but also Spotify has lost like $4b in stock value so maybe it is having some effect? I hope so. Fuck joe rogan.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:21 AM on January 29, 2022 [28 favorites]
posted by lazaruslong at 9:21 AM on January 29, 2022 [28 favorites]
Apple is far from perfect but they’re not actively making either music or podcasting worse.
True, they're just semi-passively participating in ethnic cleansing and using imprisoned/slave labor in China to make their products:
True, they're just semi-passively participating in ethnic cleansing and using imprisoned/slave labor in China to make their products:
The Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang to factories across the country. Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.posted by fight or flight at 9:22 AM on January 29, 2022 [29 favorites]
Yeah, this is a good thing and I am fans of both of them but does anyone under 30 (aside from a few really awesome kids) even know who they are? Barry Manilow did it as well and Peter Frampton said "this is a good thing you're doing" but I'm not sure he removed his music. I've been waiting for more artists to join in but so far it's been quiet.
It's not going to do much until there's a critical mass of artists boycotting the service.
What I don't get is, if Spotify is as bad at paying artists as I've heard, why do they have their music there in the first place?
posted by bondcliff at 9:22 AM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's not going to do much until there's a critical mass of artists boycotting the service.
What I don't get is, if Spotify is as bad at paying artists as I've heard, why do they have their music there in the first place?
posted by bondcliff at 9:22 AM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Also critical context that folks may miss in the links but - Neil young and Joni Mitchell are both polio survivors, having contracted it in the 50s before a vaccine was available.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:23 AM on January 29, 2022 [145 favorites]
posted by lazaruslong at 9:23 AM on January 29, 2022 [145 favorites]
Joni Mitchell joining Neil Young in leaving Spotify in protest IS a really big deal, not because average listeners under 30 know who they are, but because every serious musician does. They command major respect. I am pretty sure this is the end of Spotify as a mainstream music platform.
posted by nanook at 9:27 AM on January 29, 2022 [54 favorites]
posted by nanook at 9:27 AM on January 29, 2022 [54 favorites]
Many people I know are entrenched in Spotify in the same way as they are in Facebook. In other words, I don't see a lot of people cancelling their subscriptions over this. But Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are getting a lot of good press over this, and I for one wasn't even aware of the misinformation on Rogan's podcast because I (try to) live in a different universe. Even that and pushback against Spotify is something of value I guess.
posted by piyushnz at 9:30 AM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by piyushnz at 9:30 AM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
I canceled my Spotify subscription a few days ago, now I'm trying out Tidal and Apple Music. Yeah I know other big corporations aren't the answer but nothing else seems to have the breadth of content, or at least a decent interface.
posted by Blienmeis at 9:33 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Blienmeis at 9:33 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm going to cancel my sub as well, just have to figure out a replacement (I already use and love Bandcamp). I'm leading towards Tidal because it pays artists more than the other major platforms. I'd really, really love to be able to play a random assortment of my favourite songs and artists by genre.
posted by Stoof at 9:35 AM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Stoof at 9:35 AM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Barry Manilow did it as well
Barry Manilow Isn’t Removing His Music From Spotify, Shuts Down Rumor
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:36 AM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Barry Manilow Isn’t Removing His Music From Spotify, Shuts Down Rumor
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:36 AM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
I was a long time Rdio user who is now using Spotify.
So what next? I'm an adroid/windows person so Apple Music isn't going to do it for me. I'd need something that works with google maps on the phone in my car and with my chromecast.
Does Tidal have the same breadth of compatibility I can get from Spotify?
posted by thecjm at 9:39 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
So what next? I'm an adroid/windows person so Apple Music isn't going to do it for me. I'd need something that works with google maps on the phone in my car and with my chromecast.
Does Tidal have the same breadth of compatibility I can get from Spotify?
posted by thecjm at 9:39 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
I canceled my 10 year+ Spotify sub this week. The Neil Young thing is brilliant because it pushes people to say "hey wait a minute, do I really need to be giving my money to Joe Rogan?"
Final straw for me, as Spotify has been dragging their feet for, literally, years on things like Airplay, lyrics, and lossless audio. Instead they spend $100 million on the dumb person's idea of a smart person show.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:39 AM on January 29, 2022 [16 favorites]
Final straw for me, as Spotify has been dragging their feet for, literally, years on things like Airplay, lyrics, and lossless audio. Instead they spend $100 million on the dumb person's idea of a smart person show.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:39 AM on January 29, 2022 [16 favorites]
I’d love a better choice so could use some advice.
There's a good guide here on how much many of the major platforms pay artists, which seems to be the metric by which most people consider a streaming/podcast platform to be "ethical" or not. (The list is at the end and tl;dr, Amazon pays the best.)
I think, ultimately, if you don't want to participate in the corporate machine or passively support bad shit, the best thing to do is to track down the artist's work and buy it either directly from them or from a brick and mortar store, or one of the more ethical platforms listed above, and then construct your own music library from that with a media player.
Of course this is much more expensive and out of reach for many people in terms of meeting the amount of content that Spotify and so on have at hand, which is why it's not something a lot of people choose to do. But certainly, if you want to support your favourite artists, the answer is always to go as close to the source as you possibly can. It's expensive and inconvenient, but that's the price of having a (slightly) clearer conscience in 2021, unfortunately.
posted by fight or flight at 9:39 AM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
There's a good guide here on how much many of the major platforms pay artists, which seems to be the metric by which most people consider a streaming/podcast platform to be "ethical" or not. (The list is at the end and tl;dr, Amazon pays the best.)
I think, ultimately, if you don't want to participate in the corporate machine or passively support bad shit, the best thing to do is to track down the artist's work and buy it either directly from them or from a brick and mortar store, or one of the more ethical platforms listed above, and then construct your own music library from that with a media player.
Of course this is much more expensive and out of reach for many people in terms of meeting the amount of content that Spotify and so on have at hand, which is why it's not something a lot of people choose to do. But certainly, if you want to support your favourite artists, the answer is always to go as close to the source as you possibly can. It's expensive and inconvenient, but that's the price of having a (slightly) clearer conscience in 2021, unfortunately.
posted by fight or flight at 9:39 AM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
I'm not buying the "shitty sound quality" angle, Neil. If that was really the hill you wanted to die on then why did you give up on Pono?
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:47 AM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:47 AM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Those moving to Apple: just do a search for “vaccine” in their podcasts first, maybe ? It’s pretty nasty for me. Not sure why we think they are doing this any better? I’d love a better choice so could use some advice.
The difference is that Apple isn't paying $100 million for the exclusive rights to a disinformation podcast. Their podcast repository is open to anyone. Now, you could argue they should remove those shows from their platform, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you, but it's a different situation.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:47 AM on January 29, 2022 [75 favorites]
The difference is that Apple isn't paying $100 million for the exclusive rights to a disinformation podcast. Their podcast repository is open to anyone. Now, you could argue they should remove those shows from their platform, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you, but it's a different situation.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:47 AM on January 29, 2022 [75 favorites]
For me this is just the tipping point in an already shitty experience with streaming services that is probably going to motivate me to finally go back to my 15 year old mp3 collection.
-recommendation engines were already failing me horribly - I discover almost no new music that I like. They seem to be pushing pop at me.
-Pandora started hitting me with dog heart worm medication to me 5 times per hour in 2020. I DONT HAVE A DOG PANDORA! and am not a Republican either. So I ditched them.
-Spotify seems to have adopted a saturation model with their affiliated labels. Oh you like Talking Heads? YOU GET TALKING HEADS EVERY 5TH SONG THEN...even when you are listening to a low-fi hip-hip trance playlist. I am now sick of the talking heads and almost every other band that I foolishly liked a song of on the Spotify app.
I feel like I accidentally fell into a walled garden mostly due to the convivence of not having to move my music onto every new device or platform. Only I have come to gradually realize it was just some turf and flowers over a pile of garbage and now the walls of the walled garden are closing in and it's actually a trash compactor and oh god I'm going to want to kiss my princess sister but she likes some asshole with a vintage car more than me and my dad just cut my arm off and I am going to live with pengwings in the outer space Hebrides and do hologram reunion concerts.
posted by srboisvert at 9:49 AM on January 29, 2022 [47 favorites]
-recommendation engines were already failing me horribly - I discover almost no new music that I like. They seem to be pushing pop at me.
-Pandora started hitting me with dog heart worm medication to me 5 times per hour in 2020. I DONT HAVE A DOG PANDORA! and am not a Republican either. So I ditched them.
-Spotify seems to have adopted a saturation model with their affiliated labels. Oh you like Talking Heads? YOU GET TALKING HEADS EVERY 5TH SONG THEN...even when you are listening to a low-fi hip-hip trance playlist. I am now sick of the talking heads and almost every other band that I foolishly liked a song of on the Spotify app.
I feel like I accidentally fell into a walled garden mostly due to the convivence of not having to move my music onto every new device or platform. Only I have come to gradually realize it was just some turf and flowers over a pile of garbage and now the walls of the walled garden are closing in and it's actually a trash compactor and oh god I'm going to want to kiss my princess sister but she likes some asshole with a vintage car more than me and my dad just cut my arm off and I am going to live with pengwings in the outer space Hebrides and do hologram reunion concerts.
posted by srboisvert at 9:49 AM on January 29, 2022 [47 favorites]
I remember reading somewhere that Joni Mitchell and Neil Young both caught the strain of polio that was going around Alberta when they were young, and that it made it painful for Mitchell to play guitar in standard tuning which was the origin of her writing songs with odd guitar tuning.
Good for them for pulling their music over this. They know intimately well the harm that antivaxxers are capable of.
posted by Luminiferous Ether at 9:53 AM on January 29, 2022 [35 favorites]
Good for them for pulling their music over this. They know intimately well the harm that antivaxxers are capable of.
posted by Luminiferous Ether at 9:53 AM on January 29, 2022 [35 favorites]
Joe Rogan argued to test experimental medical procedures and pharmaceuticals on incarcerated individuals.
Fear Factor was a much bigger red flag than I think that anyone could have predicted.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 10:02 AM on January 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
Fear Factor was a much bigger red flag than I think that anyone could have predicted.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 10:02 AM on January 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
I acknowledge that this is something that takes a fair bit of privilege to do, but I've been using Plex (with the Plex Pass) for... five years, now?... and have a lot of my own MP3s from digitizing thousands of CDs I bought over the years and picking up an album a week or so on Bandcamp (or iTunes, when the album on Bandcamp isn't is prohibitively expensive after currency conversion), as well as on occasion being gifted music by friends. It's not the vast universe that the megaliths can offer, but I've got more than enough music to have my own "streaming service", Bandcamp lets me listen to stuff for free, and I'm doing okay without a major music streaming service at all.
posted by Shepherd at 10:03 AM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by Shepherd at 10:03 AM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
I never actually signed up for a Spotify subscription (I rarely pay for streaming services I can get free, and if I have to listen to annoying ads so what, I've been tuning them out anyway). I've been using it mainly for maintaining a couple playlists, and I think I may keep that for that purpose - I never really engage with the rest of the site, and listen to the one little narrow field of stuff I've been listening to so I like to think I'm annoying them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:06 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:06 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
True, they're just semi-passively participating in ethnic cleansing and using imprisoned/slave labor in China to make their products
The same is true of whomever made the computing device you used to post that comment.
So, not quite the wicked "gotcha" you seem to think it was.
posted by aramaic at 10:09 AM on January 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
The same is true of whomever made the computing device you used to post that comment.
So, not quite the wicked "gotcha" you seem to think it was.
posted by aramaic at 10:09 AM on January 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
A bit tangential, but this also underscores one of the problems inherent in streaming services:
Your favourite content can disappear at any time, for any reason, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I used Spotify years ago, and for a while it felt like having a huge music collection, until tracks started disappearing. (Not whole albums; individual tracks from albums.) I could only assume it was due to rights negotiations. In this instance with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell at least you get to know why they aren't there anymore. In my experience, that usually isn't the case.
posted by swr at 10:24 AM on January 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
Your favourite content can disappear at any time, for any reason, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I used Spotify years ago, and for a while it felt like having a huge music collection, until tracks started disappearing. (Not whole albums; individual tracks from albums.) I could only assume it was due to rights negotiations. In this instance with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell at least you get to know why they aren't there anymore. In my experience, that usually isn't the case.
posted by swr at 10:24 AM on January 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
I never bothered with Spotify. The first time I tried to sign up, something pissed me off. I can't remember what. And at some point shortly afterwards, I decided maybe I already had access to enough music here-there-everywhere. It was only later that I realized just how badly artists were being treated by the platform, which made it easy to stick with my original decision.
What kind of annoys me about Young and Mitchell taking their stand now (vaccine related, which I get -- they both had terrible experiences with polio as children) is that Spotify has been getting away with their shit specifically because their business model kind of works for known quantities, already established artists, with sizable audiences and back catalogues. Micro-micro payments add up to something if you've getting millions of them.
Again, I get it. Bad information regard Covid is killing people and Spotify, in sticking with their man Rogan, are guaranteeing that bad info will continue to spew. But Spotify was already a toxicity on the culture long before Covid-19 came along. If only big names had taken a stand years ago ... in the name of fair payment for ALL artists.
But such is real change, I guess. Does it every come precisely the way we want it to?
posted by philip-random at 10:27 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
What kind of annoys me about Young and Mitchell taking their stand now (vaccine related, which I get -- they both had terrible experiences with polio as children) is that Spotify has been getting away with their shit specifically because their business model kind of works for known quantities, already established artists, with sizable audiences and back catalogues. Micro-micro payments add up to something if you've getting millions of them.
Again, I get it. Bad information regard Covid is killing people and Spotify, in sticking with their man Rogan, are guaranteeing that bad info will continue to spew. But Spotify was already a toxicity on the culture long before Covid-19 came along. If only big names had taken a stand years ago ... in the name of fair payment for ALL artists.
But such is real change, I guess. Does it every come precisely the way we want it to?
posted by philip-random at 10:27 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
We all know there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. However occasionally you can strike a small blow by making a particular capitalist entity retreat from a particular evil thing.
And if Spotify doesn't retreat, well fuck 'em.
posted by emjaybee at 10:28 AM on January 29, 2022 [24 favorites]
And if Spotify doesn't retreat, well fuck 'em.
posted by emjaybee at 10:28 AM on January 29, 2022 [24 favorites]
If that was really the hill you wanted to die on then why did you give up on Pono?
He didn't - from the Slate reporting:
He didn't - from the Slate reporting:
So Young gave up on trying to make his own music service?posted by NoxAeternum at 10:31 AM on January 29, 2022 [32 favorites]
He did not! In fact, in 2019 he went on to launch the massive Neil Young Archives, a paid subscription service allowing fans to hear his music in high-resolution audio through the Xstream platform, which Young developed as a streaming successor to Pono. The archives also offer access to some of Young’s legendary unreleased projects along with exclusive livestreams and photos. The service quickly gained tens of thousands of subscribers and, by January 2020, was providing Young with a $600,000 annual income.*
Just saw on Instagram that Alessandro Cortini has pulled his material from Spotify and suggests people go to Bandcamp instead.
posted by Foosnark at 10:32 AM on January 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by Foosnark at 10:32 AM on January 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
Perhaps because of my age, I never got into Spotify—I'm still stuck on the idea of buying albums. Bandcamp is always the first place I look; after that, Apple's music store.
Bandcamp could probably develop a recommendation engine, and I'd probably use it to discover new music if they did.
posted by adamrice at 10:35 AM on January 29, 2022 [14 favorites]
Bandcamp could probably develop a recommendation engine, and I'd probably use it to discover new music if they did.
posted by adamrice at 10:35 AM on January 29, 2022 [14 favorites]
I suspect Young is pissed that any portion of the considerable amount of money he makes for Spotify is going to Rogan and helping to spread lies. Sure, the amount of money he makes them is probably not Rogan money or Beyonce money or whatever, but it's still a considerable amount of money. He and Dylan and Mitchell and others of his generation have very deep catalogs and people love their music.
It's great that people of good conscience are doing this. It's fucking sad that it's taking "irrelevant" boomers to take a stand. Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Adele... these are the people who should be speaking out about Spotify's bullshit. They have the power to shut that shit down.
This is just the beginning. Enrico Caruso and Scott Joplin are also threatening to pull their wax cylinders from the service in solidarity.
This is such an ignorant take and perfectly in line with the assholes rushing to Rogan's defence. Around my place we call these people "The Uglies" -- people who wake up every morning wondering how they can make the world a worse place.
posted by dobbs at 10:36 AM on January 29, 2022 [62 favorites]
It's great that people of good conscience are doing this. It's fucking sad that it's taking "irrelevant" boomers to take a stand. Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Adele... these are the people who should be speaking out about Spotify's bullshit. They have the power to shut that shit down.
This is just the beginning. Enrico Caruso and Scott Joplin are also threatening to pull their wax cylinders from the service in solidarity.
This is such an ignorant take and perfectly in line with the assholes rushing to Rogan's defence. Around my place we call these people "The Uglies" -- people who wake up every morning wondering how they can make the world a worse place.
posted by dobbs at 10:36 AM on January 29, 2022 [62 favorites]
allowing fans to hear his music in high-resolution audio
Neil Young is a hell of a musician but he don't know shit about digital audio. "High-resolution" audio is the world's stupidest distribution format.
posted by flabdablet at 10:40 AM on January 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
Neil Young is a hell of a musician but he don't know shit about digital audio. "High-resolution" audio is the world's stupidest distribution format.
posted by flabdablet at 10:40 AM on January 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
Bandcamp is always the first place I look
Same. And if Bandcamp fails, searching "$artist discography flac" on The Pirate Bay is generally the next most fuss-free option.
posted by flabdablet at 10:44 AM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
Same. And if Bandcamp fails, searching "$artist discography flac" on The Pirate Bay is generally the next most fuss-free option.
posted by flabdablet at 10:44 AM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
the best thing to do is to track down the artist's work and buy it either directly from them or from a brick and mortar store
I learned recently, probably from MetaFilter, that the best way to put money in the artists’ hands is to buy merch. My t-shirt wardrobe grows and grows.
posted by bendy at 10:46 AM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
I learned recently, probably from MetaFilter, that the best way to put money in the artists’ hands is to buy merch. My t-shirt wardrobe grows and grows.
posted by bendy at 10:46 AM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
Wasn't there just an article on this site like a week ago about how old music is the only music that sells? In any case, I figure guys in their 40s who smoke a shitton of weed are among Neil Young's biggest demos, so Joe Rogan should really take this personally.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:49 AM on January 29, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:49 AM on January 29, 2022 [14 favorites]
Wasn't there just an article on this site like a week ago about how old music is the only music that sells? In any case, I figure guys in their 40s who smoke a shitton of weed are among Neil Young's biggest demos, so Joe Rogan should really take this personally.
Boomers aren't in their 40s anymore.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 10:51 AM on January 29, 2022 [30 favorites]
Boomers aren't in their 40s anymore.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 10:51 AM on January 29, 2022 [30 favorites]
I don't know about the ethical background of the corporation, but 7digital is usually about the same price as Amazon (within $1) for buying MP3 albums, and if you want FLAC you can pay a bit more. I never used Spotify, I've had a paid Pandora account for at least 7 years. But I've been rethinking that lately too. I've got an app that turns my Dropbox music directory backup into a streaming service. I can't make playlists, but that is fine, as I'm old and listen to music like I did as a kid - one album at a time, in the order the artist intended.
posted by COD at 10:56 AM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by COD at 10:56 AM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
A lot of people are currently having difficulty in cancelling Spotify, possibly the system is overloaded, or equally likely they are using dark patterns to make it hard to find the right option. This twitter thread has some suggestions.
posted by Lanark at 10:56 AM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Lanark at 10:56 AM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
The Mississauga Library very helpfully posted a screenshot of all the Neil Young works in their collection, with the reminder that you could stream all of them for free via Hoopla. All you need is your library card!
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:07 AM on January 29, 2022 [31 favorites]
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:07 AM on January 29, 2022 [31 favorites]
Boomers aren't in their 40s anymore.
Newly-minted fortysomething here, raised by Boomers. You’re not wrong, but I don’t think that was the point.
The point is that the kind of guys my age who simultaneously identify as both teenagers and “old souls” might feel this where it hurts. And those guys are the target market for Rogan.
Then again, Neil Young has a history of making a principled stand against immature retrograde dumbasses, and those dumbasses totally missing the point, and that’s how you get “Sweet Home Alabama.” So I dunno.
posted by armeowda at 11:11 AM on January 29, 2022 [13 favorites]
Newly-minted fortysomething here, raised by Boomers. You’re not wrong, but I don’t think that was the point.
The point is that the kind of guys my age who simultaneously identify as both teenagers and “old souls” might feel this where it hurts. And those guys are the target market for Rogan.
Then again, Neil Young has a history of making a principled stand against immature retrograde dumbasses, and those dumbasses totally missing the point, and that’s how you get “Sweet Home Alabama.” So I dunno.
posted by armeowda at 11:11 AM on January 29, 2022 [13 favorites]
It looks like Tidal has a promo right now - 3 months of family plan for one Canadian dollar. I'm giving it a shot
posted by thecjm at 11:12 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by thecjm at 11:12 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm not buying the "shitty sound quality" angle, Neil. If that was really the hill you wanted to die on then why did you give up on Pono?
Well he's not necessarily wrong -- by default Spotify applies a dynamic range compression algorithm to balance out the loudness between tracks. Arguably acceptable if you're listening to a playlist built from different artists/albums, not so great if you're listening to an album.
posted by nathan_teske at 11:13 AM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Well he's not necessarily wrong -- by default Spotify applies a dynamic range compression algorithm to balance out the loudness between tracks. Arguably acceptable if you're listening to a playlist built from different artists/albums, not so great if you're listening to an album.
posted by nathan_teske at 11:13 AM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
1. I enjoy tidal and it’s the only non-Spotify app I’ve tried whose interface is actually good. Many musician friends subscribe too, bc the higher payouts. You can also DJ from it with the appropriate hardware or software — very cool. Their high end sound quality is pretty great, too.
2. I’ve been on Spotify for forever and quitting will be difficult. I appreciate all the standard “well I never liked it or signed up anyway, I always knew it was bad, I guess I’m just ahead of the curve” takes (hey that’s what the internet is for) but Spotify has been incredible for me for a long time. The recommendation engine for the music I mostly listen to is stunningly good. Spend some time digging funk / soul / disco / fusion / house and your Discover Weekly will be chock full of deep cuts, rare vinyl and new acts doing the damn thing. It’s honestly overwhelming. That said, anytime I spend a lot of time in my singer songwriter feels, the recommendations turn to shit. I think this is as much a reflection of the nature of these genres as anything. I’ve never felt like my recs are pushing pop or whatever Spotify is getting paid for, but maybe I’m just lucky.
3. Joni for sure is seeing a revival moment, so this is probably the best time for her actions here to have any effect. Keep an eye out for the next round of archive releases cuz it’s gonna be amaaaazing (getting into the post Blue years, when she went to the moon and back a couple times on her records)
4. Neil very explicitly chose Joe Rogan as the hill to die on, he just got some extra jabs about the sound quality off as he was climbing down that hill.
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:21 AM on January 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
2. I’ve been on Spotify for forever and quitting will be difficult. I appreciate all the standard “well I never liked it or signed up anyway, I always knew it was bad, I guess I’m just ahead of the curve” takes (hey that’s what the internet is for) but Spotify has been incredible for me for a long time. The recommendation engine for the music I mostly listen to is stunningly good. Spend some time digging funk / soul / disco / fusion / house and your Discover Weekly will be chock full of deep cuts, rare vinyl and new acts doing the damn thing. It’s honestly overwhelming. That said, anytime I spend a lot of time in my singer songwriter feels, the recommendations turn to shit. I think this is as much a reflection of the nature of these genres as anything. I’ve never felt like my recs are pushing pop or whatever Spotify is getting paid for, but maybe I’m just lucky.
3. Joni for sure is seeing a revival moment, so this is probably the best time for her actions here to have any effect. Keep an eye out for the next round of archive releases cuz it’s gonna be amaaaazing (getting into the post Blue years, when she went to the moon and back a couple times on her records)
4. Neil very explicitly chose Joe Rogan as the hill to die on, he just got some extra jabs about the sound quality off as he was climbing down that hill.
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:21 AM on January 29, 2022 [25 favorites]
It sucks when you're 100% on Neil Young's side, and yet the parody-obsessed portion of your brain insists on producing this:
Well, I heard Mr. Young talk about himposted by Faint of Butt at 11:22 AM on January 29, 2022 [18 favorites]
I heard old Neil put Rogan down
But I hope Neil Young will remember
Spotify don't need him around, anyhow
I'm pretty sure like 5 or 6 major artists could band together and force Spotify's hand here but that's not going to happen. And let me extra clear for the sake of encouraging everyone to live in reality: Spotify doesn't give a shit about Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. Like they extra do not care, this is a scraped elbow for them.
Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Beiber, Beyonce...get even just those five on board and now we're talking. I mean they would never, and I'm sure there's a legal or contractual aspect involved that I'm not insider enough to understand. But in my opinion that's what it would take to put a real dent in things.
posted by windbox at 11:24 AM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Beiber, Beyonce...get even just those five on board and now we're talking. I mean they would never, and I'm sure there's a legal or contractual aspect involved that I'm not insider enough to understand. But in my opinion that's what it would take to put a real dent in things.
posted by windbox at 11:24 AM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
In the US, your local library has a pretty large selection of movies and music available online with your library card.
posted by Tailkinker to-Ennien at 11:28 AM on January 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Tailkinker to-Ennien at 11:28 AM on January 29, 2022 [10 favorites]
The Mississauga Library very helpfully posted a screenshot of all the Neil Young works in their collection, with the reminder that you could stream all of them for free via Hoopla. All you need is your library card!
905 represent!
Neil Young also just released a documentary free on youtube: Neil Young & Crazy Horse - A Band A Brotherhood A Barn (Official Documentary)
posted by srboisvert at 11:29 AM on January 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
905 represent!
Neil Young also just released a documentary free on youtube: Neil Young & Crazy Horse - A Band A Brotherhood A Barn (Official Documentary)
posted by srboisvert at 11:29 AM on January 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
For me, the best outcome here is that I cancel, and as with the wave of pushback against Discord's NFT plans, the volume of the backlash makes the company blink/backpedal.
I am actually the person who listens to enough stuff - and enough weird stuff from fannish playlists - for streaming to make sense. My Wrapped said I spent more than a quarter of 2021 playing Spotify, and wound up in the top 0.005% of listeners for a popular musician.
My local library's catalogue doesn't have keyword search for other people's playlists, which is the only good recommendation engine IMO. If Spotify goes the way of 8tracks or worse, I will probably switch to whichever competitor does have that feature and the most promising results for searches like "Griddlehark."
posted by All Might Be Well at 11:31 AM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
I am actually the person who listens to enough stuff - and enough weird stuff from fannish playlists - for streaming to make sense. My Wrapped said I spent more than a quarter of 2021 playing Spotify, and wound up in the top 0.005% of listeners for a popular musician.
My local library's catalogue doesn't have keyword search for other people's playlists, which is the only good recommendation engine IMO. If Spotify goes the way of 8tracks or worse, I will probably switch to whichever competitor does have that feature and the most promising results for searches like "Griddlehark."
posted by All Might Be Well at 11:31 AM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
Spotify isn't likely to drop Rogan any time soon. The Verge has a great article on how deeply Spotify's finances are tied to Rogan. For a TL;DR, here's the biggest takeaway.
Seeing artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pull their music is great. I'm all for it for so many reasons. But to really hit Spotify where it hurts, we need to be getting ads pulled from Spotify until Rogan is either brought to heel or kicked off.
posted by SansPoint at 11:34 AM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
A source previously told me that if marketers buy ads on Rogan, they have to buy ads on the rest of Spotify’s catalog, too, meaning Rogan’s success brings more advertisers to the rest of Spotify’s investments. Without him, Spotify has Call Her Daddy and Armchair Expert, but neither reaches Rogan’s scale. It’s easy to see why Spotify didn’t cave so easily.Minimum ad spend to be on Rogan is $1 million. As long as Spotify makes enough ad revenue from Joe Rogan to keep them in the black, Rogan is going to stay.
Seeing artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pull their music is great. I'm all for it for so many reasons. But to really hit Spotify where it hurts, we need to be getting ads pulled from Spotify until Rogan is either brought to heel or kicked off.
posted by SansPoint at 11:34 AM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
dobbs: This is such an ignorant take and perfectly in line with the assholes rushing to Rogan's defence. Around my place we call these people "The Uglies" -- people who wake up every morning wondering how they can make the world a worse place.
Far be it from me to defend Joe Rogan in any way, but I don’t see his core audience of 20-30 somethings being swayed by the departure of acts from their parents or grandparents generation as the breaking point to unfollow his podcast.
posted by dr_dank at 11:34 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Far be it from me to defend Joe Rogan in any way, but I don’t see his core audience of 20-30 somethings being swayed by the departure of acts from their parents or grandparents generation as the breaking point to unfollow his podcast.
posted by dr_dank at 11:34 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don’t see his core audience of 20-30 somethings being swayed
no-one is expecting Joe Rogan fans to quit the platform, but if the only people left are Joe's crowd plus a few anti-vaxxers, then Spotify will find themselves left with a very different business.
posted by Lanark at 11:40 AM on January 29, 2022 [21 favorites]
no-one is expecting Joe Rogan fans to quit the platform, but if the only people left are Joe's crowd plus a few anti-vaxxers, then Spotify will find themselves left with a very different business.
posted by Lanark at 11:40 AM on January 29, 2022 [21 favorites]
windbox: "Taylor Swift .... I mean they would never, "
A history of Taylor Swift’s odd, conflicting stances on streaming services
posted by chavenet at 11:40 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
A history of Taylor Swift’s odd, conflicting stances on streaming services
posted by chavenet at 11:40 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Adele... these are the people who should be speaking out about Spotify's bullshit.
it's vanishingly unlikely that in today's music ecology, these artists hold any real control over their catalogs.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:41 AM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
it's vanishingly unlikely that in today's music ecology, these artists hold any real control over their catalogs.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:41 AM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
otoh, yes, they should be speaking out.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:41 AM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 11:41 AM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm glad I wasn't making enough money to afford a data plan when Spotify came out.
posted by bleep at 11:43 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by bleep at 11:43 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
just fyi for anyone on the fence, artists make slightly less than $4,000 USD for every one million streams on Spotify. Split that 50/50 for the band/label, then take the $2K left over and split that 3-5 ways for the people in the band (or often just give it directly to the label to recoup the advance that compelled the band to sign a five record contract in the first place). It's about more than Rogan being a dumbass.
Also, j_curiouser, Taylor Swift famously held her catalogue off Spotify for years until they'd cut her a better deal. Which is what led to notorious sex pest Ryan Adams' 1984 cover album, which made him probably less money than one would expect on Spotify while T Swift fans waited for her to upload her catalogue.
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 11:45 AM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
Also, j_curiouser, Taylor Swift famously held her catalogue off Spotify for years until they'd cut her a better deal. Which is what led to notorious sex pest Ryan Adams' 1984 cover album, which made him probably less money than one would expect on Spotify while T Swift fans waited for her to upload her catalogue.
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 11:45 AM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
I know there's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, and that there's no good way to support a big tech company without supporting some kind of bad behavior, but at the same time political stands like this do matter inasmuch as people jumping into them can jolt companies into thinking that maybe, just maybe, their actions have consequence.
Apple and Google are shitty companies, but responding to a big snafu that Spotify invited on themselves by deciding Joe Rogan should be an essential part of their brand by going, oh, whatever, every other company is bad... I dunno, it feels counterproductive. Even if we should all be using Bandcamp as much as possible (and I left Amazon off my "other companies" list because, of the other companies with big music-streaming services, I think they're significantly worse than the others, so y'know there's a line).
It's okay to call it conspicuously shitty when a company invests an insane amount of capital into a shitty dude. Same as how there's a difference between "some gross people use Substack" and "Substack just paid half a dozen TERFs to write TERF-y newsletters." The question of whether media companies should be responsible for their content (they should) is different than the question of whether it's worse for media companies to make the shittiest stuff in the world their main product (it is). CNN's credulous treatment of gross garbage doesn't make it Fox News, you know? Different things are different kinds of bad, and conflating them feels defeatist and cynical. Even though, again, it would be great if we all used Bandcamp more.
posted by rorgy at 11:45 AM on January 29, 2022 [47 favorites]
Apple and Google are shitty companies, but responding to a big snafu that Spotify invited on themselves by deciding Joe Rogan should be an essential part of their brand by going, oh, whatever, every other company is bad... I dunno, it feels counterproductive. Even if we should all be using Bandcamp as much as possible (and I left Amazon off my "other companies" list because, of the other companies with big music-streaming services, I think they're significantly worse than the others, so y'know there's a line).
It's okay to call it conspicuously shitty when a company invests an insane amount of capital into a shitty dude. Same as how there's a difference between "some gross people use Substack" and "Substack just paid half a dozen TERFs to write TERF-y newsletters." The question of whether media companies should be responsible for their content (they should) is different than the question of whether it's worse for media companies to make the shittiest stuff in the world their main product (it is). CNN's credulous treatment of gross garbage doesn't make it Fox News, you know? Different things are different kinds of bad, and conflating them feels defeatist and cynical. Even though, again, it would be great if we all used Bandcamp more.
posted by rorgy at 11:45 AM on January 29, 2022 [47 favorites]
it's vanishingly unlikely that in today's music ecology, these artists hold any real control over their catalogs.
Hasn't Taylor Swift spent the last few years publicly and famously taking control over her catalogues, in an explicit "fuck you" to her old record label?
posted by rorgy at 11:47 AM on January 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
Hasn't Taylor Swift spent the last few years publicly and famously taking control over her catalogues, in an explicit "fuck you" to her old record label?
posted by rorgy at 11:47 AM on January 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
it was quite some time ago that I came across a guardian article about the various platforms + sites that people use to access + stream music content, and it was an instant turnoff to see how little Spotify compensates most artists for their work ...especially artists other than the top 25 (+ or -) major artists ...
not sure why principled and self-respecting legends like NY + JM are only getting to this now.... there were reasons to get off the platform long before the Rogan controversy but I guess well-known artists put up with their business model as a necessary evil to retain visibility and share their music with as large a # of people as possible ... understandable in a very competitive arena where new artists come along every year + older music is rarely aged out altogether, making for a larger pool of music to draw from year after year
If I am incorrect about this, please feel free to correct the record ... my info source was only that single guardian article, things may certainly have changed as far as becoming more equitable for recording artists (especially 'long tail' artists who have a small but loyal following).
posted by clandestiny's child at 11:51 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
not sure why principled and self-respecting legends like NY + JM are only getting to this now.... there were reasons to get off the platform long before the Rogan controversy but I guess well-known artists put up with their business model as a necessary evil to retain visibility and share their music with as large a # of people as possible ... understandable in a very competitive arena where new artists come along every year + older music is rarely aged out altogether, making for a larger pool of music to draw from year after year
If I am incorrect about this, please feel free to correct the record ... my info source was only that single guardian article, things may certainly have changed as far as becoming more equitable for recording artists (especially 'long tail' artists who have a small but loyal following).
posted by clandestiny's child at 11:51 AM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Taylor would be in a difficult position if she withdrew the re-recorded 'Taylor's version' of her albums, then all the old Scooter Braun owned copies would still remain.
Joni and Neil Young are at a point in their careers where they don't care about chart performance and they already have enough money so it is much easier for them to take a stand on something like this.
Unfortunately a lot of older artists have already sold their catalogue and so no longer have any control over where it can be used.
posted by Lanark at 11:58 AM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
Joni and Neil Young are at a point in their careers where they don't care about chart performance and they already have enough money so it is much easier for them to take a stand on something like this.
Unfortunately a lot of older artists have already sold their catalogue and so no longer have any control over where it can be used.
posted by Lanark at 11:58 AM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
artists make slightly less than $4,000 USD for every one million streams on Spotify. Split that 50/50 for the band/label, then take the $2K left over and split that 3-5 ways for the people in the band (or often just give it directly to the label to recoup the advance that compelled the band to sign a five record contract in the first place).
Ok I didn't have the #s but this is consistent with my understanding ... sadly, looks like not much has changed since that old Guardian article after all
posted by clandestiny's child at 12:03 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Ok I didn't have the #s but this is consistent with my understanding ... sadly, looks like not much has changed since that old Guardian article after all
posted by clandestiny's child at 12:03 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
dhh comments on Spotify's content policy - basically, anything that doesn't cause imminent harm is fair game.
Meanwhile, Rogan trolls Young by using "Rockin' In The Free World" as his exit music for his most recent show.
posted by theorique at 12:15 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Meanwhile, Rogan trolls Young by using "Rockin' In The Free World" as his exit music for his most recent show.
posted by theorique at 12:15 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Just wanted to jump in and mention that the particulars of major label artist deals are varied + tricky and often put the artist at a disadvantage in distribution decisions with their catalog. (I released three albums through a major in the '90s and there is no way that I'm able to pull those off Spotify.) No matter how huge newer artists are (and I'm talking ones who came up in the last 20 years) they are most likely still locked into contracts that last multiple releases + decades. So, it's not surprising that 'legacy' artists are ones able to do this as they've gone through at least a few renegotiations, theoretically able to get better terms and more control each time.
But — many huge legacy artists also have their hands tied, thanks to these huge payout publishing acquisition deals that have been happening. Neil Young may have negotiated the final say over where his songs can appear in his recent deal but it's possible Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen didn't. We don't know. Related: this tweet from David Crosby.
As for Taylor Swift, we can only guess at why she won't (or will she) do anything. She did sign a new deal with Universal after her fights with Spotify and Apple, so her amount of control may have changed (and I assume she was aided in those fights by a label that was apparently sympathetic with her wishes, which would be ironic.). Yes, her owning her masters was publicly a big part of the Universal deal, but I bet that ownership comes over time (10 years after release date on a recording, for example) rather than right away — but different than the perpetuity of her Big Machine terms so better for her in the long run.
As for smaller indie bands and labels, they're also in a pickle as pulling music off Spotify could create tension with their distributor or violate terms of their third-party distribution deals. Small distributors make most of their money from Spotify and would be unhappy at a distributed label wanting to exclude that revenue stream.
Yes, a lot of these artists that don't have control over their recordings could and probably should speak out but there's the danger that would become performative overkill with no real bite like simply tweeting a black box was. If an artist really wants to make an impact, don't mention Spotify *at all* in posts, on the artist website, and in public — send fans to other platforms (Bandcamp's a great choice).
One last thing! Yep, Neil and Joni may mainly appeal to the 'olds' but — hey — large and important parts of the music industry are still being run by the olds (including the journalistic side). The impact may be subtler and greater than you might think.
posted by General Zubon at 12:18 PM on January 29, 2022 [23 favorites]
But — many huge legacy artists also have their hands tied, thanks to these huge payout publishing acquisition deals that have been happening. Neil Young may have negotiated the final say over where his songs can appear in his recent deal but it's possible Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen didn't. We don't know. Related: this tweet from David Crosby.
As for Taylor Swift, we can only guess at why she won't (or will she) do anything. She did sign a new deal with Universal after her fights with Spotify and Apple, so her amount of control may have changed (and I assume she was aided in those fights by a label that was apparently sympathetic with her wishes, which would be ironic.). Yes, her owning her masters was publicly a big part of the Universal deal, but I bet that ownership comes over time (10 years after release date on a recording, for example) rather than right away — but different than the perpetuity of her Big Machine terms so better for her in the long run.
As for smaller indie bands and labels, they're also in a pickle as pulling music off Spotify could create tension with their distributor or violate terms of their third-party distribution deals. Small distributors make most of their money from Spotify and would be unhappy at a distributed label wanting to exclude that revenue stream.
Yes, a lot of these artists that don't have control over their recordings could and probably should speak out but there's the danger that would become performative overkill with no real bite like simply tweeting a black box was. If an artist really wants to make an impact, don't mention Spotify *at all* in posts, on the artist website, and in public — send fans to other platforms (Bandcamp's a great choice).
One last thing! Yep, Neil and Joni may mainly appeal to the 'olds' but — hey — large and important parts of the music industry are still being run by the olds (including the journalistic side). The impact may be subtler and greater than you might think.
posted by General Zubon at 12:18 PM on January 29, 2022 [23 favorites]
it's vanishingly unlikely that in today's music ecology, these artists hold any real control over their catalogs.
Neither does Neil Young. He's just lucky Warner Brothers agreed with him.
posted by Pendragon at 12:20 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
Neither does Neil Young. He's just lucky Warner Brothers agreed with him.
posted by Pendragon at 12:20 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
the likes of Joe Rogan and Dr. Robert Malone, and many others who oppose the party line in espousing minority views, have facts on their side as well
They really don't. Malone's been lying heavily the whole way through. And John Campbell is not a physician, he's a nurse with a PhD in health education. He appears to have figured out that he can get a huge amount of traffic by promoting ivermectin, long after studies had shown that it was not effective, unless you lived in a country where intestinal parasites are common. He's been happily riding the gravy train ever since.
posted by Bezbozhnik at 12:27 PM on January 29, 2022 [37 favorites]
They really don't. Malone's been lying heavily the whole way through. And John Campbell is not a physician, he's a nurse with a PhD in health education. He appears to have figured out that he can get a huge amount of traffic by promoting ivermectin, long after studies had shown that it was not effective, unless you lived in a country where intestinal parasites are common. He's been happily riding the gravy train ever since.
posted by Bezbozhnik at 12:27 PM on January 29, 2022 [37 favorites]
As an unknown and unsigned artist with music on Spotify, I kind of like the idea of all the popular musicians pulling their music off so I could maybe have the opportunity to make a few more fractions of a cent from the confused listenings of Joe Rogan fans that come across my music.
posted by wondermouse at 12:30 PM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by wondermouse at 12:30 PM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
He's just lucky Warner Brothers agreed with him.
Neil Young sold 50% to Hipgnosis and the agreement states they both have to agree to any and all sync requests. Without the music copyright it doesn't matter what Warner Brothers think.
posted by Lanark at 12:31 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
Neil Young sold 50% to Hipgnosis and the agreement states they both have to agree to any and all sync requests. Without the music copyright it doesn't matter what Warner Brothers think.
posted by Lanark at 12:31 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
I recently saw this quote which seems very appropriate, "content moderation is another way to say censorship."
But it isn't.
People who don't like the moderation policies at Twitter or LinkedIn or wherever are free to go to Parler, Gab, Rumble, or Truth Social (okay, that one hasn't launched yet), or to start their own websites.
Websites don't owe anyone a platform, any more than a bar is required to let anyone on stage during open-mic night, even someone who starts flinging shit at the paying customers.
posted by box at 12:39 PM on January 29, 2022 [28 favorites]
But it isn't.
People who don't like the moderation policies at Twitter or LinkedIn or wherever are free to go to Parler, Gab, Rumble, or Truth Social (okay, that one hasn't launched yet), or to start their own websites.
Websites don't owe anyone a platform, any more than a bar is required to let anyone on stage during open-mic night, even someone who starts flinging shit at the paying customers.
posted by box at 12:39 PM on January 29, 2022 [28 favorites]
I figure guys in their 40s who smoke a shitton of weed are among Neil Young's biggest demos, so Joe Rogan should really take this personally.
....No, the Gen-X stoners' music of choice is usually Phish.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:40 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
....No, the Gen-X stoners' music of choice is usually Phish.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:40 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
I just canceled Spotify after reading about Joe Rogan's latest anti-trans guest and screed. Fuck him and Spotify for supporting him. Sure, there's not tons of great alternatives that aren't also problematic in some way (i opted for Tidal fwiw), but better than giving my money to a service that is a megaphone for hate speech.
posted by kokaku at 12:46 PM on January 29, 2022 [35 favorites]
posted by kokaku at 12:46 PM on January 29, 2022 [35 favorites]
No, the Gen-X stoners' music of choice is usually Phish
You're goddamn right.
(But I'm not a stoner)
posted by bondcliff at 12:53 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
You're goddamn right.
(But I'm not a stoner)
posted by bondcliff at 12:53 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Eyes down, round and round
Let’s all sit and watch the money go round
And everyone take a little bit here and a little bit there
Do they all deserve money from a song they’ve never heard?
They don’t know the tune and they don’t know the words
And they don’t give a damn
posted by andraste at 12:57 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Let’s all sit and watch the money go round
And everyone take a little bit here and a little bit there
Do they all deserve money from a song they’ve never heard?
They don’t know the tune and they don’t know the words
And they don’t give a damn
posted by andraste at 12:57 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Gonna take this opportunity to make a low-key plug for internet radio like soma.fm I go to internet radio when I want to hear something that’s not in my mp3 library, and if I discover something I love I try to track it down and add it.
Soma.fm is particularly good if you like 90s-era electronica, and there are plenty of other stations out there.
posted by disentir at 1:10 PM on January 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
Soma.fm is particularly good if you like 90s-era electronica, and there are plenty of other stations out there.
posted by disentir at 1:10 PM on January 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
Louis Anslow in The Daily Beast: “Neil Young’s Long Record of Spreading Scientific Misinformation”
Different things are of course different, as is the above GMO misinformation different from COVID misinformation, but I find them nonetheless interesting to think about in this circumstance. “Georgia… Bush”, a fine piece of music by Li’l Wayne, is available for streaming on Spotify & sincerely claims that the New Orleans levees were deliberately blown up during Katrina. If Nikki Minaj recorded a song about her Cousin’s Friend’s balls, would we demand it be pulled from Spotify? (If it were an exclusive, I expect so, but it would have a different and people would debate about whether it was “entertainment” or misinformation.)
posted by Going To Maine at 1:16 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Different things are of course different, as is the above GMO misinformation different from COVID misinformation, but I find them nonetheless interesting to think about in this circumstance. “Georgia… Bush”, a fine piece of music by Li’l Wayne, is available for streaming on Spotify & sincerely claims that the New Orleans levees were deliberately blown up during Katrina. If Nikki Minaj recorded a song about her Cousin’s Friend’s balls, would we demand it be pulled from Spotify? (If it were an exclusive, I expect so, but it would have a different and people would debate about whether it was “entertainment” or misinformation.)
posted by Going To Maine at 1:16 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Cool, now do the device you used to post this.Apple is far from perfect but they’re not actively making either music or podcasting worse.True, they're just semi-passively participating in ethnic cleansing and using imprisoned/slave labor in China to make their products:
That kind of posturing isn’t just naive but actively encourages inaction: if I care about Chinese workers, as an astute reader might correctly infer from the beginning of the sentence, there’s nothing I can do other than long-term action encouraging political pressure to get companies to stop manufacturing there. That’s important and I hope you’re also doing it, but it’s slow with no guarantee of success.
In contrast, if I don’t want to contribute to hundreds of millions of dollars going to give right-wing voices a podium, there’s a really easy way to immediately accomplish that: don’t give that money to Spotify in the first place! It’s not the only problem in the world or even the most important but it’s one which you can do something about with minimal effort and no cost.
posted by adamsc at 1:17 PM on January 29, 2022 [22 favorites]
That kind of posturing isn’t just naive but actively encourages inaction
You seem to think the point of raising it is to force action. It isn't. It's also not supposed to be a "gotcha". I just believe that it behoves us all to operate with as much awareness as we're able to cope with in terms of what we're allowing to happen when we decide to spend our money on certain things, or subscribe to certain services. This post is casting light on one issue that I assume at least some people were unaware of (Spotify actively paying Rogan lots of money for his idiotic views). I'm going to assume some people are also unaware of Apple lobbying to soften laws about forced labor in China, so there's an example of something that you should probably keep in mind when you buy an iPhone or a year's membership to Apple Music or whatever.
There's no ethical consumption under capitalism, but that doesn't mean we should wander around blind, either.
Also, my larger point is about the moral posturing going when it comes to "well, I always knew Spotify was evil, so there" and immediately moving over to a company that's causing equal if not more harm. If you have the luxury of being able to choose, make well informed choices. I'm not perfect, I know how much I'm personally contributing to these things, but I also think it's important for me to understand what else is going on.
(And for what it's worth, Apple, Google and Amazon also give right-wing voices a podium on their platforms.)
posted by fight or flight at 1:24 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
You seem to think the point of raising it is to force action. It isn't. It's also not supposed to be a "gotcha". I just believe that it behoves us all to operate with as much awareness as we're able to cope with in terms of what we're allowing to happen when we decide to spend our money on certain things, or subscribe to certain services. This post is casting light on one issue that I assume at least some people were unaware of (Spotify actively paying Rogan lots of money for his idiotic views). I'm going to assume some people are also unaware of Apple lobbying to soften laws about forced labor in China, so there's an example of something that you should probably keep in mind when you buy an iPhone or a year's membership to Apple Music or whatever.
There's no ethical consumption under capitalism, but that doesn't mean we should wander around blind, either.
Also, my larger point is about the moral posturing going when it comes to "well, I always knew Spotify was evil, so there" and immediately moving over to a company that's causing equal if not more harm. If you have the luxury of being able to choose, make well informed choices. I'm not perfect, I know how much I'm personally contributing to these things, but I also think it's important for me to understand what else is going on.
(And for what it's worth, Apple, Google and Amazon also give right-wing voices a podium on their platforms.)
posted by fight or flight at 1:24 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
True, they're just semi-passively participating in ethnic cleansing and using imprisoned/slave labor in China to make their products
This is reductive. You could just as easily accuse Neil Young of participating in ethnic cleansing and using slave labor whenever he cashes royalty checks from streaming audio or whenever he sold a Pono player etc. And it would be just as wrong.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:43 PM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
This is reductive. You could just as easily accuse Neil Young of participating in ethnic cleansing and using slave labor whenever he cashes royalty checks from streaming audio or whenever he sold a Pono player etc. And it would be just as wrong.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:43 PM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
D:\My MP3 Files\
Has tons of great music and zero antivax nonsense.
posted by straight at 1:52 PM on January 29, 2022 [35 favorites]
Has tons of great music and zero antivax nonsense.
posted by straight at 1:52 PM on January 29, 2022 [35 favorites]
Neil and Joni rule and they're still very influential to anyone who knows anything about music. Good for them for choosing the right way to make a point.
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:02 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:02 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
Your favourite content can disappear at any time, for any reason, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Less than a year ago, hundreds of Korean musicians and thousands of their songs were removed from Spotify due to a licensing dispute. It got resolved, but it's worth thinking about.
Also, I often find that the versions of songs that are available on streaming services are not the same as the original release. This is why I have steadfastly resisted my spouse's periodic attempts to suggest "we could get rid of the CDs to save space". No. We are not doing that. We have already dumped the jewel cases and the CDs are taking up minimal space. And sometimes I really want to hear a particular version of a song.
At the same time, I very much agree with this: Spotify has been incredible for me for a long time. The recommendation engine for the music I mostly listen to is stunningly good. Spend some time digging funk / soul / disco / fusion / house and your Discover Weekly will be chock full of deep cuts, rare vinyl and new acts doing the damn thing
While I love Soma.fm (which has been recommended above), as a fan of Korean music (yes, K-pop, feel free to sneer if you must, but also K-indie, K-rock, K-hiphop, K-RnB, etc.... also currently exploring T-pop and Q-pop) Soma.fm has nothing to offer me, and the Spotify recommendation algorithm has actually been really good for me.
posted by Lexica at 2:16 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
Less than a year ago, hundreds of Korean musicians and thousands of their songs were removed from Spotify due to a licensing dispute. It got resolved, but it's worth thinking about.
Also, I often find that the versions of songs that are available on streaming services are not the same as the original release. This is why I have steadfastly resisted my spouse's periodic attempts to suggest "we could get rid of the CDs to save space". No. We are not doing that. We have already dumped the jewel cases and the CDs are taking up minimal space. And sometimes I really want to hear a particular version of a song.
At the same time, I very much agree with this: Spotify has been incredible for me for a long time. The recommendation engine for the music I mostly listen to is stunningly good. Spend some time digging funk / soul / disco / fusion / house and your Discover Weekly will be chock full of deep cuts, rare vinyl and new acts doing the damn thing
While I love Soma.fm (which has been recommended above), as a fan of Korean music (yes, K-pop, feel free to sneer if you must, but also K-indie, K-rock, K-hiphop, K-RnB, etc.... also currently exploring T-pop and Q-pop) Soma.fm has nothing to offer me, and the Spotify recommendation algorithm has actually been really good for me.
posted by Lexica at 2:16 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
fightorflight: True, they're just semi-passively participating in ethnic cleansing and using imprisoned/slave labor in China to make their products
aramaic: The same is true of whomever made the computing device you used to post that comment.
So, not quite the wicked "gotcha" you seem to think it was.
So is "there are no ethical choices under capitalism" an anti-boycott stance, does it mean the search for an optimally ethical alternative when doing so is unnecessary, or is it an indictment of the consumerism that results in trying to find *somewhere* to exchange money for music?
posted by Selena777 at 2:36 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
aramaic: The same is true of whomever made the computing device you used to post that comment.
So, not quite the wicked "gotcha" you seem to think it was.
So is "there are no ethical choices under capitalism" an anti-boycott stance, does it mean the search for an optimally ethical alternative when doing so is unnecessary, or is it an indictment of the consumerism that results in trying to find *somewhere* to exchange money for music?
posted by Selena777 at 2:36 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Sadly I don't have a Spotify account to cancel.
posted by axiom at 2:59 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by axiom at 2:59 PM on January 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'm not really an "old," (er, I don't think so, early 30s), but Neil and Joni are timeless classics, I'd never refer to their work as "washed-up."
So many artists of their Era could enjoy a same success. They're too influential for dismissal. They also likely achieved some of that success by making moves like this with their work.
posted by firstdaffodils at 3:07 PM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
So many artists of their Era could enjoy a same success. They're too influential for dismissal. They also likely achieved some of that success by making moves like this with their work.
posted by firstdaffodils at 3:07 PM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
My music tastes changed during the pandemic, because I started playing an instrument, and Spotify just would not let me listen to new stuff. On top of that, it constantly shoved podcasts at me, and one sixth of my daily mixes was devoted to lo-fi beats, after listening to the lofi radio station during games night twice. Apparently that makes me a lifetime lofi fan according to Spotify; it was one of the main features for me closing my account, because that genre followed me everywhere and was unblockable.
When I did leave Spotify, I found that every other service sounded better, and usually had more additional information. Qobuz and tidal had much more information about individual releases, which I really appreciated. I avoided Amazon and YouTube, for both ethical reasons (they suck) and practical reasons (in design terms, they suck).
posted by The River Ivel at 3:14 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
When I did leave Spotify, I found that every other service sounded better, and usually had more additional information. Qobuz and tidal had much more information about individual releases, which I really appreciated. I avoided Amazon and YouTube, for both ethical reasons (they suck) and practical reasons (in design terms, they suck).
posted by The River Ivel at 3:14 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Singer/songwriters standing up! But where is adult contemporary (continuous soft rock, your listen-at-work station!) Have Air Supply released a statement?
posted by thelonius at 3:15 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 3:15 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Resonate policy of doubling what you pay per stream, on repeated listens, until at about a dollar you’ve bought the track - beautiful.
I also stream from Magnatune.com and buy from Linn Records and other small labels. Hard drive is where it’s at. (And CDs in the back of a closet, because backing up your backups is also where it’s at.)
posted by clew at 3:23 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
I also stream from Magnatune.com and buy from Linn Records and other small labels. Hard drive is where it’s at. (And CDs in the back of a closet, because backing up your backups is also where it’s at.)
posted by clew at 3:23 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Deleted my music from Spotify.
I'm no one and nobody cares but I'm feeling kinda overwhelmed by awfulness lately and it was one small, easy thing I could actually do.
posted by chococat at 3:32 PM on January 29, 2022 [55 favorites]
I'm no one and nobody cares but I'm feeling kinda overwhelmed by awfulness lately and it was one small, easy thing I could actually do.
posted by chococat at 3:32 PM on January 29, 2022 [55 favorites]
I just canceled and it wasn’t difficult. They make you confirm three or four times but it gets there soon enough.
Felt good. I was getting dismayed with them anyway for a lot of reasons.
Also, yeah, of course a streaming music service platforms musicians with points of view I disagree with, or that I think are terrible people.
That’s not the relationship that Spotify has with Rogan - they don’t just platform him, they paid him a ton of cash to platform him exclusively. And after reading that link about him and Jordan Peterson linked above, well, we just can’t, in this household. I knew in the abstract that that’s who the guy is but yeah, Neil and Joni (and MetaFilter) got it in front of me successfully.
posted by dragstroke at 3:37 PM on January 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
Felt good. I was getting dismayed with them anyway for a lot of reasons.
Also, yeah, of course a streaming music service platforms musicians with points of view I disagree with, or that I think are terrible people.
That’s not the relationship that Spotify has with Rogan - they don’t just platform him, they paid him a ton of cash to platform him exclusively. And after reading that link about him and Jordan Peterson linked above, well, we just can’t, in this household. I knew in the abstract that that’s who the guy is but yeah, Neil and Joni (and MetaFilter) got it in front of me successfully.
posted by dragstroke at 3:37 PM on January 29, 2022 [17 favorites]
D:\My MP3 Files\*eyes personal collection of Aqua b-sides*
Has tons of great music
speak for yourself, buddy
posted by rorgy at 3:52 PM on January 29, 2022 [16 favorites]
Brené Brown just announced on LinkedIn that she won’t be releasing any new podcast episodes until further notice. She has an exclusive deal with Spotify and just released a successful new book too. I’m looking forward to seeing the impact of all this.
posted by iamkimiam at 4:10 PM on January 29, 2022 [26 favorites]
posted by iamkimiam at 4:10 PM on January 29, 2022 [26 favorites]
Brené Brown just announced on LinkedIn that she won’t be releasing any new podcast episodes until further notice.
Wheee! This is what I've been wondering. Can the podcasts themselves pull themselves out of Spotify?
posted by Don Pepino at 4:16 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Wheee! This is what I've been wondering. Can the podcasts themselves pull themselves out of Spotify?
posted by Don Pepino at 4:16 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
So glad I still have two 160GB iPod Classics :D
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:21 PM on January 29, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:21 PM on January 29, 2022 [16 favorites]
Ain't singin' for Miller
Don't sing for Bud
I won't sing for politicians
Ain't singin' for Spuds
This note's for you
posted by thecincinnatikid at 4:22 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Don't sing for Bud
I won't sing for politicians
Ain't singin' for Spuds
This note's for you
posted by thecincinnatikid at 4:22 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Anyone care to comment about the pros / cons of Deezer?
posted by adamvasco at 4:32 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by adamvasco at 4:32 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is why I have steadfastly resisted my spouse's periodic attempts to suggest "we could get rid of the CDs to save space". No. We are not doing that. We have already dumped the jewel cases and the CDs are taking up minimal space. And sometimes I really want to hear a particular version of a song.Rip them - it’ll take a couple days but I kept a stack next to my computer and fed them in while I was working but then I was able to jettison the CDs and not worry about my last player dying. At AAC 256-bit, the difference is indistinguishable even with great headphones – I used lossless for some classical and jazz but stopped after doing an A/B test.
The only downside is that my phone has enough music on it to crash some rental cars on startup.
posted by adamsc at 4:44 PM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
This kind of thing is why I'd rather outright buy my music than pay for streaming music. I technically have a Spotify account for a few podcasts (not Rogan!) and that's about it, I don't even use it for that much.
It'd be nice if they'd, I dunno, cut out his covid-wanker material from his shows, but that'd probably be even more drama, I suppose.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:53 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
It'd be nice if they'd, I dunno, cut out his covid-wanker material from his shows, but that'd probably be even more drama, I suppose.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:53 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
No way. Save the CDs. Files can always be lost, easy enough to keep the discs in binders. That's my move.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:12 PM on January 29, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:12 PM on January 29, 2022 [21 favorites]
I'm switching to Tidal, and may start to buy CDs and rip them to mp3 and use a Plex install to do the streaming.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:17 PM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:17 PM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Rolling Stone: Nils Lofgren Pulls Music From Spotify in Solidarity With Neil Young
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:29 PM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:29 PM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
We just dropped Spotify; I was always a little offput by how much Spotify wanted to push podcasts and Rogan specifically at me, given that I have other podcast apps I like just fine. But I'm glad to have the opportunity to make it count as an actual response to Rogan rather than just generic user churn.
We're auditioning both Deezer and Tidal (free trial for a month of the former; three months for a buck with the latter). So far I've noticed:
- Music streaming apps have all converged on basically the same design
- Tidal worked better with our Sonos system, like right-out-of-the-box and has features like play from the app that Deezer wouldn't support.
- At first glance, Deezer is doing a better job of suggesting music and making playlists.
Spotify actually did a good job in general of creating enjoyable playlists in my experience; especially compared to Tidal's "Welcome List" playlist. I suggested a semi-eclectic handful of artists and it's painfully obvious that the algorithm just slapped half a dozen recommendations for each artist sequentially in a playlist. It's like if I said I liked fried haddock and corn tortillas, and the chef just kept coming back with fried cod and fried pollock and blue corn tortillas without ever once having the penny drop that maybe I'd like fish tacos.
posted by Superilla at 5:35 PM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
We're auditioning both Deezer and Tidal (free trial for a month of the former; three months for a buck with the latter). So far I've noticed:
- Music streaming apps have all converged on basically the same design
- Tidal worked better with our Sonos system, like right-out-of-the-box and has features like play from the app that Deezer wouldn't support.
- At first glance, Deezer is doing a better job of suggesting music and making playlists.
Spotify actually did a good job in general of creating enjoyable playlists in my experience; especially compared to Tidal's "Welcome List" playlist. I suggested a semi-eclectic handful of artists and it's painfully obvious that the algorithm just slapped half a dozen recommendations for each artist sequentially in a playlist. It's like if I said I liked fried haddock and corn tortillas, and the chef just kept coming back with fried cod and fried pollock and blue corn tortillas without ever once having the penny drop that maybe I'd like fish tacos.
posted by Superilla at 5:35 PM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
Save the CDs. Files can always be lost, easy enough to keep the discs in binders. That's my move.
Most CDs have an unknown but finite number of reads/plays before they start noticeably degrading, especially if they've been exposed to heat and/or humidity.
If you presently have physical access to CDs and a CD drive, and you have no access to at least one hard drive or cloud storage account with copies of the same data, I would try to rip them sooner rather than later. The problem of "not losing files" is indeed quite hard, but more copies generally help.
posted by All Might Be Well at 5:36 PM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
Most CDs have an unknown but finite number of reads/plays before they start noticeably degrading, especially if they've been exposed to heat and/or humidity.
If you presently have physical access to CDs and a CD drive, and you have no access to at least one hard drive or cloud storage account with copies of the same data, I would try to rip them sooner rather than later. The problem of "not losing files" is indeed quite hard, but more copies generally help.
posted by All Might Be Well at 5:36 PM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
I think Millennials and Gen Z underestimate how much Gen X likes Neil Young. Neil had always been a major popularizer of guitar distortion and fuzztone, going back all the way to "Cinnamon Girl." His album Freedom, which came out in 1989, is almost like a precursor to the big grunge wave that happened two years later. Another thing that happened in 1989 was a huge Neil Young tribute album (The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young), which had contributions from The Flaming Lips, Soul Asylum, and the Pixies. Later, in 1991, Neil Young toured with Sonic Youth as his opening act, even though he knew it might alienate some of hippies fans. Kurt Cobain even quotes Neil Young in his suicide note! Then there's how Neil Young trolled David Geffen so hard that he got sued for it. At least among Gen Xers in the 1990s, Neil Young had a lot of credibility as an older generation musician who had a lot of integrity and wasn't a sellout.
posted by jonp72 at 5:43 PM on January 29, 2022 [42 favorites]
posted by jonp72 at 5:43 PM on January 29, 2022 [42 favorites]
Most CDs have an unknown but finite number of reads/plays before they start noticeably degrading, especially if they've been exposed to heat and/or humidity.
Yup. Still WELL worth it. Recovered music multiple times from CDs over 20 years old. Binders take up little space for me so it is an easy way to make sure I still own a copy.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:51 PM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
Yup. Still WELL worth it. Recovered music multiple times from CDs over 20 years old. Binders take up little space for me so it is an easy way to make sure I still own a copy.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:51 PM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
(Rarely buy NEW CDs though. Purchase more vinyl and digital files. Still use iPods on rickety, horrible iTunes. Don't know what's next. But I need to use my own files. And listen to them in portable format. And NO. ADVERTISEMENTS.)
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:01 PM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:01 PM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
Just cancelled my Spotify sub. Thanks, Neil, for leading the way... again.
in 2019 he went on to launch the massive Neil Young Archives
Thanks, NoxAeternum. Just signed up. Listening to Barn. Sigh of happiness.
posted by No Robots at 6:06 PM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
in 2019 he went on to launch the massive Neil Young Archives
Thanks, NoxAeternum. Just signed up. Listening to Barn. Sigh of happiness.
posted by No Robots at 6:06 PM on January 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
Brené Brown just announced on LinkedIn that she won’t be releasing any new podcast episodes until further notice. She has an exclusive deal with Spotify and just released a successful new book too. I’m looking forward to seeing the impact of all this.
mrs. mmascolino is not a very online person (and barely recalls who Joe Rogan is) but she is a big Brené Brown fan. So she was mystified when out of context, her hairdresser texted her the statement that Brown released to LinkedIn. She initially thought that Brown might have been having personal issues but then I quickly filled in the JRE/Spotify backstory.
It is crazy now how this is now hitting normie people. It really could go all sorts of directions.
posted by mmascolino at 6:35 PM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
mrs. mmascolino is not a very online person (and barely recalls who Joe Rogan is) but she is a big Brené Brown fan. So she was mystified when out of context, her hairdresser texted her the statement that Brown released to LinkedIn. She initially thought that Brown might have been having personal issues but then I quickly filled in the JRE/Spotify backstory.
It is crazy now how this is now hitting normie people. It really could go all sorts of directions.
posted by mmascolino at 6:35 PM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
Most CDs have an unknown but finite number of reads/plays before they start noticeably degrading, especially if they've been exposed to heat and/or humidity.
That's OK. I still have all my vinyl for backup.
posted by FencingGal at 6:42 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
That's OK. I still have all my vinyl for backup.
posted by FencingGal at 6:42 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
mrs. mmascolino is not a very online person (and barely recalls who Joe Rogan is) but she is a big Brené Brown fan. So she was mystified when out of context, her hairdresser texted her the statement that Brown released to LinkedIn.
Honestly I think that releasing a statement on LinkedIn might be way more online than Joe Rogan…
posted by Going To Maine at 6:59 PM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
Honestly I think that releasing a statement on LinkedIn might be way more online than Joe Rogan…
posted by Going To Maine at 6:59 PM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
It would be interesting to see what happens if Spotify "has to" drop JRE through the various pressures being applied. As far as I know, the terms of that contract are very non-public, but I can imagine that there would be significant penalties for either side for major breaches or full withdrawal from the contract.
I can't see being dropped as hurting Rogan in any significant way - if Spotify is the party in breach, I'd imagine they would have to leave all or most of the deal money on the table.
That would essentially mean a return to the way things were before for JRE - i.e. back to distribution on all the main podcast platforms and video sites. If anything, the return to a non-exclusive distribution model might even boost his numbers and reach, since I recall reading that those numbers actually decreased when he went Spotify-exclusive.
posted by theorique at 7:02 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
I can't see being dropped as hurting Rogan in any significant way - if Spotify is the party in breach, I'd imagine they would have to leave all or most of the deal money on the table.
That would essentially mean a return to the way things were before for JRE - i.e. back to distribution on all the main podcast platforms and video sites. If anything, the return to a non-exclusive distribution model might even boost his numbers and reach, since I recall reading that those numbers actually decreased when he went Spotify-exclusive.
posted by theorique at 7:02 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think Millennials and Gen Z underestimate how much Gen X likes Neil Young.
I think Neil Young is pretty popular with Millennials, too - in the way of “your favorite millennial musician’s favorite 60s musician,” anyway. Joe Rogan is huge, though. I wouldn’t bet on Young “winning” this fight and even if Spotify dropped Rogan, Rogan would be fine. But I’m happy to see people fuck with Spotify for many reasons.
posted by atoxyl at 7:55 PM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
I think Neil Young is pretty popular with Millennials, too - in the way of “your favorite millennial musician’s favorite 60s musician,” anyway. Joe Rogan is huge, though. I wouldn’t bet on Young “winning” this fight and even if Spotify dropped Rogan, Rogan would be fine. But I’m happy to see people fuck with Spotify for many reasons.
posted by atoxyl at 7:55 PM on January 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
logically i know this is a function of my own skewed perceptions but nevertheless i am enjoying the ephemeral, fleeting feeling that this winter has been a season where reasonable, sensible people are coming together and saying "you know what? you're sick of this shit, and i'm sick of it too," learning ways to push back against the bullshit merchants that have run rampant for the past half-decade or so, aided and abetted by so many rent-seekers, liars, grifters and scammers that at times has felt like we have been living in a post-singularity. let us crush the cryptobros and disendow the gatekeepers. work hard and support your artists directly in the best way you can.
let us not forget this feeling. let not our names be writ on water.
one day i know the dam will collapse and we will be the current
posted by glonous keming at 8:01 PM on January 29, 2022 [21 favorites]
let us not forget this feeling. let not our names be writ on water.
one day i know the dam will collapse and we will be the current
posted by glonous keming at 8:01 PM on January 29, 2022 [21 favorites]
Variety says Spotify has lost about two billion dollars in the last three days. I find it hard to believe that's all because Neil Young publicly took a shit on them, but I do think the issues exposed by Neil Young publicly taking a shit on them probably did not help matters any. Spotify isn't providing a service that competitors can't match, for the most part, and if people start to feel like Spotify is some kind of right wing, anti-vax haven, it's gonna cost them.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:48 PM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:48 PM on January 29, 2022 [12 favorites]
Variety says Spotify has lost about two billion dollars in the last three days
I was going to make a joke about how much money they lose daily anyway but that’s two billion in stock value which is a different thing.
posted by atoxyl at 9:09 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was going to make a joke about how much money they lose daily anyway but that’s two billion in stock value which is a different thing.
posted by atoxyl at 9:09 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Canadians, eh?
posted by clawsoon at 9:16 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 9:16 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Soulseek is where the action is
posted by porn in the woods at 9:36 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by porn in the woods at 9:36 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
I wish we could just go back to the innocent Napster days before Covid, when we could all hate on Metallica.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:00 PM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:00 PM on January 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
jonp72: "I think Millennials and Gen Z underestimate how much Gen X likes Neil Young."
Also MTV declared him the Godfather of Grunge and Pearl Jam was his backing band at the music video awards.
posted by team lowkey at 10:32 PM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
Also MTV declared him the Godfather of Grunge and Pearl Jam was his backing band at the music video awards.
posted by team lowkey at 10:32 PM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
is probably going to motivate me to finally go back to my 15 year old mp3 collection
I never got on any of these "let us manage your catalogue and sell you music" deals because it just seemed way easier to have a folder of mp3s on my drive.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:46 PM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
I never got on any of these "let us manage your catalogue and sell you music" deals because it just seemed way easier to have a folder of mp3s on my drive.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:46 PM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
I wonder if the group Sleeping Giants will put pressure on the companies that promote JR?
On Twitter they have said:
It has never been about free speech.
It has always been about amplifying and monetizing speech that previously would have never made it past an obscure message board.
and:
Ten bucks says that 10 significant musical artists will leave
@spotify
by next Friday.
Sleeping Giants
@slpng_giants
posted by RuvaBlue at 12:03 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
On Twitter they have said:
It has never been about free speech.
It has always been about amplifying and monetizing speech that previously would have never made it past an obscure message board.
and:
Ten bucks says that 10 significant musical artists will leave
@spotify
by next Friday.
Sleeping Giants
@slpng_giants
posted by RuvaBlue at 12:03 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I've had a paid Spotify account for years now, and many, many curated playlists that I listen to often.
I just cancelled my paid account, after a couple of days of thinking about it. I just cannot support a company that supports Joe Rogan. So now I've downloaded Amazon Music (i already have a Prime account), and Hoopla for my music needs.
posted by spinifex23 at 12:23 AM on January 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I just cancelled my paid account, after a couple of days of thinking about it. I just cannot support a company that supports Joe Rogan. So now I've downloaded Amazon Music (i already have a Prime account), and Hoopla for my music needs.
posted by spinifex23 at 12:23 AM on January 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
If you want access to interesting music, the Australian government broadcaster, abc.net.au, is an absolute gem.
Well curated, knowledgeable discussion - more power to them.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 1:01 AM on January 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
Well curated, knowledgeable discussion - more power to them.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 1:01 AM on January 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
I've never had unlimited data, so I'm still in the dark ages of listening to the jillions of mp3s I've either bought or "acquired". I use iTunes Match ($25/year) when I'm at home to stream everything in my iTunes library from my phone. I don't use Apple Music (or whatever its Spotify competitor is called). Anyway, if you want a Spotify alternative, that's been working for me. And glad to see so many people here love Bandcamp! (And Soulseek, lol.)
Is there any guide to setting up Plex for folks like me who are not at all tech-savvy? Most how-tos I've seen have been kind of intimidating.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 1:19 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Is there any guide to setting up Plex for folks like me who are not at all tech-savvy? Most how-tos I've seen have been kind of intimidating.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 1:19 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
For anyone interested in setting up a home music server for your own collection, I recommend Emby over Plex.
posted by PhineasGage at 2:52 AM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 2:52 AM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Kurt Cobain even quotes Neil Young in his suicide note!
Which led to the Young/Crazy Horse 1994 tribute song/album Sleeps With Angels. “When he died and left that note, it struck a deep chord inside of me,” Young admitted to NME in 2012. “It fucked with me.”
This article gives more backstory and details on the Young/Grunge connection for anyone interested going down that rabbit hole.
posted by jeremias at 3:22 AM on January 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Which led to the Young/Crazy Horse 1994 tribute song/album Sleeps With Angels. “When he died and left that note, it struck a deep chord inside of me,” Young admitted to NME in 2012. “It fucked with me.”
This article gives more backstory and details on the Young/Grunge connection for anyone interested going down that rabbit hole.
posted by jeremias at 3:22 AM on January 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
With thanks to gingerbeer over in AskMe How to Break Up with Spotify
posted by adamvasco at 4:44 AM on January 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by adamvasco at 4:44 AM on January 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
....Question for Tidal users:
I've saved entire albums in my Spotify library. Does Tidal let you save those as well?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:12 AM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've saved entire albums in my Spotify library. Does Tidal let you save those as well?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:12 AM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
We have a family account and will be canceling. We had a good family discussion about it yesterday, and touched on a lot of things already discussed in this thread. But it came down to:
* The exclusive deal with Rogan is effectively an endorsement of his views. They don't merely carry a bunch of podcasts and Rogan's happens to be one of many - they sought him out, they prop him up.
* Aside from Rogan's shitty views / statements, we signed up because we want the music features of Spotify. Their focus on podcasts has made Spotify objectively worse for people who just want to listen to music on the platform. This is merely the proverbial straw for me - I've been annoyed with Spotify shoving podcasts in my face for some time, but when we talked about that + how shitty it is that Spotify effectively endorses Rogan, the fam agreed to kill off the subscription.
* Maybe cancelling will have some tiny effect on Spotify, maybe it won't. But we won't be effectively funding Rogan's show. God knows we have little faith that much of our money is going to artists anyway, but however Spotify divvies up the spoils we can at least take our little contribution away.
* We also have a family subscription to all the Apple stuff (Music, iCloud, Arcade, etc.) but have stayed with Spotify because playlists and inertia. Our resident teen is sad to lose the exchange of playlists with friends, but really really dislikes funding Rogan...
(For myself, I have a ridiculous amount of CDs ripped / to rip + north of 1,000 albums via Bandcamp. But my family isn't going to fuss with Plex, etc.)
@pelvicsourcery: "Is there any guide to setting up Plex for folks like me who are not at all tech-savvy? Most how-tos I've seen have been kind of intimidating."
This depends a lot on what platform you're on (Windows, macOS, Linux) and whether you want to serve music across the Internet or just on your own network or just your local computer. Feel free to MeMail me and I can try to give more guidance. If you're just dealing with one computer + not serving music outside your network, it will involve installing a single package and doing some setup via a Web interface, IIRC. You'll also need a Plex account.
posted by jzb at 5:32 AM on January 30, 2022 [13 favorites]
* The exclusive deal with Rogan is effectively an endorsement of his views. They don't merely carry a bunch of podcasts and Rogan's happens to be one of many - they sought him out, they prop him up.
* Aside from Rogan's shitty views / statements, we signed up because we want the music features of Spotify. Their focus on podcasts has made Spotify objectively worse for people who just want to listen to music on the platform. This is merely the proverbial straw for me - I've been annoyed with Spotify shoving podcasts in my face for some time, but when we talked about that + how shitty it is that Spotify effectively endorses Rogan, the fam agreed to kill off the subscription.
* Maybe cancelling will have some tiny effect on Spotify, maybe it won't. But we won't be effectively funding Rogan's show. God knows we have little faith that much of our money is going to artists anyway, but however Spotify divvies up the spoils we can at least take our little contribution away.
* We also have a family subscription to all the Apple stuff (Music, iCloud, Arcade, etc.) but have stayed with Spotify because playlists and inertia. Our resident teen is sad to lose the exchange of playlists with friends, but really really dislikes funding Rogan...
(For myself, I have a ridiculous amount of CDs ripped / to rip + north of 1,000 albums via Bandcamp. But my family isn't going to fuss with Plex, etc.)
@pelvicsourcery: "Is there any guide to setting up Plex for folks like me who are not at all tech-savvy? Most how-tos I've seen have been kind of intimidating."
This depends a lot on what platform you're on (Windows, macOS, Linux) and whether you want to serve music across the Internet or just on your own network or just your local computer. Feel free to MeMail me and I can try to give more guidance. If you're just dealing with one computer + not serving music outside your network, it will involve installing a single package and doing some setup via a Web interface, IIRC. You'll also need a Plex account.
posted by jzb at 5:32 AM on January 30, 2022 [13 favorites]
My recommendation for music-streaming service, which I'll admit is (1) probably a little problematic and (2) Apple-device-centric but really nice in a lot of ways if you can get around that:
Apple offers a little-known service called iTunes Match. It costs $25/year, I think, and the way it works is: it scans your music collection, sees whether it has it in its music store, and, if so, it essentially gives you a store copy of whatever songs and albums you've added. If it's not in its music store, though, it uploads a copy of your music to its cloud, so you can stream or download it wherever you see fit.
First of all, it makes for a great music-laundering service if you've acquired music by, ahem, other means.
Second, it means you have a streaming service available in the form of Apple Music, but can also keep track of the music you actually own, even if it's not music that Apple itself can sell. (Which is great if you, like me, buy a lot of weird shit on Bandcamp.)
Third, regardless of whether the music is your uploaded copy or Apple's store version, you can choose to download as much of it as you want, in lossless DRM-free file format.
What this means practically speaking is that, every year or two, I batch-download my music library, move it into other kinds of storage (a couple of cloud drives, and a hard drive or two), and otherwise treat it like a streaming service that happens to only play my songs. I personally don't use Apple Music, since I prefer to pay for stuff whenever I can, so it really is just a cloud library made up of me, with music recommendations by also-me (and The Quietus, mainly). If Apple's data center goes down someday, I'll still have all my music, and in the meantime, I get a lot of convenience without much fiddling.
The downside, again, is that this only works if you mainly just use Apple devices; I do that already, so for me it's fantastic. If you're in a similar situation, I highly recommend iTunes Match! And if you're into streaming, I hear that Apple Music is mainly pretty okay, though that's not one I can personally corroborate.
posted by rorgy at 6:21 AM on January 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
Apple offers a little-known service called iTunes Match. It costs $25/year, I think, and the way it works is: it scans your music collection, sees whether it has it in its music store, and, if so, it essentially gives you a store copy of whatever songs and albums you've added. If it's not in its music store, though, it uploads a copy of your music to its cloud, so you can stream or download it wherever you see fit.
First of all, it makes for a great music-laundering service if you've acquired music by, ahem, other means.
Second, it means you have a streaming service available in the form of Apple Music, but can also keep track of the music you actually own, even if it's not music that Apple itself can sell. (Which is great if you, like me, buy a lot of weird shit on Bandcamp.)
Third, regardless of whether the music is your uploaded copy or Apple's store version, you can choose to download as much of it as you want, in lossless DRM-free file format.
What this means practically speaking is that, every year or two, I batch-download my music library, move it into other kinds of storage (a couple of cloud drives, and a hard drive or two), and otherwise treat it like a streaming service that happens to only play my songs. I personally don't use Apple Music, since I prefer to pay for stuff whenever I can, so it really is just a cloud library made up of me, with music recommendations by also-me (and The Quietus, mainly). If Apple's data center goes down someday, I'll still have all my music, and in the meantime, I get a lot of convenience without much fiddling.
The downside, again, is that this only works if you mainly just use Apple devices; I do that already, so for me it's fantastic. If you're in a similar situation, I highly recommend iTunes Match! And if you're into streaming, I hear that Apple Music is mainly pretty okay, though that's not one I can personally corroborate.
posted by rorgy at 6:21 AM on January 30, 2022 [9 favorites]
Thank you for that, adamvasco and gingerbeer!
Just got through closing my Spotify account and moving over to Tidal.
posted by minsies at 6:42 AM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Just got through closing my Spotify account and moving over to Tidal.
posted by minsies at 6:42 AM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
rorgy: I use both and can confirm that they work well together. I have a ton of music I got off of indie labels, bandcamp, the old eMusic, the official MP3 releases SXSW used to do, etc. and iTunes Match handles that quite well. I use Apple Music for discovery and buy albums from the ones I find myself listening to a lot.
Given that lowest quality tier in Apple Music is CD quality I’ve lost interest in trying to source alternate formats but iTunes Match did a good job with sound soundboard recordings I got from the surprisingly large collection on the Internet Archive.
posted by adamsc at 6:44 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Given that lowest quality tier in Apple Music is CD quality I’ve lost interest in trying to source alternate formats but iTunes Match did a good job with sound soundboard recordings I got from the surprisingly large collection on the Internet Archive.
posted by adamsc at 6:44 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Just chiming in to say, as someone whose music library has been inextricably linked to Spotify for like 10 years, and who relied on its algorithm to find new music I like, I cancelled a couple of months ago and yeah, at first it sucked, but now I don't even miss it really. I definitely don't miss the 300mbps or whatever their upper limit was for music quality. So you can do it too, if you're on the fence. Right now I'm using a free trial of Apple Music (there's a ton of ways to get an extended free trial, Best Buy for example is offering for 6 months free and yes, you can use Apple Music on Android devices and Windows as well) but after it runs out I will probably switch to Tidal.
posted by microscopiclifeform at 6:53 AM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by microscopiclifeform at 6:53 AM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Spotify's quirks were already driving me crazy. (Did you like that song? You did? Here it is again, you didn't. Now you've liked it two times.)
It really was not in their best interest to give me a great reason to try something else.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:58 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
It really was not in their best interest to give me a great reason to try something else.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:58 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
It has never been about free speech.Free speech is whether the government will allow you to say it without being arrested. Society is still welcome to make stuff taboo and the presence of those who would say it unwanted because of personal preference. You can't have a right of free association without being able to say no just as much as yes.
It has always been about amplifying and monetizing speech that previously would have never made it past an obscure message board.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:59 AM on January 30, 2022 [21 favorites]
Is there any kind of running list of artists that are pulling their music from Spotify? I keep seeing various people trending on Twitter with non-verified accounts saying things like "Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, etc..." have pulled their music but I can find no reliable sources confirming it.
posted by bondcliff at 7:53 AM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 7:53 AM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I signed up for Spotify a few years ago when they offered me a deal, Spotify and Hulu bundled for $10/mo. Turns out I didn't really like Hulu, but until this Rogan thing I was just too lazy to quit. I've never been a big fan of Neil Young but I have similar views, so when he left Spotify for what I considered a sterling reason, it gave me the impetus I needed to get up off my lazy ass and quit. Since then I've been looking into the alternatives. Deezer seems pretty solid, for $15/mo they'll stream in a lossless format and even let you download anything you like, in that format. I don't really want to spend that much though. I'm quite intrigued by the Apple Match service. I remember when it came out, I thought it was completely silly. Why would I have apple upload all of my music, when I already have it? Since then, having gotten used to the convenience of streaming, I get it. I happen to be super lucky, in that my roommate is an obsessive music downloader and we have something north of 12T of music. Some of you, I'm sure are laughing at what is probably a tiny amount to you. It make take some time for it to all get uploaded to the cloud. However at $25/yr it seems like the perfect answer to me.
posted by evilDoug at 8:29 AM on January 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by evilDoug at 8:29 AM on January 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
Here's another plug for the public library system as purveyor.
1. LA County Public Library has a subscription with Freegal - unlimited streams, 5 downloads per week - so I have been able to listen to newer releases like Fiona Apple or Adele's and download the tracks I've gotten obsessed with. It has the same problem as all streaming services in that some tracks are inexplicably unavailable.
2. Some libraries still have cds in their lending collection! This is how I got a copy of U2's The Joshua Tree in time for a road trip to Joshua Tree National Park. Yes, I am corny as hell.
3. The friends of the library bookstore almost will certainly sell cds. Three for a dollar at my local library. Some of these will be de-accessioned (officially removed from the circulation) cds and others will be donated cds.
I acquired a mobile cd player back in 2018, also known as a 2013 model car, so have really been very excited to get surprise albums (most recently acquired is the one Primal Scream album I had in high school). I am sad but not surprised that leaving cds in your car in summer heat is bad for the cds. I'll have to back up the most beloved ones as mp3s.
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:06 AM on January 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
1. LA County Public Library has a subscription with Freegal - unlimited streams, 5 downloads per week - so I have been able to listen to newer releases like Fiona Apple or Adele's and download the tracks I've gotten obsessed with. It has the same problem as all streaming services in that some tracks are inexplicably unavailable.
2. Some libraries still have cds in their lending collection! This is how I got a copy of U2's The Joshua Tree in time for a road trip to Joshua Tree National Park. Yes, I am corny as hell.
3. The friends of the library bookstore almost will certainly sell cds. Three for a dollar at my local library. Some of these will be de-accessioned (officially removed from the circulation) cds and others will be donated cds.
I acquired a mobile cd player back in 2018, also known as a 2013 model car, so have really been very excited to get surprise albums (most recently acquired is the one Primal Scream album I had in high school). I am sad but not surprised that leaving cds in your car in summer heat is bad for the cds. I'll have to back up the most beloved ones as mp3s.
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:06 AM on January 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Tucker Carlson is on Twitter, but that does not make Twitter just as bad as Fox* because they both offer him a platform. This is the difference between Rogan on Spotify and problematic podcasts on other providers which act as general podcast libraries.
I left Spotify before it was cool, because of Rogan having Alex Jones on. I missed it for a while, but that passed quickly.
* On this specific subject. Not an invitation to compare the badness of Twitter and Fox in general.
posted by Nothing at 10:11 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I left Spotify before it was cool, because of Rogan having Alex Jones on. I missed it for a while, but that passed quickly.
* On this specific subject. Not an invitation to compare the badness of Twitter and Fox in general.
posted by Nothing at 10:11 AM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Belly (Tanya Donelly’s ‘90s band) released a statement about how hard it can be to remove music from Spotify.
posted by pxe2000 at 10:39 AM on January 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by pxe2000 at 10:39 AM on January 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
I’m still an iPod classic adherent. I’ve got about 24,000 mp3/m4a files on the computer, from a zillion sources. I had a large CD collection already when the iPod came out, and one of my favorite things to do is to go browse the used bin at Half Price. I have bought a lot of downloads through iTunes, but I don’t subscribe to Apple’s streaming service.
I do subscribe to Resonate, and while it seems like a good platform, it’s incipient in that only relatively obscure unsigned acts seem to be taking to it so far and the quality of the music on random can be very spotty. I have turned up a few things I like, but it’s annoying when my pre-paid balance dwindles because I can’t hit the fast-forward button quick enough.
Bandcamp is my other fave. I don’t stream content from there, again because I have downloaded it, but I do appreciate that artists upload full CD quality uncompressed files, and when I buy, I’m able to download the same. So I keep all my Bandcamp downloads as .aif files, and convert them to .m4a files in iTunes. I also appreciate that 85% of the money I spend on Bandcamp (100% on Bandcamp Fridays!) goes to the artist. I think I made more on Bandcamp in 2019 than Andy Partridge did on Spotify.
I have never had a Spotify account, either as an artist or a listener & my only regret is that therefore, I can’t cancel it.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:01 AM on January 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
I do subscribe to Resonate, and while it seems like a good platform, it’s incipient in that only relatively obscure unsigned acts seem to be taking to it so far and the quality of the music on random can be very spotty. I have turned up a few things I like, but it’s annoying when my pre-paid balance dwindles because I can’t hit the fast-forward button quick enough.
Bandcamp is my other fave. I don’t stream content from there, again because I have downloaded it, but I do appreciate that artists upload full CD quality uncompressed files, and when I buy, I’m able to download the same. So I keep all my Bandcamp downloads as .aif files, and convert them to .m4a files in iTunes. I also appreciate that 85% of the money I spend on Bandcamp (100% on Bandcamp Fridays!) goes to the artist. I think I made more on Bandcamp in 2019 than Andy Partridge did on Spotify.
I have never had a Spotify account, either as an artist or a listener & my only regret is that therefore, I can’t cancel it.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:01 AM on January 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
Spotify has decided their answer is to put a content advisory on any COVID-19 content.
posted by msbutah at 1:05 PM on January 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by msbutah at 1:05 PM on January 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Belly (Tanya Donelly’s ‘90s band) released a statement about how hard it can be to remove music from Spotify.
It’s tricky. If you have your music on there through DistroKid, here’s how. You have to email them which releases you want taken off and apparently it takes a few weeks.
posted by chococat at 1:18 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
It’s tricky. If you have your music on there through DistroKid, here’s how. You have to email them which releases you want taken off and apparently it takes a few weeks.
posted by chococat at 1:18 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
TIL (completely coincidentally) that Neil Young is a polio survivor and the song ‘Helpless’ is about being confined in an isolation ward during the 1951 Ontario polio outbreak.
posted by bq at 1:21 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by bq at 1:21 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
This has been giving me so much stress. I first started a paid subscription to Spotify after a person made some cool playlists for a fanfic of mine. Mostly I loved them--the Discover Weekly had this unerring ability to pick stuff I loved and I was finding so much cool new music (especially when combined with my car radio listens of KEXP and C89), plus my friend's playlists were there and they meant so, so much to me, because no one had ever responded to something I wrote like that before.
But after building a few playlists of my own, which included a couple singer-songwriters, I saw what someone mentioned above: I could NOT get them to stop recommending acoustic shit I hated and it seemed as though goddamn Jack Johnson and Dave fucking Matthews became inescapable, those two and Jason Mraz or whatever were on every.single.thing I tried to listen to. No amount of skipping would get rid of them. Then it decided that all I wanted to listen to was Christmas music. WTF. It seemed trapped in this "Well, you listened to holiday tunes/acoustic this one time, so that must be what you care about" loop. It ignored every EDM or blues tune.
So I started thinking about getting rid of Spotify, but those playlists kept me there because I didn't want to lose them. All these other services that I'd built playlists on like 8Tracks had vanished, and I don't feel super confident that any service wasn't going to die off like so many others, except Apple. So I've just had ennui about changing anything.
But then recently I wanted to listen to the Finn Brothers' various incarnations, and neither Spotify nor Apple Music (which I had another free trial of because I'd had to get a new phone) had much of their stuff, the catalogs are incredibly limited, and I was so frustrated. All my CDs are in plastic tubs in the garage because of a house remodel and I never had the space to put thousands of CDs anywhere, and I just don't have the physical strength to lift them anyway to find what I want. I never got around to ripping a lot of what I used to listen to on my system, and now I don't have a dvd drive on my computer. Streaming just felt easier, despite the missing music.
It all feels like way too much. I can't seem to find a way to see if Tidal has more of the Finns without signing up, so I guess I'll give it a free try, and see if I can export my Spotify lists. I had NO idea they'd done that deal with Rogan, I just thought Spotify was pushing podcasts at me in such a gross way because I'd listened to a single podcast there when my regular player wasn't working. I don't really want to keep supporting Spotify financially if they're putting that money to platforming him so majorly.
I was never impressed with Apple Music and found it somewhat more irritating, but I'm intrigued by the matching version. I just don't have the spoons nor the actual time or money to go around investigating streaming services, but I also don't have the time to deal with my own library's limitations now (I lost a shitload of stuff in a crash years ago, and just...each time I look at my library I get depressed about filling it back out). So all this anxiety about moving, supporting, changing (and yeah, the cost, because I'm poor)...it's really not something I can handle right now. I didn't even know who joe rogan was till a couple years ago, but I sure don't want to support businesses that pay him millions of dollars to spew his fetid shit.
Ugh. This is so anxiety-provoking.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 1:24 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
But after building a few playlists of my own, which included a couple singer-songwriters, I saw what someone mentioned above: I could NOT get them to stop recommending acoustic shit I hated and it seemed as though goddamn Jack Johnson and Dave fucking Matthews became inescapable, those two and Jason Mraz or whatever were on every.single.thing I tried to listen to. No amount of skipping would get rid of them. Then it decided that all I wanted to listen to was Christmas music. WTF. It seemed trapped in this "Well, you listened to holiday tunes/acoustic this one time, so that must be what you care about" loop. It ignored every EDM or blues tune.
So I started thinking about getting rid of Spotify, but those playlists kept me there because I didn't want to lose them. All these other services that I'd built playlists on like 8Tracks had vanished, and I don't feel super confident that any service wasn't going to die off like so many others, except Apple. So I've just had ennui about changing anything.
But then recently I wanted to listen to the Finn Brothers' various incarnations, and neither Spotify nor Apple Music (which I had another free trial of because I'd had to get a new phone) had much of their stuff, the catalogs are incredibly limited, and I was so frustrated. All my CDs are in plastic tubs in the garage because of a house remodel and I never had the space to put thousands of CDs anywhere, and I just don't have the physical strength to lift them anyway to find what I want. I never got around to ripping a lot of what I used to listen to on my system, and now I don't have a dvd drive on my computer. Streaming just felt easier, despite the missing music.
It all feels like way too much. I can't seem to find a way to see if Tidal has more of the Finns without signing up, so I guess I'll give it a free try, and see if I can export my Spotify lists. I had NO idea they'd done that deal with Rogan, I just thought Spotify was pushing podcasts at me in such a gross way because I'd listened to a single podcast there when my regular player wasn't working. I don't really want to keep supporting Spotify financially if they're putting that money to platforming him so majorly.
I was never impressed with Apple Music and found it somewhat more irritating, but I'm intrigued by the matching version. I just don't have the spoons nor the actual time or money to go around investigating streaming services, but I also don't have the time to deal with my own library's limitations now (I lost a shitload of stuff in a crash years ago, and just...each time I look at my library I get depressed about filling it back out). So all this anxiety about moving, supporting, changing (and yeah, the cost, because I'm poor)...it's really not something I can handle right now. I didn't even know who joe rogan was till a couple years ago, but I sure don't want to support businesses that pay him millions of dollars to spew his fetid shit.
Ugh. This is so anxiety-provoking.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 1:24 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
> Spotify has decided their answer is to put a content advisory on any COVID-19 content.
Somehow worse than doing nothing. Teach the controversy!
posted by tonycpsu at 1:26 PM on January 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
Somehow worse than doing nothing. Teach the controversy!
posted by tonycpsu at 1:26 PM on January 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
Both Joni and Neil know David Crosby very well - they are presumably well aware of the damage a clueless shithead can cause unless challenged.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 2:52 PM on January 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by thatwhichfalls at 2:52 PM on January 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
I'm cheap, so I've never paid for spotify. Its free app gets the job done, though the commercials can be annoying. It's mostly background while I'm working, so I don't even notice them half the time.
It's interesting to me that Pandora is still also a thing, though it's rarely mentioned anymore. I stream Pandora quite a lot on the free version, and almost never hear a commercial. Their algorithms aren't great, as I rarely hear anything new anymore, but it's an easy set-it-and-forget-it source of background music. It's not a finite playlist like spotify, so it doesn't repeat or stop.
posted by hydra77 at 3:38 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
It's interesting to me that Pandora is still also a thing, though it's rarely mentioned anymore. I stream Pandora quite a lot on the free version, and almost never hear a commercial. Their algorithms aren't great, as I rarely hear anything new anymore, but it's an easy set-it-and-forget-it source of background music. It's not a finite playlist like spotify, so it doesn't repeat or stop.
posted by hydra77 at 3:38 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm fascinated by the business-decision-making process that led Spotify to say, "You know what? We SHOULD give a $100 million contract to a guy who's in the news all the time for controversial shit, who has been namechecked by SPLC's Hatewatch, and who is named in just about every paper about the algorithmic radicalization of young men into white supremacy as a primary gateway. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?"
Like, what exactly was the plan for monetizing Joe Rogan fans? What other content was Spotify intending on serving them, that they would stay and listen to? Because we know from YouTube, et al, that most of his fans stick around for racial rage-bait, and that's where the profits are.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:25 PM on January 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
Like, what exactly was the plan for monetizing Joe Rogan fans? What other content was Spotify intending on serving them, that they would stay and listen to? Because we know from YouTube, et al, that most of his fans stick around for racial rage-bait, and that's where the profits are.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:25 PM on January 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
It has never been about free speech.
It has always been about amplifying and monetizing speech that previously would have never made it past an obscure message board.
The thing is, Spotify didn't just pluck out and elevate some random weirdo who happened to have an oddball podcast talking about MMA, fitness, self-growth, conspiracies and comedy (among other things - these were just the first topics that came to mind). JRE was already a massively popular podcast that had a track record of significant advertising sponsorship for many years.
If JRE was actually "speech that previously would have never made it past an obscure message board", then ... it would never have made it past an obscure message board. Spotify apparently made Rogan an offer he couldn't rationally refuse, but it's not like they created an audience for him out of nothing. The causation goes in the opposite direction - Spotify made him such an offer specifically because his audience already existed.
posted by theorique at 5:41 PM on January 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
It has always been about amplifying and monetizing speech that previously would have never made it past an obscure message board.
The thing is, Spotify didn't just pluck out and elevate some random weirdo who happened to have an oddball podcast talking about MMA, fitness, self-growth, conspiracies and comedy (among other things - these were just the first topics that came to mind). JRE was already a massively popular podcast that had a track record of significant advertising sponsorship for many years.
If JRE was actually "speech that previously would have never made it past an obscure message board", then ... it would never have made it past an obscure message board. Spotify apparently made Rogan an offer he couldn't rationally refuse, but it's not like they created an audience for him out of nothing. The causation goes in the opposite direction - Spotify made him such an offer specifically because his audience already existed.
posted by theorique at 5:41 PM on January 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
Rogan already had millions and millions of listeners across a wide range of demographics and psychographics. MetaFilter isn't the world.
posted by PhineasGage at 5:45 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 5:45 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Right, the point is, Spotify KNOWS how Joe Rogan has previously monetized himself/been monetized by other platforms. What was their plan for making money off his fans? Because everywhere else, the "plan" (or at least the outcome) has been "feed them more and worse white supremacy." Rogan is a known quantity, his fans are a known quantity, and what algorithms serve his fans is a known quantity. What did Spotify think it could do differently, that was worth $100M? Or was Spotify hoping to quietly serve up white supremacy and hope nobody noticed?
Hosting Joe Rogan isn't a bizarre business decision, but spending $100M for exclusive rights to him is, because somewhere they had a plan to make money off that. Was Spotify's plan to replicate what YouTube, Facebook, et al, did to make money off Rogan? Or did it have a radically different plan that involved a different audience? A new audience? Changing the tastes of his current audience?
PR kerfuffles resulting from hosting Rogan were totally foreseeable, and surely Spotify's due diligence involved looking at Rogan's prior public dust-ups. They still thought it was worth $100M, and still thought they could make money off this. Was the plan incredibly stupid? Or was it actively sinister?
I literally cannot think of what the business plan was to "make money off a $100M deal with Joe Rogan" that doesn't involve "replicating Rogan's prior financial successes," which means catering to some people with really, really ugly opinions and tastes.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:56 PM on January 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
Hosting Joe Rogan isn't a bizarre business decision, but spending $100M for exclusive rights to him is, because somewhere they had a plan to make money off that. Was Spotify's plan to replicate what YouTube, Facebook, et al, did to make money off Rogan? Or did it have a radically different plan that involved a different audience? A new audience? Changing the tastes of his current audience?
PR kerfuffles resulting from hosting Rogan were totally foreseeable, and surely Spotify's due diligence involved looking at Rogan's prior public dust-ups. They still thought it was worth $100M, and still thought they could make money off this. Was the plan incredibly stupid? Or was it actively sinister?
I literally cannot think of what the business plan was to "make money off a $100M deal with Joe Rogan" that doesn't involve "replicating Rogan's prior financial successes," which means catering to some people with really, really ugly opinions and tastes.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:56 PM on January 30, 2022 [11 favorites]
Is there a list anywhere of the artists who have left Spotify because of Rogan? We know about Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Nils Longren, any others?
I read on Twitter that Brené Brown is pausing her podcasts on Spotify because of #values This has ignited a firestorm in the comments on that tweet between those who believe that she should go further, and remove her content, and those who believe that she is censoring her programming.
posted by seawallrunner at 6:04 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I read on Twitter that Brené Brown is pausing her podcasts on Spotify because of #values This has ignited a firestorm in the comments on that tweet between those who believe that she should go further, and remove her content, and those who believe that she is censoring her programming.
posted by seawallrunner at 6:04 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I genuinely don't understand the puzzlement about the economics of Spotify's Rogan deal. The vast majority of the millions of Rogan listeners before he came to Spotify were not Proud Boys nor even adjacent. Selling ads to be aired to his mainstream listeners, and turning a percentage of them into paying Spotify subscribers, adds up to a ton of revenue.
MetaFilter's horror and fury at Rogan and a few of his guests isn't shared by most people, and most of his comments, guests, and listeners are well within the mainstream of American culture. You couldn't even pay anyone here to listen to Rogan, but we should have no trouble understanding the basic arithmetic.
posted by PhineasGage at 6:20 PM on January 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
MetaFilter's horror and fury at Rogan and a few of his guests isn't shared by most people, and most of his comments, guests, and listeners are well within the mainstream of American culture. You couldn't even pay anyone here to listen to Rogan, but we should have no trouble understanding the basic arithmetic.
posted by PhineasGage at 6:20 PM on January 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
"I genuinely don't understand the puzzlement about the economics of Spotify's Rogan deal. The vast majority of the millions of Rogan listeners before he came to Spotify were not Proud Boys nor even adjacent. Selling ads to be aired to his mainstream listeners, and turning a percentage of them into paying Spotify subscribers, adds up to a ton of revenue."
I mean, media outlets -- including the NYT -- at the time asked whether it was a good deal, and specifically reference Rogan's history of controversy and the publicity resulting from those controversies. NYT, July 1, 2021: "But among top Spotify leadership, people familiar with the company say, the notion that Mr. Rogan presents any kind of regrettable executive headache is laughable."
Spotify leadership today, after spending their entire weekend closeted with a PR crisis team, losing $4 billion on paper/25% of their market cap, and attempting to stave off catastrophic collapse before the markets open Monday: *Issue a mealy-mouthed statement late on a Sunday afternoon intended to appease artists and subscribers until Monday COB or maybe even Tuesday*
A Sunday afternoon crisis PR statement is the HEIGHT of corporate panic, and a sign that NOT saying something before Monday market open would be way, way worse for their stock price than issuing a panic statement on a Sunday afternoon -- which is basically literally always bad for your stock price. And the statement was wildly inadequate to the crisis, and clearly intended to delay criticism until they could get clear commitments from other major artists (/labels/music owners) while making panic phone calls, AND get their exec team in an all-hands meeting Monday. Also Spotify's 2021Q4 earnings call is Wednesday, and they must be absolutely shitting their pants about this timing. They have until Wednesday morning to completely smooth over this situation and put it to bed. That doesn't seem likely without an ugly public reckoning where they go public about financial details they'd rather not be public about, and make some hard decisions about content/policies/artists. (Decisions that probably ought to be nuanced and careful and annoyingly lawyerly, but they have until WEDNESDAY to appease $4 billion of consumer/investor rage. They don't get to be nuanced.)
Anyway, it's a fair question, and a question that people asked at the time the deal was made. I was badgering someone who works as an exec in a related industry tonight, and he said, "Fleecing angry, badly-informed people is easy; fleecing mildly-informed, well-adjusted people is harder. Selling nutritional supplements to angry dudes in their 20s is not a difficult business model, but it's hard to see how it translates to mainstream advertisers."
And like, I don't think anyone expected it to be a $4 billion crisis for Spotify? (I very definitely did not!) But when they paid $100M for Joe Rogan, I was like, "... but y tho? Isn't he going to say some dumb shit on his podcast that creates a PR nightmare for Spotify for funding it?" Not that I cancelled my Spotify account about it (or rather, not that I didn't get a Spotify account about it, because I literally am still in the free trial, I am very slow to adopt new music services), and definitely not that I expected a $4 billion hit to their market cap right before their Q4 earnings call! But I feel like "Joe Rogan costs Spotify more than the $100M they paid for him" was a very predictable outcome, that indeed many media outlets questioned them about! I think probably most people thought it would be over the course of 5 years and repeated minor controversies and bumpy advertiser pull-outs after specific controversies, not Neil Young setting the entire place on fire days before an earnings call!
I guess what Spotify does this week will determine whether I continue past the 3-month free trial. I lived this long without it, it won't be hard to give it up. But like, I definitely want this to become a case study in a business textbook. I have A Lot Of Questions.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:57 PM on January 30, 2022 [22 favorites]
I mean, media outlets -- including the NYT -- at the time asked whether it was a good deal, and specifically reference Rogan's history of controversy and the publicity resulting from those controversies. NYT, July 1, 2021: "But among top Spotify leadership, people familiar with the company say, the notion that Mr. Rogan presents any kind of regrettable executive headache is laughable."
Spotify leadership today, after spending their entire weekend closeted with a PR crisis team, losing $4 billion on paper/25% of their market cap, and attempting to stave off catastrophic collapse before the markets open Monday: *Issue a mealy-mouthed statement late on a Sunday afternoon intended to appease artists and subscribers until Monday COB or maybe even Tuesday*
A Sunday afternoon crisis PR statement is the HEIGHT of corporate panic, and a sign that NOT saying something before Monday market open would be way, way worse for their stock price than issuing a panic statement on a Sunday afternoon -- which is basically literally always bad for your stock price. And the statement was wildly inadequate to the crisis, and clearly intended to delay criticism until they could get clear commitments from other major artists (/labels/music owners) while making panic phone calls, AND get their exec team in an all-hands meeting Monday. Also Spotify's 2021Q4 earnings call is Wednesday, and they must be absolutely shitting their pants about this timing. They have until Wednesday morning to completely smooth over this situation and put it to bed. That doesn't seem likely without an ugly public reckoning where they go public about financial details they'd rather not be public about, and make some hard decisions about content/policies/artists. (Decisions that probably ought to be nuanced and careful and annoyingly lawyerly, but they have until WEDNESDAY to appease $4 billion of consumer/investor rage. They don't get to be nuanced.)
Anyway, it's a fair question, and a question that people asked at the time the deal was made. I was badgering someone who works as an exec in a related industry tonight, and he said, "Fleecing angry, badly-informed people is easy; fleecing mildly-informed, well-adjusted people is harder. Selling nutritional supplements to angry dudes in their 20s is not a difficult business model, but it's hard to see how it translates to mainstream advertisers."
And like, I don't think anyone expected it to be a $4 billion crisis for Spotify? (I very definitely did not!) But when they paid $100M for Joe Rogan, I was like, "... but y tho? Isn't he going to say some dumb shit on his podcast that creates a PR nightmare for Spotify for funding it?" Not that I cancelled my Spotify account about it (or rather, not that I didn't get a Spotify account about it, because I literally am still in the free trial, I am very slow to adopt new music services), and definitely not that I expected a $4 billion hit to their market cap right before their Q4 earnings call! But I feel like "Joe Rogan costs Spotify more than the $100M they paid for him" was a very predictable outcome, that indeed many media outlets questioned them about! I think probably most people thought it would be over the course of 5 years and repeated minor controversies and bumpy advertiser pull-outs after specific controversies, not Neil Young setting the entire place on fire days before an earnings call!
I guess what Spotify does this week will determine whether I continue past the 3-month free trial. I lived this long without it, it won't be hard to give it up. But like, I definitely want this to become a case study in a business textbook. I have A Lot Of Questions.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:57 PM on January 30, 2022 [22 favorites]
I tried YouTube Music and instantly, I like it better in every way, even aside from the Rogan issues.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:11 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:11 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Anyway, it's a fair question, and a question that people asked at the time the deal was made.
But isn't the assumption that the deal is something akin to a loss leader? You make something that was freely available/popular (see also the Brené Brown podcast) and freely and then make it exclusively accessible on the Spotify platform. This would get people to start using the app and hopefully people would sign up for the music service and other podcasts. This would hopefully make the users very sticky as swapping out your podcast subscriptions is a hassle.
All the while they hoped that they could charge premium rates for advertising because they know end user demographics because people have to get a Spotfiy account. They can also do all sorts of fancy per-user dynamic ad insertions as well as they know a ton of user analytics about how people listen. They can do this because they control the listening experience by forcing people to use the app. This is unlike the traditional model of podcasts-via-RSS where publishers only have rudimentary control of how users consume their episodes.
I don't use Spotify but they could in theory force people to sit through un-fast-forward-able commercials in order to listen to podcasts.
posted by mmascolino at 7:21 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
But isn't the assumption that the deal is something akin to a loss leader? You make something that was freely available/popular (see also the Brené Brown podcast) and freely and then make it exclusively accessible on the Spotify platform. This would get people to start using the app and hopefully people would sign up for the music service and other podcasts. This would hopefully make the users very sticky as swapping out your podcast subscriptions is a hassle.
All the while they hoped that they could charge premium rates for advertising because they know end user demographics because people have to get a Spotfiy account. They can also do all sorts of fancy per-user dynamic ad insertions as well as they know a ton of user analytics about how people listen. They can do this because they control the listening experience by forcing people to use the app. This is unlike the traditional model of podcasts-via-RSS where publishers only have rudimentary control of how users consume their episodes.
I don't use Spotify but they could in theory force people to sit through un-fast-forward-able commercials in order to listen to podcasts.
posted by mmascolino at 7:21 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
The Sussexes claim they've expressed objections about covid misinformation on Spotify as of April. I'm TeamSussex and all, but since they only did one podcast in 2020 and haven't done anything since, for whatever reasons (baby/lawsuit/family death/dramaz, I presume?), I'm not sure what to make of this.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:34 PM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:34 PM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Stocks fluctuate, PR crises pass, and conflating our distaste for Rogan with the long-term business judgment behind Spotify's deal with him is just Sunday night CEO-ing. Howard Stern, Don Imus - the media landscape is filled with people we find loathsome for assorted reasons who nevertheless weathered weeks and months of outrage and made themselves and their employers and sponsors loads of money over the years.
posted by PhineasGage at 7:37 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 7:37 PM on January 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Belly Make “DELETE SPOTIFY” Their Spotify Header While Exploring “Difficult” Process To Leave Platform
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:38 PM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:38 PM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Canadians aren't asking that Spotify pull their music because Joe Rogan lends his platform to racist alt-right grifters. It's because he lends his platform to to covid fabulists. Absent Covid, Rogan could have kept Rogan'ing forever with minimal protest.
posted by rdr at 7:47 PM on January 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by rdr at 7:47 PM on January 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
Washington Post: Spotify responds after Joni Mitchell and others join Neil Young and demand the platform remove their content
Spotify broke its silence on Sunday and announced slight changes to its policies around content concerning covid-19, after facing a week of criticism for allowing its creators — particularly podcaster Joe Rogan — to spread misinformation about the pandemic.
“You’ve had a lot of questions over the last few days about our platform policies and the lines we have drawn between what is acceptable and what is not,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek wrote in a news release. “We have had rules in place for many years but admittedly, we haven’t been transparent around the policies that guide our content more broadly.”
The new changes include publicly publishing the company’s internal rules for what is allowed on the platform, “testing ways to highlight” those rules to its creators and “working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID-19.”
“We know we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users,” Ek wrote. “In that role, it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them.”
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:50 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Spotify broke its silence on Sunday and announced slight changes to its policies around content concerning covid-19, after facing a week of criticism for allowing its creators — particularly podcaster Joe Rogan — to spread misinformation about the pandemic.
“You’ve had a lot of questions over the last few days about our platform policies and the lines we have drawn between what is acceptable and what is not,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek wrote in a news release. “We have had rules in place for many years but admittedly, we haven’t been transparent around the policies that guide our content more broadly.”
The new changes include publicly publishing the company’s internal rules for what is allowed on the platform, “testing ways to highlight” those rules to its creators and “working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID-19.”
“We know we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users,” Ek wrote. “In that role, it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them.”
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:50 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Hm, that wasn't very specific, here's some more.
NPR: "Spotify will add a new content advisory to any podcast episode that discusses COVID-19, which will direct listeners to a hub with "data-driven facts, up-to-date information as shared by scientists, physicians, academics and public health authorities around the world, as well as links to trusted sources." Ek said the content advisory is believed to be the first of its kind by a major podcasting platform.
The streamer has also published its existing Platform Rules and says it will try to raise awareness of those content rules among Spotify podcasters and other creators. The rules include a ban on content that "promotes dangerous false or dangerous deceptive medical information that may cause offline harm or poses a direct threat to public health."
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:01 PM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
NPR: "Spotify will add a new content advisory to any podcast episode that discusses COVID-19, which will direct listeners to a hub with "data-driven facts, up-to-date information as shared by scientists, physicians, academics and public health authorities around the world, as well as links to trusted sources." Ek said the content advisory is believed to be the first of its kind by a major podcasting platform.
The streamer has also published its existing Platform Rules and says it will try to raise awareness of those content rules among Spotify podcasters and other creators. The rules include a ban on content that "promotes dangerous false or dangerous deceptive medical information that may cause offline harm or poses a direct threat to public health."
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:01 PM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
“In that role, it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them.”
Poor old Daniel Ek. It must be a constant source of misery for him that two and two is four.
posted by flabdablet at 8:50 PM on January 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Poor old Daniel Ek. It must be a constant source of misery for him that two and two is four.
posted by flabdablet at 8:50 PM on January 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
I’m legitimately surprised that this protest has had actual impact. I have to believe that it’s building on some much larger wave of Spotify dislike because my brain refuses to believe that Neil Young -the man behind the dead Pono player, the man who wrote a shockingly disconnected album about how kids these days didn’t care about politics - has this much influence.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:08 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 11:08 PM on January 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
What kind of annoys me about Young and Mitchell taking their stand now
....
If only big names had taken a stand years ago ... in the name of fair payment for ALL artists.
philip-random
Neil Young did actually pull his music from Spotify back in 2015, and even started his own music streaming service Pono, but it only lasted a couple of years, so he reluctantly went back. He has never liked Spotify and often spoke out against them. He's stated that he's very happy with his recent decision for a lot of reasons.
posted by eye of newt at 12:39 AM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
....
If only big names had taken a stand years ago ... in the name of fair payment for ALL artists.
philip-random
Neil Young did actually pull his music from Spotify back in 2015, and even started his own music streaming service Pono, but it only lasted a couple of years, so he reluctantly went back. He has never liked Spotify and often spoke out against them. He's stated that he's very happy with his recent decision for a lot of reasons.
posted by eye of newt at 12:39 AM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
The thing is, Spotify didn't just pluck out and elevate some random weirdo who happened to have an oddball podcast talking about MMA, fitness, self-growth, conspiracies and comedy (among other things - these were just the first topics that came to mind).
In the universe next door they struck this deal with Duncan Trussell instead. I think you get everything except the MMA content still, but coming from a much gentler place.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:47 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
In the universe next door they struck this deal with Duncan Trussell instead. I think you get everything except the MMA content still, but coming from a much gentler place.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:47 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
If anyone cares to hear a, umm, podcast with an educated, even-handed, and entertaining discussion of this dust-up then I highly recommend the new episode of Setlist released this morning. The two hosts also get into some less-discussed issues at play, such as the assorted challenges of platform moderation and the time in 2018 that Spotify actually did try to remove 'hateful' content. (I believe this podcast episode was recorded last Friday so it is missing the weekend's various developments.)
posted by General Zubon at 6:18 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by General Zubon at 6:18 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Annnnnnd scene. "Joe Rogan Apologizes."
posted by PhineasGage at 7:07 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 7:07 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
PhineasGage, thank you. I stalked the top podcast list for Apple a bit around the time the deal was finalized with Spotify just because I wanted to know what the lineup looked like *without* Rogan's shows. The reason any of this became news in the first place is because of the sheer size of his "listenership."
Jenfullmoon, apparently there were calls among the public - including an article - requesting that the Sussexes specifically say something.
posted by Selena777 at 7:08 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Jenfullmoon, apparently there were calls among the public - including an article - requesting that the Sussexes specifically say something.
posted by Selena777 at 7:08 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Annnnnnd scene. "Joe Rogan Apologizes."
Of course, he's apologizing for causing trouble for Spotify, and (quoting an Engadget article) "He also disputed the episodes being labeled "misinformation," saying that many of their opinions are shared by mainstream listeners."
So, not apologizing for being a fount of bullshit or anything like that.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:32 AM on January 31, 2022 [10 favorites]
Of course, he's apologizing for causing trouble for Spotify, and (quoting an Engadget article) "He also disputed the episodes being labeled "misinformation," saying that many of their opinions are shared by mainstream listeners."
So, not apologizing for being a fount of bullshit or anything like that.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:32 AM on January 31, 2022 [10 favorites]
CW: content from Glenn Greenwald and Joe Rogan
Glenn Greenwald publishes a rather spicy take on the whole recent Spotify / JRE / protest situation.
As PhineasGage mentioned above, Joe himself released a brief (10 min) statement about the controversy and his personal perspective on it all. (Looks like that IG video is linked in PhineasGage's WSJ link above.)
posted by theorique at 7:48 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
Glenn Greenwald publishes a rather spicy take on the whole recent Spotify / JRE / protest situation.
As PhineasGage mentioned above, Joe himself released a brief (10 min) statement about the controversy and his personal perspective on it all. (Looks like that IG video is linked in PhineasGage's WSJ link above.)
posted by theorique at 7:48 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
And Michael Shermer's take on "the Joe Rogan Effect."
posted by PhineasGage at 7:50 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 7:50 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
I loved the TV show News Radio, but I always thought that Rogan's character was just that -- a character. But it was a warning.
I forgot Angelou's axiom, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
posted by wenestvedt at 7:54 AM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
I forgot Angelou's axiom, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
posted by wenestvedt at 7:54 AM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
Annnnnnd scene. "Joe Rogan Apologizes."
If that’s the scene, then nothing’s really changed.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:56 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
If that’s the scene, then nothing’s really changed.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:56 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Glenn Greenwald publishes a rather spicy take on the whole recent Spotify / JRE / protest situation.
But of course he did, he's a white supremacist nutjob who gets excited about state support for implementing anti-trans terrorism and genocide, but freaks out at the idea that private entities should prevent him and his friends from running harassment campaigns.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:57 AM on January 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
But of course he did, he's a white supremacist nutjob who gets excited about state support for implementing anti-trans terrorism and genocide, but freaks out at the idea that private entities should prevent him and his friends from running harassment campaigns.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:57 AM on January 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
To be clear, I don't believe for a second that Rogan has changed, nor that his show will change much, I was just flagging his apology as a PR tool and its likely effect of allowing this past week's controversy to dissipate. I strongly suspect this was all seen as just a cost of doing business by Spotify's execs, and (despite some of the speculations upthread) it won't harm their long-term business at all.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:09 AM on January 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 8:09 AM on January 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
If corporations had as much power in the late 1930s and 1940s as they have now, I wonder how hard their CEOs would be arguing for both-sides treatment of the Holocaust, or of any similar mass murder. Don't want to censor content, after all.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:19 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:19 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
So let's enrich this conversation. I just heard back from the San Francisco Public Library, which I had contacted several months ago to ask them to remove anti-vaxxer Joseph Mercola's latest book from their digital and physical shelves. I will quote in full the response I just received:
posted by PhineasGage at 8:57 AM on January 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
San Francisco Public Library provides an array of materials in response to very different and wide-ranging interests among library users in the community we serve. In our role as providing materials our patrons are interested in, we do sometimes buy materials that other patrons will find offensive or harmful.I know we have some librarians here on MetaFilter. I would love to hear their perspectives on this reply.
As part of our standard process for book reconsideration, I have read both of the titles you mentioned. Both books discuss unconventional views on Covid-19 and how the virus infected humans and who or what might be responsible. These views are not uncommon in the public sphere.
The Truth about Covid-19 was a requested by a patron and once the book was purchased for the online collection, it received so many reserves that we had to buy extra copies to meet the demand. The Truth about Covid-19 is held 346 locations in WorldCat, including such libraries as: Los Angeles Public Library, New York Public Library, Seattle Public Library, Denver Public Library and San Jose Public Library. Our four print copies are circulating well and have three outstanding holds as of this writing. The three e-copies are also currently checked out with a holds queue of two. All of these data indicate that this subject area is of interest to our patrons. Additionally, Mercola is a well-known figure in the alternative health world and we own 10 other titles by him and they also circulate well.
We own two print copies of Is Covid-19 a Bioweapon? and one of the two copies is checked out as of this writing. It is held by 44 locations worldwide including King County Library System, Phoenix Public Library and Pima County Public Library. The online copy in Overdrive has circulated well and has a hold on it, and the online copy in Hoopla is also circulating well. Although not as popular as the Mercola title, it appears that there is public interest in the ideas of this author as well. You might find it interesting that among the subject headings for both of these books is the term “conspiracy theories,” which does indicate that these titles are not in the mainstream of scientific thinking.
We aim to purchase materials that our patrons want to read and we expect our readers to bring their own critical faculties to the books they choose to read and we leave the choice to our readers whether or not they agree with the premises the books present.
I understand how frustrating this can be to you as we retain titles that do not reflect scientifically standard arguments, but we support our community's freedom to read materials that reflect views that others may or may not agree with.
Part of our job as a public library is to carry a wide range of views, including those from authors whose ideas may not generally accepted in our community. As our Collection Development Plan states: “To support an informed public, the collections shall represent diverse points of view, and may include materials that some members of the public consider to be controversial in nature.” SFPL’s policy also refers to the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights which includes the following text, “Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.” To be clear, by providing the books in our library, we are allowing people to the ability access those authors if they want to, we do not expect people to read or agree with everything that we carry in our library.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:57 AM on January 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
Hosting Joe Rogan isn't a bizarre business decision, but spending $100M for exclusive rights to him is, because somewhere they had a plan to make money off that. Was Spotify's plan to replicate what YouTube, Facebook, et al, did to make money off Rogan? Or did it have a radically different plan that involved a different audience? A new audience? Changing the tastes of his current audience?I assume the logic went something like this:
PR kerfuffles resulting from hosting Rogan were totally foreseeable, and surely Spotify's due diligence involved looking at Rogan's prior public dust-ups. They still thought it was worth $100M, and still thought they could make money off this. Was the plan incredibly stupid? Or was it actively sinister?
- We have multiple competitors with way more power than we do.
- Apple can bundle music with every product they offer and with their TV platform; YouTube is maybe the most-used platform on the planet; we are currently in the lead entirely by default. This game is ours to lose.
- Our content algorithms are good, and our cultural cachet is pretty decent, but it's fundamentally hard to "innovate" on top of the act of "let people play a song." Anything we do, our competitors can also do.
- If people need to use our service for some reason, they'll use us for music too, instead of our competitors.
- We need some kind of exclusive content, so we can keep that audience attached to us.
- No musician would be insane enough to release a platform-exclusive album... but podcasters are still figuring out their revenue strategies.
He's like the weird-as-hell 2020s version of CNN, in that CNN "isn't politically biased" but gives air to a lot of gross shit, doesn't do a great job of countering the stuff it picks up, and furthermore isn't actually good at articulating edge politics on the other side of the spectrum. Take that, turn the spectrum a lot weirder and more toxic, and turn a corporate media's equivocating cowardice into a single stoner jock who's drawn to ideas based on how "'"mind-blowing"'" they are (so, the more contrarian or conspiratorial, the better). Everything I've seen of Rogan suggests he's amiable enough, in his way: he's just a cishet white man with way too much power and a lot of fucked-up internalized masculinity nonsense from his time doing comedy and UFC. He should not be where Americans go to form their opinions, but society is a bit rickety and we're in that fun phase where various warlords luck into odd and disproportionate amounts of power. He's corroding civilization in a genial, vacuous, and gullible kind of way.
I suspect that Spotify's take was either "he's not intentionally a political firebrand" or just "he's so popular that, either way, we'll get what we want." And my read on their responses/Rogan's apologies today are that that's still exactly how they think. They don't care about Neil Young or Joni Mitchell, they don't love the bad publicity but they know it will go away—because it will—and they are so far from dropping Rogan that making him do a token apology is the only thing they'll ask him for their tenth of a billion dollars. I'd love to be wrong, but if I had to bet in one direction or the other, I'd say that they're likelier to double down on this strategy than they are to give up on it, in part because they don't have a lot of other choices. They need exclusive content, that exclusive content will almost never be music, and they would be laughed out of the streaming-video market if they tried to expand. They're insanely limited here. So what's their other option? Audiobooks hardly seem like a plausible bet.
posted by rorgy at 8:57 AM on January 31, 2022 [10 favorites]
A public library system is not a for-profit corporation. A library meets an entirely different set of responsibilities and obligations to serve the public than a corporation, a legal fiction whose only obligation is to deliver profits to its shareholders. When a company like Spotify buys a contract with an anti-vaxxer to deliver an audience, this is an entirely different economic and functional relationship than what a public library establishes, when it buys a broad set of books to loan to the community it serves.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:07 AM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:07 AM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
Also, I see it hasn't been quoted here yet, but it all really does boil down to what acclaimed sexual harasser Isaac Asimov once said about America:
posted by rorgy at 9:08 AM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'Greenwald's screed about liberal screeds above, and all the celebrities leaping to accuse Neil Young of censorship, all come down to the same thing: "Your attempts to fight disinformation aren't just anti-democratic but reveal your elitist bias against gullible people." Never contending with the disinformation, always leaping to pick fights over the ways in which people protests it. (I think there is something worth interesting saying about this subject, but Greenwald's not the one to say it; my problematic fave, Freddie deBoer, articulates it a lot more effectively, though his ratio of "outragey contrarianism to actually saying something good" is still frustratingly non-ideal.)
posted by rorgy at 9:08 AM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
PhineasGage: And Michael Shermer's take on "the Joe Rogan Effect."
Surfacing this quote from the linked article:
Personality tests that I've taken have suggested that I'm around the 97th percentile for trait Openness, so perhaps the eclecticism and diversity of the show and its topics match with my temperament (including, or perhaps especially, the more out there guests).
This reminded me of an earlier appearance of Jordan Peterson (himself rather controversial) on JRE. In this clip Peterson explains his interpretation and analysis of why Rogan has grown to be so popular.
posted by theorique at 9:11 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Surfacing this quote from the linked article:
He’s an exceptional conversationalist who is extremely high in trait openness, that is, he’s willing to consider almost any and all claims his guests push across the table. It’s not his job to filter ideas for his listeners. There’s no editing—the show is recorded and posted as is. Most of what people object to in his shows are things his guests say, not what he says. He’ll talk to almost anyone about almost anything. I agree with him on many topics, and disagree with him on many other topics, which is exactly what you’d expect about someone who talks for three to four hours a day, four to five days a week, often about interesting and important topics. If anyone agreed with Rogan about everything that would make him a cult leader, which he most certainly is not.This part really resonated with me as the past few days have raised the question of the broad appeal of JRE, and the appeal of his show for me personally. Why is it popular? Why do I like it?
Personality tests that I've taken have suggested that I'm around the 97th percentile for trait Openness, so perhaps the eclecticism and diversity of the show and its topics match with my temperament (including, or perhaps especially, the more out there guests).
This reminded me of an earlier appearance of Jordan Peterson (himself rather controversial) on JRE. In this clip Peterson explains his interpretation and analysis of why Rogan has grown to be so popular.
posted by theorique at 9:11 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
"If I pissed you off, I'm sorry."
WTF? You exist to piss me off! That has been your whole entire brand your entire existence, from News Radio through Fear Factor and now your dumbass brawly beerfart podcast. "O, my show is out of control!" "I'm going to do my best!" What the hell even is any of that coming out of your mouth? Why would you say any of it? It does nothing but make you look like a weak, wispy, sniveling flipflopper. What happened, Joe Rogan? Literally anybody with two minutes thought could've found a bro-ier way to seem like you're apologizing instead of making you ween out and flop over that way. Does your PR writer secretly hate you? Clearly your PR writer hates you, Joe Rogan.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:12 AM on January 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
WTF? You exist to piss me off! That has been your whole entire brand your entire existence, from News Radio through Fear Factor and now your dumbass brawly beerfart podcast. "O, my show is out of control!" "I'm going to do my best!" What the hell even is any of that coming out of your mouth? Why would you say any of it? It does nothing but make you look like a weak, wispy, sniveling flipflopper. What happened, Joe Rogan? Literally anybody with two minutes thought could've found a bro-ier way to seem like you're apologizing instead of making you ween out and flop over that way. Does your PR writer secretly hate you? Clearly your PR writer hates you, Joe Rogan.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:12 AM on January 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
I know we have some librarians here on MetaFilter. I would love to hear their perspectives on this reply.
At library school, we discussed the question of maintaining ideological balance. One example we discussed was how the local public library once received a donation of Judaica which the staff decided to "balance" with the "Protocols of Zion" and other anti-Jewish material. Most of my fellow students and the professors did not see anything particularly wrong with this. I remember saying in a seminar that we don't have to balance truth with lies.
posted by No Robots at 9:12 AM on January 31, 2022 [14 favorites]
At library school, we discussed the question of maintaining ideological balance. One example we discussed was how the local public library once received a donation of Judaica which the staff decided to "balance" with the "Protocols of Zion" and other anti-Jewish material. Most of my fellow students and the professors did not see anything particularly wrong with this. I remember saying in a seminar that we don't have to balance truth with lies.
posted by No Robots at 9:12 AM on January 31, 2022 [14 favorites]
PhineasGage: "I know we have some librarians here on MetaFilter. I would love to hear their perspectives on this reply."
I am not a librarian but this one sounds like they've got a handle on it.
I'm really impressed with that response, which is extensive, thoughtful, intelligent and well-reasoned. Also genuinely concerned that a policy of openness and serving the community means providing some materials that are at best sketchy, at worst lethal, but aware that it would be even sketchier & at worst lethal for a public library system to start deciding what should be available and what shouldn't.
[What's happening to Spotify via Joe Rogan isn't censorship, it's a boycott that's spreading. It's the free market at work. No one is saying Joe Rogan should be censored; they're just saying there are alternatives available that don't pander to Joe Rogan. And also that if your response to "Young or Rogan, not both" is "Rogan," he'll be right there on Spotify, go wild.]
posted by chavenet at 10:00 AM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
I am not a librarian but this one sounds like they've got a handle on it.
I'm really impressed with that response, which is extensive, thoughtful, intelligent and well-reasoned. Also genuinely concerned that a policy of openness and serving the community means providing some materials that are at best sketchy, at worst lethal, but aware that it would be even sketchier & at worst lethal for a public library system to start deciding what should be available and what shouldn't.
[What's happening to Spotify via Joe Rogan isn't censorship, it's a boycott that's spreading. It's the free market at work. No one is saying Joe Rogan should be censored; they're just saying there are alternatives available that don't pander to Joe Rogan. And also that if your response to "Young or Rogan, not both" is "Rogan," he'll be right there on Spotify, go wild.]
posted by chavenet at 10:00 AM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
it would be even sketchier & at worst lethal for a public library system to start deciding what should be available and what shouldn't.
That is the general attitude in library studies. I liked to say when I was a student that, if that is the case, then maybe public libraries should have "Hustler" magazine available. The only response I got to that from a fellow student was, "I'd like to visit your library!"
posted by No Robots at 10:05 AM on January 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
That is the general attitude in library studies. I liked to say when I was a student that, if that is the case, then maybe public libraries should have "Hustler" magazine available. The only response I got to that from a fellow student was, "I'd like to visit your library!"
posted by No Robots at 10:05 AM on January 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
If corporations had as much power in the late 1930s and 1940s as they have now, I wonder how hard their CEOs would be arguing for both-sides treatment of the Holocaust, or of any similar mass murder. Don't want to censor content, after all.
I mean, there were plenty of businesses in the Nazi regime, the NYT had some rather flattering stories about Hitler, IBM has been accused of being used to enable the holocaust… this isn’t something you have to really look to today to wonder about. Money & Power talk, sadly. (At the other end of the spectrum, meanwhile, you have leftists of that same period not wanting to talk about gulags. So, uh, not good all around, really.)
posted by Going To Maine at 10:41 AM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
I mean, there were plenty of businesses in the Nazi regime, the NYT had some rather flattering stories about Hitler, IBM has been accused of being used to enable the holocaust… this isn’t something you have to really look to today to wonder about. Money & Power talk, sadly. (At the other end of the spectrum, meanwhile, you have leftists of that same period not wanting to talk about gulags. So, uh, not good all around, really.)
posted by Going To Maine at 10:41 AM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
This reminded me of an earlier appearance of Jordan Peterson yt (himself rather controversial) on JRE. In this clip Peterson explains his interpretation and analysis of why Rogan has grown to be so popular.
"To understand Jordan Peterson you need to listen to this from Alex Jones and to understand Alex Jones you need to listen to this from Steve Bannon." - YouTube recommendation Algorithm, personal communication 2014-2022.posted by srboisvert at 10:50 AM on January 31, 2022 [13 favorites]
He should not be where Americans go to form their opinions, but society is a bit rickety and we're in that fun phase where various warlords luck into odd and disproportionate amounts of power. He's corroding civilization in a genial, vacuous, and gullible kind of way.
This really nails what is core to Joe Rogan's appeal. Remember when genial, vacuous, and gullible guys used to be fun? You didn't have to worry about what societal damage they would cause, because society used to be stronger than that. Nowadays, not so much...
posted by jonp72 at 11:10 AM on January 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
This really nails what is core to Joe Rogan's appeal. Remember when genial, vacuous, and gullible guys used to be fun? You didn't have to worry about what societal damage they would cause, because society used to be stronger than that. Nowadays, not so much...
posted by jonp72 at 11:10 AM on January 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
I’m legitimately surprised that this protest has had actual impact.
I thought that too at first, but I think a major selling point of Spotify is that it has all the music. A super popular star like Taylor Swift fighting them? Well sure, that's to be expected - she's in a position to negotiate, and her fans will go out of their way to find her music. Someone completely obscure? Maybe no one cares and they're doing it as a stunt. But someone who's a big name from another era, and has a long career and big catalog? That shakes the foundations of Spotify as a place where you can listen to anything on a whim. You might want to hear Harvest Moon every once in a while and now you have to think about that.
The other thing to consider - and I guess we'll have to wait and see how things go - is that a lot of labels and artists might want to get off Spotify anyway, or at least want to renegotiate, but lack a decent pretext to do so. If this is the way things are going to go, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are kind of like nucleation sites in boiling water. Once it starts, it may be impossible for Spotify to reverse.
posted by condour75 at 11:11 AM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
I thought that too at first, but I think a major selling point of Spotify is that it has all the music. A super popular star like Taylor Swift fighting them? Well sure, that's to be expected - she's in a position to negotiate, and her fans will go out of their way to find her music. Someone completely obscure? Maybe no one cares and they're doing it as a stunt. But someone who's a big name from another era, and has a long career and big catalog? That shakes the foundations of Spotify as a place where you can listen to anything on a whim. You might want to hear Harvest Moon every once in a while and now you have to think about that.
The other thing to consider - and I guess we'll have to wait and see how things go - is that a lot of labels and artists might want to get off Spotify anyway, or at least want to renegotiate, but lack a decent pretext to do so. If this is the way things are going to go, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are kind of like nucleation sites in boiling water. Once it starts, it may be impossible for Spotify to reverse.
posted by condour75 at 11:11 AM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
WTF? You exist to piss me off! That has been your whole entire brand your entire existence, from News Radio through Fear Factor and now your dumbass brawly beerfart podcast.
I don’t know that his brand is primarily “lib owner” though. It’s “guy who makes 18-34-year-old males go whoa that’s crazy.”
People have talked here before about going from seeing conspiracy/crank sort of stuff as fun to seeing it as worrisome and I think Rogan illustrates that transition.
posted by atoxyl at 11:23 AM on January 31, 2022 [9 favorites]
I don’t know that his brand is primarily “lib owner” though. It’s “guy who makes 18-34-year-old males go whoa that’s crazy.”
People have talked here before about going from seeing conspiracy/crank sort of stuff as fun to seeing it as worrisome and I think Rogan illustrates that transition.
posted by atoxyl at 11:23 AM on January 31, 2022 [9 favorites]
NYT: Spotify’s Joe Rogan Problem Isn’t Going Away
So, how will Mr. Rogan’s backlash cycle end? It’s hard to say.posted by jenfullmoon at 11:51 AM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
One possibility is that it will end like those of Mr. Jones and Mr. Trump, whose behavior was so outrageous (and who continued to flagrantly violate the rule even after being called out) that Twitter and Facebook had no real choice but to shut them down permanently.
Mr. Rogan could double down on Covid-19 misinformation, daring Spotify to de-platform him and casting himself as a “victim of the woke mob,” censored for speaking too many uncomfortable truths. He could wriggle out of his Spotify deal and head back to YouTube and to the other platforms that used to carry his show. (He could even go to a right-wing social network like Gettr or Parler, but I’m guessing he’d prefer an audience.)
Or he could do what PewDiePie, the popular YouTube creator whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, did after he was accused of making antisemitic comments. After briefly becoming a hero to right-wing reactionaries, Mr. Kjellberg apologized for his behavior, cleaned up his channel and eventually worked his way back into the platform’s good graces.
Mr. Rogan could quietly capitulate, protecting his Spotify deal and backing away from the Covid-skeptical fringe in a way that doesn’t cost him his reputation as an anti-establishment contrarian. (This outcome looked like the likeliest one on Sunday night, when Mr. Rogan posted a 10-minute Instagram video apologizing for his “out of control” show and pledging to invite more mainstream experts on to discuss the pandemic.)
A third option is that the whole controversy could simply fizzle out, like last year’s imbroglio with Mr. Chappelle and Netflix, which began after the comedian was accused of making transphobic remarks during a special and ended, days later, with no real consequences for anyone. But this outcome doesn’t seem likely, given that boycotts have already begun and appear to be snowballing.
As far as I know, there's been little mention of or accounting for his Jordan Peterson anti-trans interview so I will continue to say fuck Joe Rogan and fuck Spotify for paying him and continuing to give him a megaphone. A content warning about covid misinformation and a weak apology as he laughs all the way to the bank don't cut it.
Maybe one of the Joe Rogan fans in this thread can correct me on this, but he doesn't seem to have a "high trait in openness" when he hosts anti-trans viewpoints (Peterson multiple times, Abigail Shrier) and doesn't host trans activists who might help him not be such an anti-trans mouthpiece. And I'm guessing the same can be said about his other lines of shittiness about race, about sexuality, about gender roles.
posted by kokaku at 12:28 PM on January 31, 2022 [22 favorites]
Maybe one of the Joe Rogan fans in this thread can correct me on this, but he doesn't seem to have a "high trait in openness" when he hosts anti-trans viewpoints (Peterson multiple times, Abigail Shrier) and doesn't host trans activists who might help him not be such an anti-trans mouthpiece. And I'm guessing the same can be said about his other lines of shittiness about race, about sexuality, about gender roles.
posted by kokaku at 12:28 PM on January 31, 2022 [22 favorites]
I don’t know that his brand is primarily “lib owner” though. It’s “guy who makes 18-34-year-old males go whoa that’s crazy.”
I mean, demographically (if you extend 'white' as a significant portion of his brand & audience, which I'm pretty sure isn't a reach), "lib owner" and "guy who appeals to 18-34-year-old white guys" are going to be fairly one & the same. Look at 2020's voting demographic breakdown for the relative popularity of "Lib owner" among white guys at all ages.
posted by CrystalDave at 12:41 PM on January 31, 2022 [13 favorites]
I mean, demographically (if you extend 'white' as a significant portion of his brand & audience, which I'm pretty sure isn't a reach), "lib owner" and "guy who appeals to 18-34-year-old white guys" are going to be fairly one & the same. Look at 2020's voting demographic breakdown for the relative popularity of "Lib owner" among white guys at all ages.
Rogan himself suggested that his podcast is so popular with the male demographic because he believes that they are seeking representation and a space for people, like him, who fear marginalisation as a result of progressive gender theory and the implementation of equal rights policies and laws. Rogan appeals to people who fear the devaluation of their rights more so than they support others gaining them at all.This sort of self-view is exactly why he keeps coming up as one of the biggest names of the "concerned about the devaluing of their place in society" to "tiki-torches" radicalization pipeline.
posted by CrystalDave at 12:41 PM on January 31, 2022 [13 favorites]
Are there really any Joe Rogan fans in this thread?
posted by PhineasGage at 12:48 PM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 12:48 PM on January 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
Eh, his willfully obtuse statements about blackness - that he does not appear to have walked back -might serve as a fork in the road, but his fanbase appeared to be a pretty multiracial coalition of bros, CrystalDave.
posted by Selena777 at 12:49 PM on January 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 12:49 PM on January 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
Neil Young -the man behind the dead Pono player...
just want to link to this comment earlier in the thread that explained what exactly happened with that (cause i thought the same thing) and wow, Neil came out on top in that particular venture after all.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:37 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
just want to link to this comment earlier in the thread that explained what exactly happened with that (cause i thought the same thing) and wow, Neil came out on top in that particular venture after all.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:37 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
I took a look at a list that one dude described as Rogan's top guests, and it included, among the MMA dudes and snake-oil salesmen:
* Neil deGrasse Tyson
* Dr Carl Hart, a professor at Columbia who wants to undo the damage caused by the War on Drugs and reshape the way we think about drug use
* Michael Wood, a former Baltimore police officer who unveiled a whole lot of the department's dirty laundry, including racially charged issues
* Josh Dubin and Jason Flom, prison reform advocates
* A whole bunch of people who wouldn't have been out of place on Art Bell's show back in the day
* And....a great many comedians who, while occasionally funny, lean way too far into the "I hate liberals and conservatives, but I really hate liberals; and even though I just inked a million dollar, multi-special deal with Netflix and am appearing on your podcast which reaches millions of people, Joe, I'm being silenced!"
So, very much a mixed bag, with the caveat that I don't know how frequently he has people like Dr Hart, Wood, Dubin and Flom on in comparison to your Jordan Petersons, Ben Shapiros, and others of that ilk.
Still, there's a fair number of folks that I, a liberal, white collar African American cishet male, would listen to. Thing is, I don't need to give money to a show that platforms transphobes and covid nonsense in order to hear those voices.
posted by lord_wolf at 1:41 PM on January 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
* Neil deGrasse Tyson
* Dr Carl Hart, a professor at Columbia who wants to undo the damage caused by the War on Drugs and reshape the way we think about drug use
* Michael Wood, a former Baltimore police officer who unveiled a whole lot of the department's dirty laundry, including racially charged issues
* Josh Dubin and Jason Flom, prison reform advocates
* A whole bunch of people who wouldn't have been out of place on Art Bell's show back in the day
* And....a great many comedians who, while occasionally funny, lean way too far into the "I hate liberals and conservatives, but I really hate liberals; and even though I just inked a million dollar, multi-special deal with Netflix and am appearing on your podcast which reaches millions of people, Joe, I'm being silenced!"
So, very much a mixed bag, with the caveat that I don't know how frequently he has people like Dr Hart, Wood, Dubin and Flom on in comparison to your Jordan Petersons, Ben Shapiros, and others of that ilk.
Still, there's a fair number of folks that I, a liberal, white collar African American cishet male, would listen to. Thing is, I don't need to give money to a show that platforms transphobes and covid nonsense in order to hear those voices.
posted by lord_wolf at 1:41 PM on January 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
PhineasGage: Stocks fluctuate, PR crises pass, and conflating our distaste for Rogan with the long-term business judgment behind Spotify's deal with him is just Sunday night CEO-ing.
The fact that some people had sufficient foresight to suggest that Rogan's anti-vaxx and barely concealed white supremacist leanings might eventually cause Spotify considerable trouble down the line and you did not, does not make those people "Sunday night CEO-ers".
posted by tavella at 1:51 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
The fact that some people had sufficient foresight to suggest that Rogan's anti-vaxx and barely concealed white supremacist leanings might eventually cause Spotify considerable trouble down the line and you did not, does not make those people "Sunday night CEO-ers".
posted by tavella at 1:51 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
So I've always hated Spotify, not for any deep reasons, just because when 8tracks went kaput, I saved a lot of my favorite fan playlists and tried to transfer them to Spotify (as suggested). Unfortunately most of them (like, easily 90% of all the music) did not transfer at all and I got so, SO many error messages. Most of it was 18th century classical music, recreated ancient Roman music, etc. So I figured Spotify was useless, and I hated how ubiquitous it was. I ended up uploading all my playlists to Youtube.
Years later, one of my favorite podcasts, LAST PODCAST ON THE LEFT, in the wake of the Joe Rogan deal, left for to become a Spotify exclusive. I was incredibly disappointed, but there was no way in hell I was going to use Spotify for just one podcast.
But now... such great timing!... LAST PODCAST is returning to the wild, as of February 1, 2022. Everyone can listen to it, everywhere again! I'm so happy. It's suspiciously good timing, but I'm not going to question it.
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 2:12 PM on January 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
Years later, one of my favorite podcasts, LAST PODCAST ON THE LEFT, in the wake of the Joe Rogan deal, left for to become a Spotify exclusive. I was incredibly disappointed, but there was no way in hell I was going to use Spotify for just one podcast.
But now... such great timing!... LAST PODCAST is returning to the wild, as of February 1, 2022. Everyone can listen to it, everywhere again! I'm so happy. It's suspiciously good timing, but I'm not going to question it.
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 2:12 PM on January 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
Just an anecdotal data point about myself. I remember occasionally clicking on some short clips of Joe Rogan's show around 2014 or 2015 when that Hannibal Burress standup routine led to the dam breaking about Bill Cosby. For example, Rogan had so many connections with comedians who appeared on his show that you could find some entertaining stories and gossip about Cosby that way. Rogan also had some killer stories about Steven Seagal, due to his connections in the martial arts. But when the YouTube algorithm tried to toss back alt-high-curious content back at me, I liberally clicked on "Not Interested" to make it clear "DO NOT WANT!" However, I can easily imagine somebody who is younger, more impressionable, more apolitical, easily getting swept up into alt-right adjacent content via YouTube's algorithm without realizing it.
posted by jonp72 at 2:14 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jonp72 at 2:14 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
Since Michael Shermer was quoted as a disinterested party above, here's a reminder that he's been very credibly accused of rape, and has also exhibited "trait openness" to the point that his fucking brain fell out. Rogan's people are his people.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 2:18 PM on January 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 2:18 PM on January 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
I can't help but think that something's that sort of missing from the discussion so far is that there's at least some anecdotal evidence that Rogan has gotten noticeably worse over the course of the pandemic - it's not at all hard to go to the Joe Rogan subreddit and find a bunch of threads and comments where his ostensible fans are griping (or even dunking on him) about how he's kinda All COVID Disinformation/Right Wing Nutjobs All The Time now. (I do have to admit that I've never listened to him myself.)
So I wouldn't doubt that what Spotify wanted to buy was 2019/early 2020 Rogan, where a sort of lunkheaded credulity towards his toxic guests was mixed with a bunch of MMA stuff, and joking around with his comedian pals, and interviews with legit scientists and social issue experts, and what they've wound up with is 2022 Rogan, who has apparently spent the last two years popping steroids and chugging protein shakes and heading down the White Male Grievance rabbit hole. 2019 Rogan's dumb shit could get blown off as a minor part of his show; 2022 Rogan's dumb shit not so much, especially since lots of folks are increasingly OVER having to deal with COVID because knuckleheads like Rogan won't fucking straighten up and fly right.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:06 PM on January 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
So I wouldn't doubt that what Spotify wanted to buy was 2019/early 2020 Rogan, where a sort of lunkheaded credulity towards his toxic guests was mixed with a bunch of MMA stuff, and joking around with his comedian pals, and interviews with legit scientists and social issue experts, and what they've wound up with is 2022 Rogan, who has apparently spent the last two years popping steroids and chugging protein shakes and heading down the White Male Grievance rabbit hole. 2019 Rogan's dumb shit could get blown off as a minor part of his show; 2022 Rogan's dumb shit not so much, especially since lots of folks are increasingly OVER having to deal with COVID because knuckleheads like Rogan won't fucking straighten up and fly right.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:06 PM on January 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
You are absolutely right, tavella - I meant to say "sideline CEO-ing."
posted by PhineasGage at 3:19 PM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 3:19 PM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
and there was that time Rogan sternly schooled Dave Rubin on his libertarian foolishness respective to building codes.
Not a Rogan fan, but I also don't see him as a black-hatted Nazi villain. He's a guy with perhaps more savvy than genuine smarts who built an unassailable podcast empire pretty much by himself (with a little help from some friends). Though I have enjoyed some of his stuff in the past (his talk with Macaulay Culkin was pretty solid, and Dale Earnhardt Jr), I've pretty much tuned out completely since Covid hit, so I can't really comment on much of late beyond imagining that his weakness for conspiratorial thinking has really gotten the best of him.
posted by philip-random at 3:22 PM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
Not a Rogan fan, but I also don't see him as a black-hatted Nazi villain. He's a guy with perhaps more savvy than genuine smarts who built an unassailable podcast empire pretty much by himself (with a little help from some friends). Though I have enjoyed some of his stuff in the past (his talk with Macaulay Culkin was pretty solid, and Dale Earnhardt Jr), I've pretty much tuned out completely since Covid hit, so I can't really comment on much of late beyond imagining that his weakness for conspiratorial thinking has really gotten the best of him.
posted by philip-random at 3:22 PM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
Neil Young -the man behind the dead Pono player...
just want to link to this comment earlier in the thread that explained what exactly happened with that (cause i thought the same thing) and wow, Neil came out on top in that particular venture after all.
Ehhh… as a pedant, I think the right framing here is that Neil Young came out on top on a different, much simpler idea, and one that it seems like other artists with a certain level of fanbase might want to copy. The Pono still bombed out.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:29 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
just want to link to this comment earlier in the thread that explained what exactly happened with that (cause i thought the same thing) and wow, Neil came out on top in that particular venture after all.
Ehhh… as a pedant, I think the right framing here is that Neil Young came out on top on a different, much simpler idea, and one that it seems like other artists with a certain level of fanbase might want to copy. The Pono still bombed out.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:29 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
In the past week, Spotify's stock price has plummeted risen from $188.84 to $196.26.
posted by PhineasGage at 3:32 PM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 3:32 PM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
I barked out a for reals LOL when I read the part in Joe Rogan's apology where he said his favorite Joni Mitchell song was Chuck E's in Love.
Oh man, there has got to be a woman's user name equivalent to Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner in that. Or at least an easy-as-shooting-belly-up-dead-fish-floating-in-a-bucket song lyric by Cortex.
posted by y2karl at 6:05 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh man, there has got to be a woman's user name equivalent to Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner in that. Or at least an easy-as-shooting-belly-up-dead-fish-floating-in-a-bucket song lyric by Cortex.
posted by y2karl at 6:05 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
And that's no knock on Cortex but rather a fervent request.
posted by y2karl at 6:13 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 6:13 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
btw, the quote itself:
"...And definitely no hard feelings towards Joni Mitchell. I love her too. I love her music, Chuckie’s in Love is a great song."
Not only does he cite a song by Ricki Lee Jones but he can't even spell the title right. Man, what a clueless bonehead -- he must have an implanted respirator because he's obviously too dumb to breathe.
But, on the other hand, he has provided ample footage for any parody song video. So there is that.
posted by y2karl at 6:57 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
"...And definitely no hard feelings towards Joni Mitchell. I love her too. I love her music, Chuckie’s in Love is a great song."
Not only does he cite a song by Ricki Lee Jones but he can't even spell the title right. Man, what a clueless bonehead -- he must have an implanted respirator because he's obviously too dumb to breathe.
But, on the other hand, he has provided ample footage for any parody song video. So there is that.
posted by y2karl at 6:57 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
Based on Twitter comments, I wonder if some of the musicians jumping on the Neil Young bandwagon are just upset that Spotify isn't paying them off, not that they care so much about Spotify supporting an anti-vaxxer agenda.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:05 PM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:05 PM on January 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Hey, it’s important to act on your principles, but that doesn’t mean it always has to be hard.
posted by condour75 at 7:16 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by condour75 at 7:16 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
Based on Twitter comments, I wonder if some of the musicians jumping on the Neil Young bandwagon are just upset that Spotify isn't paying them off, not that they care so much about Spotify supporting an anti-vaxxer agenda.
Why wouldn't they be? A lot of musicians probably don't care much about Joe Rogan per se, but they do care that Spotify is bankrolling Joe Rogan with the money that was built on downloading the songs that they put their blood, sweat, and tears into. Things can get very personal if you see people doing things you don't like with the money you earned for them.
posted by jonp72 at 8:31 PM on January 31, 2022 [10 favorites]
Why wouldn't they be? A lot of musicians probably don't care much about Joe Rogan per se, but they do care that Spotify is bankrolling Joe Rogan with the money that was built on downloading the songs that they put their blood, sweat, and tears into. Things can get very personal if you see people doing things you don't like with the money you earned for them.
posted by jonp72 at 8:31 PM on January 31, 2022 [10 favorites]
Neil Young and Spotify - Bill Burr
"I gotta be honest with you -- that human being instinct to want to win over getting the right answer is a fucking disease everybody has including myself. How many times have you been in argument with your wife and you know she's right but you're just hanging in there because you don't want to lose. Then you're just making up shit and making it about something else. Just take the loss. Know that she's right and go work on yourself. I'm not even talking to you guys. I'm talking to myself here."
posted by philip-random at 10:03 PM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
"I gotta be honest with you -- that human being instinct to want to win over getting the right answer is a fucking disease everybody has including myself. How many times have you been in argument with your wife and you know she's right but you're just hanging in there because you don't want to lose. Then you're just making up shit and making it about something else. Just take the loss. Know that she's right and go work on yourself. I'm not even talking to you guys. I'm talking to myself here."
posted by philip-random at 10:03 PM on January 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
Gilles Vigneault, who among other things wrote the national anthem of Quebec, just withdrew his music from Spotify as well. Can we get some non-Canadians too?
posted by vasi at 1:50 AM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by vasi at 1:50 AM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Rogan's anti-vaxx and barely concealed white supremacist leanings might eventually cause Spotify considerable trouble down the line
I've listened to at least a couple hundred JRE podcasts over the past decade (far from all of them, but more than 10% of them) and I can't recall any episodes that made me think there were "barely concealed white supremacist leanings" in there. Maybe I was listening to the wrong ones. Can anybody point me to the episodes of the podcast that really stand out as revealing this tendency?
posted by theorique at 6:13 AM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've listened to at least a couple hundred JRE podcasts over the past decade (far from all of them, but more than 10% of them) and I can't recall any episodes that made me think there were "barely concealed white supremacist leanings" in there. Maybe I was listening to the wrong ones. Can anybody point me to the episodes of the podcast that really stand out as revealing this tendency?
posted by theorique at 6:13 AM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Rogan episodes on Spotify omit his interviews with far-right figures including notorious conspiracy monger Alex Jones of InfoWars (whose podcasts Spotify and other platforms pulled in 2018 for policy violations). Other “Joe Rogan Experience” episodes not available include those with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes; ex-Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos; Charles C. Johnson, who’s been described as a “race-baiting troll”; alt-right political commentator and comedian Owen Benjamin; Stefan Molyneux, who “amplifies ‘scientific racism,’ eugenics and white supremacism,” per the Southern Poverty Law Center; and anti-feminist personality Carl Benjamin (aka Sargon of Akkad).
In the past week or so ask yourself what two white guys are trying to accomplish when they muse on air that it's strange that people who are not "100% African from the darkest place" are allowed to call themselves black.
posted by rdr at 7:37 AM on February 1, 2022 [19 favorites]
In the past week or so ask yourself what two white guys are trying to accomplish when they muse on air that it's strange that people who are not "100% African from the darkest place" are allowed to call themselves black.
posted by rdr at 7:37 AM on February 1, 2022 [19 favorites]
Thank you @rdr for that list!
posted by theorique at 7:51 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by theorique at 7:51 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I found more details about the "banned list" of episodes.
posted by theorique at 8:06 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by theorique at 8:06 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Here's a twitter thread of Rogan going mask-off in regards to racism, especially directed towards Black people, not to mention his blatantly racist back-and-forth with Jordan Peterson only a few days ago.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:10 AM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:10 AM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
More detail if you want it ...
JRE Guest Categories
Are you searching for previous episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast with specific types of guests? Only interested in the episodes with scientists? Prefer listening to guests that are authors, rappers or hunters? We’ve attempted to categorize JRE podcast guests by their occupation or area of expertise to make it easier for you to discover new and interesting episodes. Narrow your search by clicking on the categories below..
posted by philip-random at 8:17 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
JRE Guest Categories
Are you searching for previous episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast with specific types of guests? Only interested in the episodes with scientists? Prefer listening to guests that are authors, rappers or hunters? We’ve attempted to categorize JRE podcast guests by their occupation or area of expertise to make it easier for you to discover new and interesting episodes. Narrow your search by clicking on the categories below..
posted by philip-random at 8:17 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
And it seems Graham Nash has joined the cause:
Rolling Stone - Nash, Young Reunite Against Spotify: ‘I Completely Agree and Support My Friend Neil’
posted by kabong the wiser at 9:14 AM on February 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Rolling Stone - Nash, Young Reunite Against Spotify: ‘I Completely Agree and Support My Friend Neil’
posted by kabong the wiser at 9:14 AM on February 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
For anyone else looking at switching, here is a ten second comparison of Spotify and YouTube Music:
Spotify Pros: huge catalog; far superior recommendation engine; better curated lists; works with Alexa. Cons: stupid search function; lots of weird duplicates of nearly everything; that one fucking guy.
YouTube Music Pros: far better search engine; can add YT videos to playlists/listen to them mobile, which is AWESOME. Cons: weird gaps in navigation logic; doesn't work with Alexa; PITA daily limits on importing tracks & playlists.
I will also say that the number of artists leaving Spotify may be underreported. Lots of indie stuff that was on my Spotify playlists has gone dark. Even aside from the moral reasons for leaving, it may be necessary for practical purposes soon of they keep hemorrhaging artists/songs.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:17 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Spotify Pros: huge catalog; far superior recommendation engine; better curated lists; works with Alexa. Cons: stupid search function; lots of weird duplicates of nearly everything; that one fucking guy.
YouTube Music Pros: far better search engine; can add YT videos to playlists/listen to them mobile, which is AWESOME. Cons: weird gaps in navigation logic; doesn't work with Alexa; PITA daily limits on importing tracks & playlists.
I will also say that the number of artists leaving Spotify may be underreported. Lots of indie stuff that was on my Spotify playlists has gone dark. Even aside from the moral reasons for leaving, it may be necessary for practical purposes soon of they keep hemorrhaging artists/songs.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:17 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Scott Lemieux @ LGM:
Defenses of Rogan from people who aren’t themselves anti-vaxx implicitly assume that being significant part of an enormously and disastrously influential anti-vaxx campaign is just a banal “right-of-center” view that should not entail any reputational or financial cost even to its largest platform proponents. Young and Mitchell are saying that there damn well should be reputational or financial costs when you’re knowingly putting anti-vaxx disinformation out to a large audience, as part of a larger reactionary propaganda campaign that’s having a huge influence. Young and Mitchell are correct.posted by tonycpsu at 11:36 AM on February 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
[...]
Large media outlets involve gatekeeping — very few people have nine-figure media deals. And before Joe Biden’s inauguration, anti-vaxx arguments generally weren’t given prominent platforms for the same reason that arguments that it’s OK to drive down a crowded street after drinking a quart of Maker’s Mark weren’t given prominent platforms.
[...]
Let us also be clear that if Rogan’s audience was primarily New Age suburban women the amount of special pleading and false-equivalence excuses for his behavior would be reduced by roughly 99%.
I will grant that there is a problem here we’ve discussed before, namely that “anti-vaxxism is a banal right-of-center view” is now descriptively accurate as a state of things in America. But I still don’t think that’s a good reason to just throw up your hands and preemptively decide you’re never going to try to use any leverage to change incentives at the margin.
I mean, demographically (if you extend 'white' as a significant portion of his brand & audience, which I'm pretty sure isn't a reach), "lib owner" and "guy who appeals to 18-34-year-old white guys" are going to be fairly one & the same. Look at 2020's voting demographic breakdown for the relative popularity of "Lib owner" among white guys at all ages.
In my experience knowing guys, it definitely ain’t all white guys. Although one could say the same about certain kinds of conservatism more broadly. I can’t actually find data on this, though. I can find a survey saying that his listeners are 71 percent men, although he is the biggest podcaster by such a margin that he is likely one of the most listened-to among women as well.
posted by atoxyl at 11:54 AM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
In my experience knowing guys, it definitely ain’t all white guys. Although one could say the same about certain kinds of conservatism more broadly. I can’t actually find data on this, though. I can find a survey saying that his listeners are 71 percent men, although he is the biggest podcaster by such a margin that he is likely one of the most listened-to among women as well.
posted by atoxyl at 11:54 AM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
India.Arie Pulls Music From Spotify Over Joe Rogan’s “Language Around Race”
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:58 AM on February 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:58 AM on February 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
That Jacobin article referenced by LGM makes many good points. It's interesting to see a defense of Rogan from the Left.
posted by theorique at 12:13 PM on February 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
The scramble to gag Rogan strikes me as a misguided, panicky response to the frustrating stubbornness of both the pandemic and widespread vaccine resistance in the United States, if not outright misdirection on the issue. Because if we were being honest about the situation, we’d admit that Rogan’s just one of many purveyors of COVID misinformation that “add to the problem,” as his would-be censors put it — and that the others include a who’s who of liberal politicians, public health officials, and mainstream press outlets, the very sources we’re told are the most trustworthy and mainstream voices on the pandemic, and who are pointing the finger at Rogan now.The YouTube / Facebook / Twitter stamp of (dis)approval for what counts as misinformation has been chasing many moving targets: the lab-leak hypothesis, vaccines preventing infection, vaccines preventing spread, therapeutics for early treatment, and many other topics. While Rogan may have a big audience, he's far from the only person with a big audience who has waded into controversial subjects that straddle the misinformation line.
posted by theorique at 12:13 PM on February 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Headline: Rogan apologizes...
Me: Really. Kinda skeptical...
Rogan: I'm sorry if I pissed anyone off...
OK, cool. Still comfortable hating that guy forever. The coded meaning of "If I offended anyone" is "I do not believe I actually offended anyone, I think you're all just full of shit." It's not only a non-apology, it's an insulting one.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:43 PM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Me: Really. Kinda skeptical...
Rogan: I'm sorry if I pissed anyone off...
OK, cool. Still comfortable hating that guy forever. The coded meaning of "If I offended anyone" is "I do not believe I actually offended anyone, I think you're all just full of shit." It's not only a non-apology, it's an insulting one.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:43 PM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Joe Pompeo in Vanity Fair:“‘Spotify Needs Him Way More Than He Needs Spotify’: Joe Rogan Drama Exposes the Drift of Audio Giant’s Other Mega Deals ”
In the words of one seasoned audio industry insider, having Joe Rogan “is like dropping a Taylor Swift album every day. Spotify needs him way more than he needs Spotify.” (Spotify didn’t have a comment for this story.)posted by Going To Maine at 2:40 PM on February 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Since it came up earlier in the thread: Bandcamp Friday returns on February 4th.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 4:29 PM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 4:29 PM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've heard Rogan be correct on exactly one topic: that the War On Drugs is stupid on every conceivable level and ought to have been called off decades ago.
Eveything else I've ever heard come out of his face has been somewhere between trivial and horseshit, and he's always been more than willing to use his platform to provide a megaphone for guests with utterly abhorrent views that he's far more likely to just grin and go along with than do anything to challenge. He is, in other words, indistinguishable from pretty much any Morning Zoo DJ on commercial radio.
I object to him, but only because I'm fed up with hearing people tell me about something they heard on his show like he or whichever vacuous fool he had on is some kind of goddamn public intellectual.
So I thoroughly appreciate Neil Young having caused him whatever discomfort he has and can. Long overdue. Should be more of it.
The idea that the world would lose anything of value by shutting down Joe fucking Rogan is ludicrous on its face. The guy is 100% mainstream. He'd be replaced by somebody utterly indistinguishable in a nanosecond.
posted by flabdablet at 7:21 PM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Eveything else I've ever heard come out of his face has been somewhere between trivial and horseshit, and he's always been more than willing to use his platform to provide a megaphone for guests with utterly abhorrent views that he's far more likely to just grin and go along with than do anything to challenge. He is, in other words, indistinguishable from pretty much any Morning Zoo DJ on commercial radio.
I object to him, but only because I'm fed up with hearing people tell me about something they heard on his show like he or whichever vacuous fool he had on is some kind of goddamn public intellectual.
So I thoroughly appreciate Neil Young having caused him whatever discomfort he has and can. Long overdue. Should be more of it.
The idea that the world would lose anything of value by shutting down Joe fucking Rogan is ludicrous on its face. The guy is 100% mainstream. He'd be replaced by somebody utterly indistinguishable in a nanosecond.
posted by flabdablet at 7:21 PM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
I've heard Rogan be correct on exactly one topic: that the War On Drugs is stupid on every conceivable level and ought to have been called off decades ago.
Eveything else I've ever heard come out of his face has been somewhere between trivial and horseshit,
maybe if certain groups put aside various of their differences and focused their everything into the annihilation of the War on Drugs, we'd see some barriers dissolve and find a way to start focusing more on our common ground.
But what do I know? I'm Canadian and at least a little high
posted by philip-random at 8:06 PM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Eveything else I've ever heard come out of his face has been somewhere between trivial and horseshit,
maybe if certain groups put aside various of their differences and focused their everything into the annihilation of the War on Drugs, we'd see some barriers dissolve and find a way to start focusing more on our common ground.
But what do I know? I'm Canadian and at least a little high
posted by philip-random at 8:06 PM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
That bit about him supposedly not knowing the difference between Rickie Lee Jones and Joni Mitchell?
It was deliberate. It was a dig.
Believe me, women who have worked in entertainment recognized it.
We’re all unremarkable, interchangeable, and indistinguishable, especially once we’ve surpassed “fuckable” age.
posted by armeowda at 8:46 PM on February 1, 2022 [23 favorites]
It was deliberate. It was a dig.
Believe me, women who have worked in entertainment recognized it.
We’re all unremarkable, interchangeable, and indistinguishable, especially once we’ve surpassed “fuckable” age.
posted by armeowda at 8:46 PM on February 1, 2022 [23 favorites]
White House on Spotify’s Joe Rogan Mess: “There Is More That Can Be Done” to Inform Users
posted by chavenet at 2:49 AM on February 2, 2022
posted by chavenet at 2:49 AM on February 2, 2022
I've heard Rogan be correct on exactly one topic: that the War On Drugs is stupid on every conceivable level and ought to have been called off decades ago.
That's his thing, his opinions veer off in so many directions that anyone can find something to agree with him about.
posted by octothorpe at 6:17 AM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
That's his thing, his opinions veer off in so many directions that anyone can find something to agree with him about.
posted by octothorpe at 6:17 AM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Failure Pull Music From Spotify: “It’s Been A Scam For Artists Since The Beginning”
Rolling Stone: Nash, Young Reunite Against Spotify: ‘I Completely Agree and Support My Friend Neil’
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:27 AM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Rolling Stone: Nash, Young Reunite Against Spotify: ‘I Completely Agree and Support My Friend Neil’
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:27 AM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
...his opinions veer off in so many directions that anyone can find something to agree with him about.
This implies he's a refreshing iconoclast. When in fact he is a braying moron.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:07 AM on February 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
This implies he's a refreshing iconoclast. When in fact he is a braying moron.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:07 AM on February 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
That's just part of his schtick.
posted by octothorpe at 9:21 AM on February 2, 2022 [14 favorites]
At another point, he said, “I’m not a doctor, I’m a fucking moron, and I’m a cage-fighting commentator who’s a dirty stand-up comedian... I’m not a respected source of information -- even for me.”He uses that as a shield to keep him from having any responsibility for what he says.
posted by octothorpe at 9:21 AM on February 2, 2022 [14 favorites]
He uses that as a shield to keep him from having any responsibility for what he says.
Hmm. I wonder if he's riffing on Jon Stewart.
posted by No Robots at 9:36 AM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Hmm. I wonder if he's riffing on Jon Stewart.
posted by No Robots at 9:36 AM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
I thought of that when I was reading the Stewart thread.
posted by octothorpe at 9:46 AM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 9:46 AM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Hmm. I wonder if he's riffing on Jon Stewart.
Nah, it's not that intentional or self-aware. It's just a variation of weaponized incompetence. Do a task you don't really want to do badly, and then when you get called out on it claim that it's not really your fault, you're just a hapless doofus who doesn't know any better.
These days it's a term mostly used referring to men doing this to get out of domestic or emotional labor, but I believe the original coinage was intended to be more wide-ranging, possibly even work/business focused. In any case, that's Rogan's schtick in a nutshell.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:51 AM on February 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
Nah, it's not that intentional or self-aware. It's just a variation of weaponized incompetence. Do a task you don't really want to do badly, and then when you get called out on it claim that it's not really your fault, you're just a hapless doofus who doesn't know any better.
These days it's a term mostly used referring to men doing this to get out of domestic or emotional labor, but I believe the original coinage was intended to be more wide-ranging, possibly even work/business focused. In any case, that's Rogan's schtick in a nutshell.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:51 AM on February 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
Spotify stock dives 17% as dim user forecast overshadows revenue beat
At Spotify the forecast is for dim users....
posted by chavenet at 1:33 PM on February 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
At Spotify the forecast is for dim users....
posted by chavenet at 1:33 PM on February 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
That's his thing, his opinions veer off in so many directions that anyone can find something to agree with him about.
One of the things with Joe is that he asks a lot of questions, and talks about stuff that he's read or heard, but he doesn't necessarily express strong opinions in areas where he has no expertise. He gives the guests time and space to explain things in depth, without interruption. That's why the podcasts go on for hours and hours.
posted by theorique at 1:42 PM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
One of the things with Joe is that he asks a lot of questions, and talks about stuff that he's read or heard, but he doesn't necessarily express strong opinions in areas where he has no expertise. He gives the guests time and space to explain things in depth, without interruption. That's why the podcasts go on for hours and hours.
posted by theorique at 1:42 PM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
At Spotify the forecast is for dim users....
Well, that seems like a growth market.
posted by orange ball at 1:45 PM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Well, that seems like a growth market.
posted by orange ball at 1:45 PM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
he doesn't necessarily express strong opinions in areas where he has no expertise
The entire reason this discussion is happening is because he actually has been doing this, repeatedly.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 1:57 PM on February 2, 2022 [10 favorites]
The entire reason this discussion is happening is because he actually has been doing this, repeatedly.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 1:57 PM on February 2, 2022 [10 favorites]
Well, looks like Stephen Stills is on board.
posted by box at 2:06 PM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by box at 2:06 PM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
It would be nice to see some more podcasters take a position. Science Vs., for instance.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:47 AM on February 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 9:47 AM on February 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
Roxane Gay is pulling her podcast off Spotify in solidarity.
posted by Celatone at 10:16 AM on February 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Celatone at 10:16 AM on February 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
In The Atlantic, there is a summary of many perspectives in the media on this situation.
posted by PhineasGage at 11:26 AM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 11:26 AM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
he doesn't necessarily express strong opinions in areas where he has no expertise
I mean, he actually took ivermectin when he got covid and then publicized it. If that's not expressing a strong opinion, I don't know what is.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 2:45 PM on February 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
I mean, he actually took ivermectin when he got covid and then publicized it. If that's not expressing a strong opinion, I don't know what is.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 2:45 PM on February 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
Speaking of the former Daily Show host: "Jon Stewart sides with Joe Rogan as more artists leave Spotify: ‘This overreaction is a mistake’"
posted by octothorpe at 6:32 PM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 6:32 PM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Eric Clapton is a raging dumpster fire of terrible opinions, but is Spotify paying him a hundred million dollars for an exclusive? I think not.
posted by flabdablet at 2:38 AM on February 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 2:38 AM on February 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
Apple Music have just cut down their free trial from 3 months to 1 month, I guess they have had a big influx of new users this week.
posted by Lanark at 3:12 AM on February 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Lanark at 3:12 AM on February 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Ana Valens: Spotify Allows Joe Rogan to Say So Much Transphobic Bullsh*t That it’s Baffling
In an all-hands meeting several months after the streaming giant purchased exclusive rights to Rogan’s podcast, Spotify’s LGBTQ employees warned that they felt “unwelcome and alienated because of leadership’s response in [The Joe Rogan Experience] conversations.” At the time, Rogan dismissed these complaints as the brainchild of “a 23-year-old woke kid.”Jude Doyle: … Or You Could Just Listen The First Time
Months later, the chickens have come home to roost. Transphobic conspiracy theories now rest alongside COVID-19 misinformation on Rogan’s show. These two are related. On Twitter, trans science writer Zinnia Jones pointed out that Rogan “was pushing bad science on trans people before he was pushing bad science on COVID,” and that “he was a danger to our health and now, because you didn’t stop him when he did that, he’s a danger to yours.”
Sometimes Joe Rogan is telling people not to take a vaccine for a novel coronavirus which — if they catch it — might disable or kill them. It turns out that there is a difference between robust, provocative discussion and actively encouraging your audience to die, and Spotify only found this out when 270 doctors and scientists signed a letter of protest, musicians including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled their catalogs from the service, the company lost $2 billion in market value, and Jay-Z, founder of rival streaming service Tidal, was vindicated once and for all.posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:10 AM on February 4, 2022 [17 favorites]
Here is where I confess ambivalence — not because I don’t hate Joe Rogan’s podcast, but because I, and many other marginalized people, have hated Joe Rogan’s podcast for quite some time. Joe Rogan is racist. Joe Rogan thinks that “women lie about rape” and that protesting rape culture is a “rape fetish.” Joe Rogan hates trans people and platforms other figures who spread hatred about trans people. Google tells me I’ve been complaining about all this since at least February of 2017, and I have hardly been alone in complaining, yet, for the most part, Rogan’s bigotry has been met with shrugs and multi-million-dollar contracts, not mass revolt.
In this context, the fact that the mainstream has turned on Rogan over COVID feels suspicious. Have all these people finally realized that Joe Rogan is dangerous? Or have they just realized that Joe Rogan is dangerous to them?
this Guardian podcast is a good listen. I like that neither of these guys are outright dismissing Rogan. They're both fans to some degree, but also quite aware of the guy's flaws and blindspots and how his almost incalculable popularity magnifies them.
Can Joe Rogan change?
Journalist Devin Gordon, who has written about Rogan for The Atlantic, tells Michael Safi that Rogan’s popularity comes down to his ability to connect with his predominantly white male listeners – and to be a relatable, self-optimising role model.
I like that they don't skip the point that, in terms of politics, Mr. Rogan skews left on a number of issues (govt regulation, access to healthcare, ending the war on drugs), which makes it very wrong to think that he's "really just Rush Limbaugh for bros" as a friend of mine put it to me the other night. It's way more complicated than that.
posted by philip-random at 9:47 AM on February 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
Can Joe Rogan change?
Journalist Devin Gordon, who has written about Rogan for The Atlantic, tells Michael Safi that Rogan’s popularity comes down to his ability to connect with his predominantly white male listeners – and to be a relatable, self-optimising role model.
I like that they don't skip the point that, in terms of politics, Mr. Rogan skews left on a number of issues (govt regulation, access to healthcare, ending the war on drugs), which makes it very wrong to think that he's "really just Rush Limbaugh for bros" as a friend of mine put it to me the other night. It's way more complicated than that.
posted by philip-random at 9:47 AM on February 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
I like that they don't skip the point that, in terms of politics, Mr. Rogan skews left on a number of issues (govt regulation, access to healthcare, ending the war on drugs), which makes it very wrong to think that he's "really just Rush Limbaugh for bros" as a friend of mine put it to me the other night. It's way more complicated than that.
Rogan tends to be very aligned on a lot of different issues that are of interest to a broad spectrum of young men from college to early professional age (say, 18-35): pragmatic, libertarian in some ways and progressive in others, taking pride in having "common sense" and not being overly PC (as they see it).
The Guardian article says: The freewheeling, inquisitive style that made Rogan so influential turned into a liability during the Covid pandemic.
The question arises - liability for whom? As far as I can tell, the liability is mainly for Spotify, and isn't really landing too hard on Rogan himself.
posted by theorique at 9:59 AM on February 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Rogan tends to be very aligned on a lot of different issues that are of interest to a broad spectrum of young men from college to early professional age (say, 18-35): pragmatic, libertarian in some ways and progressive in others, taking pride in having "common sense" and not being overly PC (as they see it).
The Guardian article says: The freewheeling, inquisitive style that made Rogan so influential turned into a liability during the Covid pandemic.
The question arises - liability for whom? As far as I can tell, the liability is mainly for Spotify, and isn't really landing too hard on Rogan himself.
posted by theorique at 9:59 AM on February 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
The reflexive rush to defend Rogan after links showing how he both platforms and expresses bigotry, disinformation, and toxic ideologies is really tiresome.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:17 AM on February 4, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:17 AM on February 4, 2022 [10 favorites]
The reflexive rush to dismiss Rogan as a black hatted villain with zero redeeming qualities after links showing how he may have one or two is really tiresome.
I mean, I am tired. But evidence is evidence. I'm not for a moment denying that he "... both platforms and expresses bigotry, disinformation, and toxic ideologies". Just think there's value in better understanding the dimensions of the problem in question.
posted by philip-random at 10:28 AM on February 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
Just think there's value in better understanding the dimensions of the problem in question.
As far as I can tell, the Devin Gordon article linked by the podcast above barely even touches on any of that, and was written several months before COVID was discovered, let alone before Rogan could spread misinformation about it or vaccines or public health measures. Not only that, it seems to completely ignore Rogan's own bigotry, which had already been apparent for at least a year according to Doyle. That doesn't sound like a particularly good-faith attempt to understand the dimensions of the problem, it seems like a fluff piece peppered with slight criticisms.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:44 AM on February 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
As far as I can tell, the Devin Gordon article linked by the podcast above barely even touches on any of that, and was written several months before COVID was discovered, let alone before Rogan could spread misinformation about it or vaccines or public health measures. Not only that, it seems to completely ignore Rogan's own bigotry, which had already been apparent for at least a year according to Doyle. That doesn't sound like a particularly good-faith attempt to understand the dimensions of the problem, it seems like a fluff piece peppered with slight criticisms.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:44 AM on February 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm sorry, but no, there is actually negative value in responding to people pointing out Rogan's misogyny, transphobia, racism, and other bigotries by saying "well, he has some sort of positive views aligning with his interests as a cishetero white male." (This is the whole problem with Chapo Trap House as well, by the way.)
Not all devils need advocates, and we don't need to go looking for possible kernels of good in a mountain of shit out of a misguided obligation to look for good out of a sense of balance. Sometimes, the bad someone does outweighs any good they might do, and the insistence that we should look for that good undermines our position.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:45 AM on February 4, 2022 [17 favorites]
Not all devils need advocates, and we don't need to go looking for possible kernels of good in a mountain of shit out of a misguided obligation to look for good out of a sense of balance. Sometimes, the bad someone does outweighs any good they might do, and the insistence that we should look for that good undermines our position.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:45 AM on February 4, 2022 [17 favorites]
there's a difference between the insisting that we look for good (out of a sense of balance) and trying to understand how some (the Rogan target market) may see some good, and why. Call it bothering to understand your enemy, their lines of support. As I noted above, shrugging Rogan off as a Rush Limbaugh level troll (something a friend did the other night) is missing the point. It's just not that simple.
posted by philip-random at 10:54 AM on February 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 10:54 AM on February 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
It's just not that simple. Okay. I posit, however, that it is exactly that simple.
EvErYbOdY has at least a couple of good qualities, black-hatted villains included. It's just that, with villains, the good qualities are not sufficient to outweigh the bad flaws--so what would be "redeeming" in a less harmful example is not redeeming in this example.
We do not need to make Joe Rogan a topic for master's-thesis-level independent study. He is not a multifaceted diamond of complexity.
The problem in question is that a champion of stupid destructive broculture bullshit continues to frolic destructively on a massive platform that allows him to spew unchecked his countless hours of harmful crap that hurts lots of people. That is not a problem with dimensions. It is a simple, simple problem. That Joe Rogan wants to legalize weed and get single payer does not add "dimensions" to the problem.
You go ahead and like Joe Rogan and listen to Joe Rogan and be glad none of this is going to redound upon Joe Rogan and celebrate that Joe Rogan will continue ascendant until the end of time. That's fine. Enjoy. But those of us who dislike Joe Rogan do not have to go listen to the lifetime of Joe Rogan's bleatings to continue to dislike Joe Rogan and continue to complain about the irritating brainless 'roidyacking idiot that is Joe Rogan.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:00 AM on February 4, 2022 [9 favorites]
EvErYbOdY has at least a couple of good qualities, black-hatted villains included. It's just that, with villains, the good qualities are not sufficient to outweigh the bad flaws--so what would be "redeeming" in a less harmful example is not redeeming in this example.
We do not need to make Joe Rogan a topic for master's-thesis-level independent study. He is not a multifaceted diamond of complexity.
The problem in question is that a champion of stupid destructive broculture bullshit continues to frolic destructively on a massive platform that allows him to spew unchecked his countless hours of harmful crap that hurts lots of people. That is not a problem with dimensions. It is a simple, simple problem. That Joe Rogan wants to legalize weed and get single payer does not add "dimensions" to the problem.
You go ahead and like Joe Rogan and listen to Joe Rogan and be glad none of this is going to redound upon Joe Rogan and celebrate that Joe Rogan will continue ascendant until the end of time. That's fine. Enjoy. But those of us who dislike Joe Rogan do not have to go listen to the lifetime of Joe Rogan's bleatings to continue to dislike Joe Rogan and continue to complain about the irritating brainless 'roidyacking idiot that is Joe Rogan.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:00 AM on February 4, 2022 [9 favorites]
Call it bothering to understand your enemy, their lines of support.
One of the saddest days of my life was the day I read polling results showing that John Howard's biggest lurch toward making Australia a police state had the approval of something like two thirds of the Australian public.
Ultimately, that's where Rogan's lines of support are. He's as mainstream as they come, not so much because he sucks (which he obviously does) but because the mainstream does. And the mainstream sucks because it's increasingly being fed a stream of whatever it wants to hear, regardless of whether there's any factual basis to any of it.
posted by flabdablet at 11:06 AM on February 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
One of the saddest days of my life was the day I read polling results showing that John Howard's biggest lurch toward making Australia a police state had the approval of something like two thirds of the Australian public.
Ultimately, that's where Rogan's lines of support are. He's as mainstream as they come, not so much because he sucks (which he obviously does) but because the mainstream does. And the mainstream sucks because it's increasingly being fed a stream of whatever it wants to hear, regardless of whether there's any factual basis to any of it.
posted by flabdablet at 11:06 AM on February 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
shrugging Rogan off as a Rush Limbaugh level troll (something a friend did the other night) is missing the point
Maybe, but Rogan gives lots of Limbaugh-esque assholes a platform and an audience that they might not have found otherwise, and on top of that appears to have absorbed a bunch of their rhetoric.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:11 AM on February 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
Maybe, but Rogan gives lots of Limbaugh-esque assholes a platform and an audience that they might not have found otherwise, and on top of that appears to have absorbed a bunch of their rhetoric.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:11 AM on February 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
Xeni Jardin made an excellent point about the bullshit censorship arguments thrown around:
Do not let anyone lie to you that Spotify must choose between censorship and Joe Rogan. The publisher choose to offer a $100 million contract to a man who loves saying the n word with a hard r, and pushes pandemic disinformation. This isn’t complicated. Spotify sucks. Rogan sucksposted by NoxAeternum at 2:02 PM on February 4, 2022 [7 favorites]
Additionally if you define censorship like that, Spotify already cut episodes *they* didn't even see as worth defending.
posted by Selena777 at 5:31 PM on February 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 5:31 PM on February 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
Joe Rogan apologises for using N-word and racist Planet of the Apes story (The Guardian)
posted by Acey at 10:42 AM on February 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Acey at 10:42 AM on February 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
“I’m sorry I got caught.”
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:07 AM on February 5, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:07 AM on February 5, 2022 [5 favorites]
Why Did These ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ Episodes Get Yanked From Spotify?
Rolling Stone Article
Rolling Stone Article
Among the episodes removed include interviews with Amy Schumer, Marc Maron, Bill Burr, Andy Dick, Tool frontman Maynard J. Keenan and Iliza Shlesinger.posted by Glinn at 1:52 PM on February 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
It’s unclear why the episodes in question were pulled, and representatives for Rogan and Spotify did not respond to Rolling Stone‘s requests for comments. However, eagle-eyed fans of the controversial podcast on Reddit observed that many of the deleted episodes contained racial slurs, ableist language and other content that could be deemed insensitive.
Hmmm.... An episode of "Science Vs.", a Gimlet podcast that was supposed to have become a Spotify exclusive, just popped up on the old RSS feed. (The episode is also available on Spotify, as of this post.)
Here's the transcript.
Wendy says:
Here's the transcript.
Wendy says:
...for the past few months I've been encouraging you all to join up to Spotify. So I’m feeling like a bit of a chump here. Which brings us to today, we’re going to dig into what Malone and Rogan actually talked about on Rogan’s show. And we’re going to take a close look at the science … And also the bigger picture here – cause we are going to walk you through the ways that misleading claims can confuse us into believing stuff that doesn't line up with the best science we've got.She adds,
Oh and we're not gonna have any ads on this episode – but if you do need a little brain break here's the sound of one of my favourite Aussie birds.. the kookaburra... Kinda sounds like he’s laughing? Orright back to the show.posted by BrashTech at 5:10 PM on February 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
podcast that was supposed to have become a Spotify exclusive
I wonder whether it's going to become a thing for content producers to include behavior clauses in their contracts with platforms, where the platform's hosting of bigotry, misinformation, fascism, etc. can be grounds for terminating the contract.
posted by trig at 6:07 PM on February 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
I wonder whether it's going to become a thing for content producers to include behavior clauses in their contracts with platforms, where the platform's hosting of bigotry, misinformation, fascism, etc. can be grounds for terminating the contract.
posted by trig at 6:07 PM on February 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Now that I’ve listened to it… the end of the episode, Rose adds:
And one more note … going through this episode of Rogan’s show and hearing the misleading stuff in there was pretty frustrating …And that's why on Monday, me and our editor Blythe Terrell… announced on Twitter that until Spotify improves its policies… We aren't going to make any more new Science Vs episodes, except those intended to counteract misinformation being spread on the platform - which is bigger than Joe Rogan.posted by BrashTech at 6:49 PM on February 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Rogan likes to pretend that he brings in alternative points of view — that he says when challenged that he doesn’t necessarily agree with — to make for interesting content. The challenge to him needs to be, ok bruh but where’s the balance? Let’s hear from some feminists, trans activists, leftists and others and I want to see you give them the same softball bullshit interviews. If you want to raise up alternative viewpoints, let hear from someone other than Nazis and right wing assholes.
posted by interogative mood at 8:53 PM on February 5, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 8:53 PM on February 5, 2022 [12 favorites]
He's bringing in alternative points of view that he believes will be of interest to his demographic. If he had AOC, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Roxanne Gay and the like on with any frequency, his faux intellectual salon folks would just be mad.
posted by Selena777 at 7:55 AM on February 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 7:55 AM on February 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Margaret Sullivan: I’m disgusted by Joe Rogan’s weak apology. My former colleague’s death at 47 makes it worse.
In a 10-minute Instagram video, the erstwhile TV comic turned professional provocateur told his employers at Spotify that he was sorry for causing them trouble. Rogan also assured Neil Young that he was still a fan, even after the rock legend yanked his music off the streaming service in protest, leading a number of other musicians to do the same. And Rogan acknowledged that he gets stuff wrong sometimes and will try to provide more balance in the future.posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:25 AM on February 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
But to everyone else, he offered the worst kind of non-apology: “If I pissed you off, I’m sorry.”
What I didn’t hear from Rogan was any remorse that he might have done harm when he held forth about his own bogus belief that healthy young people don’t need to get vaccinated, or when he failed to challenge a guest who promised that the drug ivermectin would extinguish the virus altogether or when he allowed another guest to spout theories about how Americans are essentially being hypnotized about covid by the media, and comparing the situation to Nazi Germany.
He didn’t address the 270 medical professionals whose powerful open letter warned, about one of Rogan’s episodes, that “mass-misinformation events of this scale have extraordinarily dangerous ramifications.”
Worse, I heard no apologies to the people who took to heart what they heard, endangering themselves or their loved ones.
To my ears, Rogan sounded glib, narcissistic and clueless.
Mind-Blowing Joe Rogan Clip Resurfaces
"there are so many wackos out there that think vaccines are a scam or they're dangerous ... "
(Joe Rogan -- March 2020)
posted by philip-random at 9:04 AM on February 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
"there are so many wackos out there that think vaccines are a scam or they're dangerous ... "
(Joe Rogan -- March 2020)
posted by philip-random at 9:04 AM on February 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
Pharyngula has a post today about some of Rogan's racist and misogynistic terribleness.
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:08 AM on February 7, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:08 AM on February 7, 2022 [4 favorites]
Matthew Strauss at Pitchfork: “Spotify Sources Say Joe Rogan’s Deal Was $200 Million, Double What Was Originally Reported”:
In May 2020, Spotify announced a licensing deal with Joe Rogan to host his extremely popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, exclusively on the streaming platform. At the time, it was reported that the deal paid Rogan $100 million. Now, “two people familiar with the details of the transaction” have told The New York Times that Spotify and Rogan actually agreed to a three-and-half-year deal worth at least $200 million. A former Spotify employee who spoke anonymously with Pitchfork has also said that the agreement was worth over $200 million.posted by Going To Maine at 4:28 PM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
The took all the money they made off all those artists, many of whom are victims of racism and gave it to Joe Rogan.
posted by interogative mood at 5:17 PM on February 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 5:17 PM on February 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I think that's nails it right there. I have friends who have albums on Spotify who have made pennies while they pay Rogan more money than those artists will make in a lifetime.
posted by octothorpe at 10:37 AM on February 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 10:37 AM on February 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
« Older A Brief History of Windfuckers | The Art of Luca Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by msbutah at 9:08 AM on January 29, 2022 [46 favorites]