Neil Young has announced that his music will be returning to Spotify. In a statement shared to his website, Young says that the move was motivated by Apple Music and Amazon's decision to begin hosting "disinformation podcasts".
Young initially decided to boycott Spotify in 2022 after the platform became the exclusive outlet for Joe Rogan's podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, citing an opposition to Rogan's vaccine skepticism. Following a new deal between Rogan and Spotify, the podcast will now be available on other audio platforms.
"I cannot leave all those services like I did Spotify", Young says, "because my music would have no outlet to music lovers at all".
In the statement, Young also slams Spotify for offering only "low-res" music on its platform, describing Spotify as "the #1 streamer of low-res music in the world, where you get less quality than we made".
"I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it," he continues.
"Hopefully Spotify will turn to hi-res as the answer and serve all the music to everyone. Spotify, you can do it! Really be #1 in all ways. You have the music and the listeners!!!! Start with a limited hi-res tier and build from there!"
Spotify announced a lossless streaming tier, Spotify HiFi, in 2021, but the feature has yet to materialize. Currently, Spotify streams at a maximum quality of 320kbps.
