Performative Bullshit

The Neil Young Show

I learned the there was a thing between Neil Young and Joe Rogan and Spotify.

The essentials: Neil Young isn’t happy with Joe Rogan because Young believes that Rogan has disseminated covid disinformation on his podcast. Young sent an ultimatum to Spotify (the platform where both of these people make their bucks), you have to make a choice, me or Rogan. Now Neil Young’s music is being pulled from Spotify.

I googled ‘joe rogan neil young’ and the results were three guardian articles, one BBC article, and a single Telegraph. I live in the UK. That was like 3 to 1 in favor of Neil, a single Joe positive with the telegraph, and a pretty neutral BBC for Neil.

Question: did Spotify remove Neil, or did Neil remove himself from Spotify?

Digging in a bit and it looks like Spotify would have been super happy to have both Neil and Joe - obviously. In fact, it doesn’t look as if Joe had anything to do with this, it was all Neil and Neil versus everyone else.

So far it doesn’t look as though Joe Rogan has even made a single comment about this bruhaha.

Disinformation.

Let’s put aside the alleged covid disinformation from Rogan. Clearly, the guardian and independent and BBC have engaged in disinformation here. Spotify drops Neil Young over Joe Rogan. No. Neil Young drops himself from Spotify over Joe Rogan.

It gets worse.

I Click MORE on the news feed and look at those headlines.

Neil Young is a hero. His battle is principled and comfortable. Spotify picks anti vaxer Joe Rogan over Neil Young. This is all complete bullshit. Talk about alternative facts.

I can play and sing over a hundred Neil Young songs (probably around 20 in reality). I have read his fantastic biography, ‘Shaky’. I have watched Jarmusch’s film ‘Year of the horse’ maybe five times, including when it first came out in the movie theaters.

I was singer and guitarist of the famous band Yeil Noung and Hazy Course - NOT A JOKE, NOT MISINFORMATION, TRUE! In short, I am a million times more of a Neil Young head than a Joe Rogan fan. I’m NOT a Joe Rogan fan.

I’ve also seen Neil Young’s recent Howard Stern interview about not playing live gigs until the pandemic is over. Neil is simply wrong about this subject. Maybe because he’s like half of a billionaire and doesn’t live in reality any more. Maybe because he’s spent the majority of his adult life in Northern California. Maybe because he’s always been very ornery. I don’t know. Maybe he’s always been an idiot outside of being a musical genius.

I’ve watched the Joe Rogan episodes where he talks about the covid vaccine. He makes a lot of sense. There’s nothing anti-vax about his position. He doesn’t really have a position. He has had some anti-vax morons on his show. Thank you for that joe. Now I’ve had the opportunity to see an anti-vaxer be a complete idiot. It was great to be able to make up my own mind about Dr Malone or whatever his name is. If I hadn’t been able to watch a long interview with him, where Rogan lets him have as much time as he needs to look stupid, I’d never have been able to have some kind of an opinion on this (apparently) important and dangerous man.

Back to Neil Young. He’s still amazing, but not on Spotify anymore. Lol. Who thinks that’s going to last? Personally I’d be happy if Spotify disappeared of the face of the planet. I’ve got a couple of Neil Young LPs on vinyl, so I’m all set.

The Guardian and the Independent and the Times.

What are these media phenomena? Why have they published such obvious disinformation about this issue - which of course shouldn’t have ever become any kind of an issue. I mean, who cares what a famously ego-centric pretend hippy thinks about anything?

Don’t think you can play me about Neil Young. He’s never been like, a good guy or anything. Just read the biography.

I have just read all of those articles carefully. Not one has detail on the specific vaccine disinformation content that allegedly appears on Rogan’s show. There is only the mention of some quack doctor’s appearance in the Independent’s article. Nothing whatsoever in the Guardian article. Article… probably not the right word for it.

Consider the title of the Guardian article: ‘Neil Young’s battle with Spotify is principled – and comfortable, By Alexis Petridis’

Is this anyone’s idea of a journalist? This is nothing but a click bait misinformation peddler. This guy is the problem. He probably lives in Stoke Newington.

Is Neil Young in a battle with Spotify? This doesn’t seem true. He’s not battling Spotify, he’s painted himself into a corner over an episode of someone ‘s podcast which dollars to donuts he never even listened to. In addition, he doesn’t even own his music anymore, having sold it to an investment fund last year for $150 million bucks. His record company went along with Young’s demand to remove the music, probably because they know it’ll be back within the year.

Performative bullshit.