[Joni Mitchell fade-in:]
For the past few weeks, Joni Mitchell fans have had a lot to discuss: after nearly two years, her content is back on Spotify. Following Neil Young, she had removed her content from the streaming platform in January of 2022, in protest of Spotify’s enduring support of Joe Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. It’s been widely criticized for spreading misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as racist and transphobic rhetoric. Rogan publicly apologized for the situation on Instagram, but admitted no wrongdoing on his part.
[Joe Rogan transition:]
As part of a statement published on her website, she wrote: “Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”
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Has this changed? Is this not still happening?
How should we interpret Joni Mitchell’s return to Spotify? What might this say about the misinformation, or the politics of music and content distribution in the streaming age?
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Being one of the figureheads of American folk music, Joni Mitchell is decidedly not a child of the streaming age:
Here’s Ryan Dohoney, a professor for Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music. He says that as an artist circulating her music through radio play and LP alongside touring, she was somewhat ahead of her time.
RYAN DOHONEY: Well, I think it’s interesting, right? It’s like she’s pregnant, she does actually kind of record quite early, I mean, she’s circulating through LP, that’s how things were circulating.
Mitchell was also at the forefront of a musical movement: the resurgence of an American folk tradition in the 60s. Dohoney traces the history of this movement, as well as its deep ties to contemporary political sensibilities.
DOHONEY: You know, I think a lot of our imagination, at least how it returns, right, there’s in the 30s, a kind of real progressive movement that’s using folk music as a means of union songs or producing other kinds of political consciousness. And I think the resurgence of that movement in the 60s, along with a kind of burgeoning is also part of a kind of movement. That’s again, part of a political moment that’s developing a kind of resistance to these kind of bigger Cold War politics and kind of red baiting and kind of fears around communism that had developed at the
Here’s Professor Nathan Walter, from Northwestern’s School of Communication. He says that Mitchell’s political identity might have impacted how Mitchell made the decision to pull content.
NATHAN WALTER: You know, maybe I’m just a romantic but I want to think that she made the decision. I don’t think it was immediate team. I think she’s off that generation, the generation that it uses chants were almost like they viewed themselves also as activist. And, you know, she famously viewed performing Woodstock. And she’s the one who wrote the song Woodstock. In. So all this generates generation know Crosby, Stills and Nash and Neil Young, I do think that they do this out of a sense of true mission to raise awareness.
Walters says that Mitchell pulling content from Spotify can be seen as part of a long tradition of artists boycotting or distancing themselves from services, platforms, or even events and concerts for political reasons.
WALTER: Singers did it in the context of workers rights, and John Byers did it in the context of them. And more recently, He had people like to elite Park, a boycott in the World Cup in Qatar,
However, he says that by specifically protesting the spread of misinformation, Young and Mitchell might have involved themselves in a losing battle.
WALTER: Johnny made Phil and the rule young, other people who remove their content from Spotify are trying to fight misinformation and not necessarily raise awareness of Chipotle Rogen. So the question is, is this was that the smartest move? And honestly, I don’t have the answer. But anecdotally, I can tell you that way. We’ll people were talking about Joe Rogan.
Walter says that Rogan’s objective ultimately came out much clearer than Mitchell’s.
WALTER: It seems like there’s a new episode almost every day. There’s just more opportunities for Joe Rogan to defend himself to debunk what John Mitchell was trying to do. And we don’t see that level of response from Johnny Mitchell. So it’s almost a I don’t want to sound fear. But you know, they’re not. They have very, very different goals. Joni Mitchell did something and just disengaged. And Joe Rogan kept on talking about it, and explaining his position and explaining why he was right, and why they will roll in.
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Although Mitchell re-released her content back to Spotify without a statement, Young wrote on his website that his decision came as other platforms like Apple and Amazon “started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify.” Thus, he would need to remove his music from all platforms to keep protesting the spread of misinformation. It’s a somewhat depressing view of the ubiquity of streaming platforms, and artists’ lack of agency in addressing it.
Dohoney says that a major advantage of streaming is access. But even just getting this content onto streaming platforms can be destructive for artists that were active when the Internet didn’t even exist.
DOHONEY: And that despite the illusion of the Internet has everything right it’s not true like we’re constantly losing just like so much yeah, happens every time there’s a big format shift in the history of music right?
And the harsh truth is that few artists have found ways of widely distributing content without relying on these platforms, at least in the streaming age. But Walter describes how artists have successfully boycotted corporations in other industries, an example being Elton John’s boycott of designers Dolce and Gabbana over homophobic remarks back in 2015.
WALTER: They’re in the same world. So that’s what the effect is in, you know, getting an apology that was effective in getting some pressure on them.
It’s unclear how the platform will change in the coming years. But Walter says that perhaps, Young and Mitchell helped establish some boundaries for content creators.
WALTER: And maybe, you know, maybe their other job is not quite as popular that are not quite as strong and wealthy. And maybe some of them, they saw that as a warning. As you know, not everything goes.
And even with an uncertain or unexpected outcome, protesting at the expense of one’s convenience or gain constitutes a valuable and powerful act.
WALTER: There’s some power in taking a stance, regardless of whether it changes people’s hearts and minds. And I appreciate that. I think there’s, you know, there’s something brings about it.
This is as true for anyone, as it is Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.
For WNUR News, I’m Paul O’Connor
[fade out: Joni Mitchell]
