Spotify has dominated headlines across the music world recently thanks to Neil Young pulling his music from the service in response to episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience.” Rogan explained his position, Neil Young moved his catalog to Amazon, and even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson briefly chimed in. Now, Judas Priest singer Rob Halford has weighed in with his opinion.
“I applaud Neil Young for standing up for what he believes in so strongly,” Halford told Billboard. “I think each of us are dealing with the circumstances of this drama as we see fit. I don’t believe in sending out misinformation or disinformation about something that has taken so many lives when the scientific facts speak for themselves. Everybody has an opinion — did [Young] do the right thing? Did he do the wrong thing? You know what? Your opinion doesn’t matter. He did the right thing for him.”
Halford doesn’t see Priest leaving Spotify and he said he “prefers to keep music and politics separate.” A separate debate over the amount of royalties Spotify pays artists has also been a topic of debate. An article from Spin Magazine says: “Working musicians and superstars alike have long cited under-compensation issues at Spotify as a reason for fans and artists to seek alternative platforms.”
The article continues: “Exploiting artists for profit was not invented by Spotify, but it does seem like they were better than anyone else at taking that exploitation to a completely new level, perfecting it with clever use of public assets and software automation. If artists can’t make a living wage from millions of plays of their content, it’s not a valid model. The business as a whole still isn’t profitable, but that hasn’t stopped the founder [Daniel Ek] from becoming a 3x billionaire in the process.”
