Young v. Spotify
Neil Young writes in his 2012 Memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, “The record companies are sort of held hostage in a weird way by the Internet’s dominance in their industry. But because the record companies still hold the gold, their high-quality music masters, it’s time for them to step up and take control of their own destiny. I realize the amount of cash Apple has far exceeds the amount of cash the United States of America has, and everyone is scared of that. But I think public opinion and social networking could win over money, just as it has upset the status quo in the Arab Spring and all of the other revolutions around the world organized through social networking.”
Neil is articulating “wokeness” – the power of public opinion and social networking. At Ginger we’d rather be woke than live life with our heads in the sand. Wokeness is about knowledge, and acknowledgement, and it is also about power. People now have the power to compel companies to act, to act more responsibly and in alignment with the value systems of their customers. It means supporting the advancement of minorities, of battling institutional racism and sexism, of taking actual stands on political issues that are important to their customers, of having corporate boards more representative of the broader society, of respecting the planet and operating in a more climate friendly manner, and about actually contributing to the communities in which they operate. Yes that’s a lot, but companies have impact, they can move the needle, and it’s time they step up.
And by the way, companies that follow this path forge deeper relationships with their customers, and put them at a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
In any case Neil Young is using this same power to try to compel Spotify to act more responsibly towards its listeners.
Neil again: “Spotify has recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about Covid…most of the listeners hearing the [non-factual], misleading and false Covid information on Spotify are 24 years old, impressionable and easy to swing to the wrong side of the truth. These young people believe Spotify would never present grossly [non-factual] information. They unfortunately are wrong. I knew I had to try to point that out….I realized I could not continue to support Spotify’s life threatening misinformation to the music-loving public.”
The misinformation Neil is referencing is that which comes from podcaster Joe Rogan – a crank, a dummy, and a bulbous nothing. As most music-lovers know, Spotify entered into a $200M transaction with Rogan to be the exclusive home of The Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast for the self-righteously uninformed. Rogan is, by his own admission, sloppy in his research, has an affinity for conspiracy theories, and has actively pushed against the efficacy of vaccines, mask mandates, and other health care initiatives designed to address the pandemic causing virus.
Neil’s complete life’s work is on Spotify. While Spotify makes money off of Neil’s creative output, they are also complicit in disseminating dangerous misinformation by serving as the one home for Rogan.
Seems like a zero sum proposition – misinformation is bad; dump Rogan. But Spotify has a dilemma because now it has two audiences to serve, and choices have to be made. Ouch. As Neil says, you can have Rogan or you can have Young, but you can’t have both. The fact is, Spotify is going to alienate one of the two fan bases, and that means an impact on its bottom-line.
It used to be that businesses did not care much about matters ancillary to their ability to generate revenue and profit. Sure, companies want a good road system to get their goods and services to market. Yes, they want a good education system to train and educate its future employees. And, of course businesses look to tax dollars to upgrade their facilities – but all of these have not been core concerns. They may all be relevant to operational efficiency but they aren’t line items on a business’s bottom-line. What matters is money; and while road systems, educational systems, upgraded facilities all impact business, companies also spend millions to reduce corporate tax-rates, rates that are line items against the bottom-line even if these taxes do pay for the road system, the educational system and provide the funding that can be used to modernize facilities. But times they are a-changing.
Politics, morality, positions on social and ancillary economic issues, all impact the bottom-line because of technology, social media, the vocal demands of a broad spectrum of stakeholders, and the impact emerging technologies have on customer and employee mobility. Customers can make demands upon companies, and when not met, the customers can walk. You can no longer advertise your way out of a problem; the facts and narratives will not go away until, and unless, your actions change. That is what is new in today’s world, and what Neil and Ginger are pushing towards.
What is interesting is Neil himself is straddling a line similar to Spotify’s. His life’s creative work is no longer all his. He sold out quite a while back, and for big bucks. He owes at least a moral obligation to his long-time label Warner Brothers Reprise Records, and a real obligation to Merck Mercuriadis and his company Hipgnosis Songs fund which own a 50% interest in Neil’s publishing rights. Mercuriadis and Hipgnosis have an equal say in what happens to Neil’s creative assets, but fortunately for Neil, Mercuriadis and Hipgnosis have backed Neil up. To that end, while Spotify represents 60% of Neil’s streaming earnings, there are other platforms out there – Apple, Pandora, Amazon, Tidal and several others - and it is to these other platforms that Neil’s fans are moving. Neil and his partners, and these platforms, are still going to make money off Neil’s work.
As our colleague, Rachel, has pointed out, what is so great about Neil taking on Spotify if all that results is a migration of Neil’s fans to other streaming sites, sites owned by companies with their own equally contentious issues. To Rachel’s point, one poorly acting company loses Neil’s fans and revenue from the streaming of his songs, only for other poorly acting companies to become the benefactors of the same fans and the same revenue. What is the point?
We actually have two problems here: Neil talks a good game but he does not have the cleanest of hands, and Spotify is supporting a dotard. What to do?
We do not blame Neil at all for selling his interests. He is far from alone in having sold significant interests in his life’s work. Bob Dylan, David Crosby, Paul Simon, Shakira, and just recently Neil Diamond, are just a few of the many musical artists who have sold interests in their work. One might ask why would an artist sell out, but the question is answerable. A company will pay millions for an artist’s catalog only if it is worth a lot more than that in future earnings, but for the artist a sale allows them to avoid estate issues, and there are immense tax advantages in place that promote these kinds of sell-offs. Neil’s problem is not selling out his interests, it is that he’s just basically an unreliable narrator. It is a Nick Carraway issue:
If you recall, Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel The Great Gatsby, might describe himself as “one of the few honest people” he has ever known, but he clearly isn’t. Nick avoids confidences but is frequently on the inside of the many secrets and schemes that unfold over the course of the novel; he buys books on bonds and investments but reads none of them – they sit gathering dust on his bookshelves; and, while often contemptuous of Tom, Daisy and even Gatsby, throughout Nick is drawn to them, an active participant in their endeavors. What to make of Nick? And what to make of Neil?
Neil is just a pretty cranky sort of guy. In the film Echo in the Canyon, about the 1960’s folk rock Laurel Canyon music scene, Stephen Stills recounts how he was not allowed by Neil to be part of the recording sessions for Neil’s song Expecting to Fly. Stills called the song a warning shot about Neil’s intention to soon leave the band, a decision he made at what Stills describes as a critically important moment for the band – the day before Buffalo Springfield was to appear on the Johnny Carson show. Stills sees Neil’s departure, and the timing of that departure, as being the death knell of the band. This is taken one step further by the Director of Echo in the Canyon. The movie ends with a performance of Expecting to Fly, and then over the end credits, Neil alone in a studio, providing a hard edge to Crosby’s song What’s Happening?!?!. Is Neil carrying on the legacy of Laurel Canyon, or is he just a cranky old man going his own way as always, the last man standing from a waning music scene?
Neil gets mad at Spotify but he could have chosen any number of things to get mad about. There are tons of issues out there – climate change, racism, etc, but he picks Spotify and Joe Rogan – as if Rogan really counts.
Neil’s history is littered with contradictions: he professes undying love for his former wife Peggy in his book Waging Heavy Peace, but has since divorced her for Daryl Hannah. He calls Stephen Stills his closest friend, a brother even, but you have to ask whether Stills thinks that given his statements in Echo in the Canyon. Neil as a spokesperson for better corporate behavior is a bit iffy, but – and this is a big but – at least he is raising the issue.
We all have a way to go before we fully internalize that the power dynamics in the world have changed – that in the aggregate we all have immense power, and that this power can move our world in a more positive direction. As Neil points out, during the Arab Spring three entrenched dictatorships were overturned by nothing more than citizens armed with cell phones and Twitter accounts. This illustrates the power of you, me and the guy in the street. Firmly entrenched dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya had survived for years against armed insurrections, embargoes, global outrage, and were in a moment swept away by little more than the public active on social media.
American business news reporting discloses the same dynamic in play, whether it be Georgia based companies Delta, Home Depot and Coca-Cola taking positions against voter disenfranchisement laws, or Airbnb waiving its fees and aligning with its customers using the service not to book rentals but instead simply to provide cash contributions directly to the Ukrainian people in support of their struggle. We saw it when advertisers fled Bill O’Reilly’s show in the wake of #MeToo complaints, not because O’Reilly did not host a top-rated show – he did – but instead because the advertisers refused to jeopardize their brands’ good will with their valuable customer bases. We saw it when automobile companies continued to operate in line with California emission standards even though the Trump Administration revoked those same laws. Customers are mobile, informed, and activated, and companies can no longer afford to be silent on important issues, or take positions, which might improve the bottom-line temporarily but might also alienate core customers.
Every company out there owes something to the customers who patronize them. We are no longer in a world where companies can ply their trades with just advertising to convince a passive public to purchase a given company’s goods and services – the tables have turned. Ginger is compelling companies to financially support our artists’ projects, and amplifying the voices of our participating artists. The more people engaged on Ginger, the more for our artists, and the better we can push companies to fund, and to act, in the interests of a better world. Neil might not be the one we’d pick to lead us, but we applaud him for his help in showing the way. Music and the arts lead. Ginger.
