Folk rock supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash have returned to Spotify five months after yanking their music from the platform to protest Joe Rogan.
Music from the group — which consists of member David Crosby, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills — returned to Spotify on Saturday, July 2, according to Billboard.
Additionally, the group plans to donate all proceeds from its music to COVID-19 charities for “at least a month,” a source told Billboard. However, the source did not disclose which charities the group plans to benefit or how long they will protest receiving income from Spotify.
On Saturday, Crosby responded to a fan who asked why his music was back on Spotify.
“I don’t own it now and the people who do are in business to make money,” Crosby explained, referring to his decision to sell his music catalog last year.
What is the background?
Crosby, Stills & Nash yanked their library of music from Spotify to stand in solidarity with former band member Neil Young, who became the center of a Spotify controversy in January.
Young, angry that Rogan was hosting guests on his podcast that countered the government-accepted COVID narrative, told Spotify they could either host his music on their platform or Rogan’s podcast. Ultimately, Spotify chose Rogan, who boasts a regular listenership of more than 10 million people.
In February, Crosby, Stills & Nash released a joint statement saying they had requested their music be pulled, too.
We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast. While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences. Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music — or the music we made together — to be on the same platform.
Young, however, remains off Spotify.