Apple Music Shows ‘Love’ for Joni Mitchell Too After She Asks Spotify to Remove Her Music

Following Neil Young and Joni Mitchell‘s requests to pull their music from Spotify, the streaming platform’s No. 1 competitor, Apple Music, is promoting the availability of both artists’ catalogs on its own platform — with a wink.

On Thursday (Jan. 27), Apple Music first highlighted Young’s catalog under the editorial header “We Love Neil,” displayed prominently for users browsing for music on its platform.

By Saturday, a “We Love Joni Too” header highlighting selections from Mitchell’s catalog was added directly below the Young header.

Both phrases seem to be in response to the artists’ requests that Spotify purge their catalogs from its platform, due to COVID-19 vaccine misinformation spread by Spotify’s popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

“The home of Neil Young,” Apple Music had also tweeted on Jan. 27, in a social campaign reminding listeners that Young’s catalog remains fully available on their streaming service, while the hashtag #CancelSpotify and “Apple Music” were both trending topics on Twitter.

Spotify removed Young’s catalog from the platform on Jan. 26, in response to the singer-songwriter’s demand that his music be pulled. In support of Young’s position, Mitchell made the same request on Jan. 28, writing on her website, “I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify. 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.” At the time of publishing on Jan. 29, her music remains available on Spotify.

Young had first penned an open letter on Jan. 24 (that has since been removed) on his Neil Young Archives website that stated, “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both. I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform.”

“I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them. Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule,” he wrote, addressing his letter to his manager and the co-chairman and COO of Warner Records. “With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence,” Young continued. “Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.”

In a statement provided to Billboard on Jan. 26, a spokesperson for Spotify said, “We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”

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