Iconic singer Joni Mitchell has put her music back on Spotify more than two years after she left the platform as a protest against it hosting misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, typically spread by beefy podcast bad boy Joe Rogan. This happens just a week after fellow protestor Neil Young rejoined the streaming service.
Mitchell has made no comment about her music returning to Spotify. Back in 2022, Mitchell wrote in a statement that “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” of the COVID vaccine, as published by Pitchfork.
Young returned to Spotify on the grounds that Joe Rogan’s podcast is no longer exclusive to the platform, as it now appears on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music. “My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify,” he wrote in a blog post that may have been deleted since being published. The singer also noted that fans would have nowhere to go if he pulled his music from each of the above platforms.
Beyond the obvious reasons, Young and Mitchell had a personal stake in combating medical misinformation. Both musicians were victims of polio, a disease that was wiped out in North America thanks to vaccines.
Joni Mitchell has been experiencing something of a career resurgence in the past few years. She started playing live again in 2022, after an aneurysm in 2015 left her unable to perform. The singer even performed at this year’s Grammys. As for Rogan, he recently signed a new $250 million deal with Spotify to continue his various podcast ventures.