Joy Behar, 79, rallied for contemporary musicians to take note from the likes of Neil Young, 76, and Joni Mitchell, 78, and take their music off of Spotify amid controversies surrounding comedian Joe Rogan, 54, and his popular podcast sharing COVID misinformation during a Monday January 31 episode of The View. During the “Hot Topics” discussion, Joy pointed out how impactful it would be for someone like Taylor Swift, 32, to remove her music from the streaming platform in protest of Joe’s presence.
SPOTIFY TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR CONTENT? Joni Mitchell joined Neil Young in boycotting Spotify for letting podcaster Joe Rogan invite guests who push COVID misinformation on his show — #TheView reacts after Rogan addressed the controversy. https://t.co/LzqPUInzdr pic.twitter.com/SkJ4M75wfc
— The View (@TheView) January 31, 2022
After discussing Joe’s Instagram response to the controversy, Joy called on people to “put their money where their mouth is,” and she said she wished that she saw more people take their songs off of Spotify. “I was disappointed that more musicians and singers, etc. did not pull out. They’re on Twitter all the time trashing people who don’t get vaccinated, and then they keep their music there. This would’ve been a good opportunity to show what you believe in, and I didn’t see it. I only saw two people from the 60s and 70s. Let’s see some young people do it. Let’s see Taylor and those guys take a stand,” she said.
Even though Joy’s sentiment is easy to understand, Taylor may not have been the best example, due to her well-documented battle for her master recordings, which were acquired by Scooter Braun many years ago. The “All Too Well” singer has been re-recording her first six albums and re-releasing them as “Taylor’s Version.” So far she has re-released her sophomore album Fearless and her 2012 critically-acclaimed hit Red. While she owns the masters for her three most recent albums and the re-released “Taylor’s Versions,” it’s not clear if she’d be able to take her entire discography off of Spotify, because of the masters ownership.
Frequent guest co-host Ana Navarro did commend Neil and Joni for opening up the discussion about COVID misinformation and seemingly influencing the streaming service in being more transparent about efforts it’ll take to combat misinformation citing a $2 billion dip the company took following the two pulling from the platform. The company has since pledged to add content advisories to podcasts that discuss covid, via Pitchfork. “I say thank you, not as much to Spotify, but to all the people who tuned off Spotify. To Joni Mitchell, to Neil Young, who started this. But for that, they would not have lost the $2 billion. They would not have done this, put these caveats and taken these measures,” Ana said earlier in the discussion.
In his apology, the comedian pledged to try to offer varied viewpoints and also said that he was totally okay with Spotify adding advisories. He also mentioned that he had “no hard feelings” toward either singer for pulling their music from Spotify. “I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives,” he said. “If I pissed you off, I’m sorry, and if you enjoyed the podcast, thank you.” Sara Haines mentioned that while she wasn’t a listener she felt like his apology was “refreshing.”