Legendary singer-songwriter and activist Neil Young has announced that he will be cutting ties with streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, a decision he says is not about money, but about his dissatisfaction with audio quality, Rolling Stone reported.
"I don't need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution," he wrote to his 3.1 million Facebook fans. "I don't feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It's bad for my music. For me, it's about making and distributing music people can really hear and feel. I stand for that. When the quality is back, I'll give it another look. Never say never."
Fellow recording artists like Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke have complained about Spotify's payment rate, where artists make about $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream, according to Rolling Stone. However, it's the quality that bothers Young, and he has advocated for better digital sound in the past.
To combat the low-quality MP3s circulating on the Internet, Young helped develop and launch Pono, a portable digital music player and download service that provides high-quality audio, The Wall Street Journal reported.
But Young isn't done with streaming for good. He wrote a second Facebook post to explain his gripe with Internet streaming and signed off with a challenge to the digital music streaming industry to improve its audio quality standards.
"I was there. AM radio kicked streaming's ass. Analog Cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming's ass, and absolutely rocked compared to streaming," he wrote. "My music is being removed from all streaming services. It's not good enough to sell or rent. Make streaming sound good and I will be back."
