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Guitarist Nils Lofgren isn't satisfied with Spotify's response to COVID misinformation

If you’ve been paying attention to pop culture this week, you’ve probably heard a lot about Spotify and a certain outspoken musician.

The streaming service has been under fire after music legend Neil Young announced he was removing his music from the platform in protest of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation spread on its most popular podcast: The Joe Rogan Experience.

The move came after a group of hundreds of medical professionals published an open letter to Spotify, asking the platform to take down an episode of Rogan’s show that featured Dr. Robert Malone and what the letter called falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines.

Spotify has since announced it will add “content advisory” warnings to podcasts that discuss COVID-19, and Rogan, for his part, has since apologized and said he will do better to balance views.

But that hasn’t stopped more artists and podcasters — from Joni Mitchell to Brené Brown — from boycotting the platform.

Longtime Valley resident Nils Lofgren also joined that list last week.

Lofgren is a 37-year member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, and has played with Neil Young in Crazy Horse for half a century. 

The Show spoke with him to learn about why he and his wife Amy decided to pull his music from Spotify, and the message he’s sending to other artists.

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Lauren Gilger, host of KJZZ's The Show, is an award-winning journalist whose work has impacted communities large and small, exposing injustices and giving a voice to the voiceless and marginalized.