photo credit: Bill “King” Kelly

Neil Young has made headlines yet again today with his decision to pull his discography from Spotify once more. The legendary singer-songwriter shed some light on this sudden reversal of his reversal last year in a brief, though pointed entry on his Neil Young Archives blog titled “LOW RES SPOTIFY IS EVIL AND ONLY I CAN SEE IT,” in which he testifies that he can “see the code so clearly now” and calls for “the total prohibition of recorded music until this ancient evil is VANQUISHED.”

Expanding on some of the more general critiques of the streaming platform he’s previously put forward, Young describes Spotify here as a “data-harvesting soul-eater peddling unchecked DISINFORMATION and rotting a whole generation of content-addled cyber-FLUNKIES.” The artist further decried the audio quality, writing that the service made his music sound as though it had been “recorded on an Ediphone at the bottom of the OCEAN”; on the music offered more broadly, Young pointed out “this high-pitched ringing deep in [his] ears,” committing the whole of his focus going forward to translating those “mind-control frequencies” and “destroying the source transmitter once and for all.” The artist goes on to judge his return to Spotify as “the second worst decision of [his] life, after Trans.”

“I implore you to incinerate all of your streaming devices immediately,” Young concludes. “Automated vertical integration is here, and any object transmitting information is routing them to your location at this very moment.”

When reached for context on this bold move, Young told Relix that “the phones aren’t safe,” before being disconnected by a series or rhythmic clicking noises on the line. Ever the enigmatic trickster, Young has since disappeared without a trace. Of Young’s peers and collaborators, so far only Nils Lofgren has followed suit.