Neil Young may be a dinosaur, but he’s nobly fighting a bigger beast in Spotify

I was a punk, then in a band that got lucky on our own terms, the Cruel Sea, but we were happy to bite the hand that fed us, just like Neil Young is now biting the streaming giant Spotify.

From an indie background, we found ourselves somewhat in the belly of the old music industry beast. I learned first-hand how it worked. Promo. Radio. Press. Television. It seemed at the time that to get good penetration in the charts you would have to be on a TV show with a puppet ostrich.

Neil Young is seeking damages of up to $US150,000 ($208,000) per copyright infringement.Credit: Invision/AP

Later I saw the internet as a meteorite bringing those dinosaurs to extinction. Good riddance to that Jurassic 20th century oligarchy that owned and controlled the means of music production and distribution, media and content. Out of catastrophe and chaos would come the rise of the small mammals, the independent artists.

Now artists could claim the means of production through digital software and make albums in their bedrooms. Now artists could network and distribute through independent digital means and self-publish and self-promote in new ways.

The dinosaurs bellowed that only they had the capital and infrastructure to protect intellectual property. And they were right, as it turned out. But they were only really protecting their 90 per cent of the pie.

A divisive line was drawn in the sand 20 years ago with the (now defunct) Napster v Metallica circus. It pointed the way to where we are today. A divisive conundrum where we had a monolithic, outdated megaband sticking up for artists rights, from a point of privilege, against a new renegade musical phenomenon that represented the digital future.

But here we are 20 years later, deep inside a neoliberal dystopia, with a raging hydra up on its back legs, destroying our sense of ourselves, devouring us. A beast that thinks it can annihilate all in its path and keep living: Spotify.

Now the rocker Neil Young is boycotting Spotify. He gave it an ultimatum: you can have me or that dangerous podcaster and purveyor of “life-threatening COVID misinformation”, Joe Rogan. You can’t have us both.

Many would say Neil Young is a dinosaur. Ancient, outdated and behind glass. And rich. What does he know about being a new struggling artist today? And what does he have to lose by boycotting Spotify? Nothing. But what does any artist? Nothing. Nothing but our chains. Because Spotify is our future’s past. Spotify doesn’t care about Neil Young. Spotify is an inverted feedback loop of exploitation.

I own a cafe, and like UberEats, Spotify provides an easy ride for the punter by making the provider – the artist whose blood, sweat and tears created the beast – pay.

This pandemic has shone a naked light on privilege and the inherent vulnerability of the arts. It has also shown the arts’ inherent value and I feel there is a huge groundswell of support from average people who once took us for granted.

I say we dare to commit to the hope that the arts will rise and can bring us together from distraction, deception and division. Neil Young is a good dinosaur.

Kenny Gormly is a musician and cafe owner.