Musicians Who've Demanded Their Music Be Removed From Streaming Sites

If you're a musician, there are a lot of reasons to hate streaming sites. Believe it or not, there was a time when people had to play their music locally—you could download a music file (typically an MP3) from the internet, but streaming was clunky and often impossible. Launched in 2008, Spotify changed all that, making it easy for people to stream their music.

But that also changed how musicians made money from their songs. Instead of getting a cut of every album or single sold through iTunes (remember iTunes?) or another platform, they're now getting paid per stream. And according to Spinditty, that's not a lot—Spotify claims it pays between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream but is often lower than that. Spotify is one of the lower-paying streaming services, but none of them pay a lot of money.

In recent years, as Spotify and other streaming sites seek to move beyond music streaming into podcast production, there's another reason musicians hate them: The opinions and misinformation they allow on their platforms. Over the years, all these factors have resulted in an uneasy alliance between the streaming sites and the musicians who supply them with content—but that alliance has broken down plenty of times. Here are the musicians who've demanded their music be removed from streaming sites.

Shortly after Neil Young announced his wish that Spotify choose between streaming his music and giving Joe Rogan a platform, his old friend Joni Mitchell announced she, too, was pulling her music from the streaming giant, according to NPR.

That Mitchell would be the first to support Young isn't too surprising. Mitchell and Young have been close for decades, Far Out Magazine reports. There's been a lot of speculation that they were once more than friends, though that's never been confirmed—but they definitely wrote songs about each other, and have maintained a relationship for almost 60 years. It makes perfect sense that Mitchell would seek to support a friend she's known for so long and so well.

Like Young, however, Mitchell experienced firsthand the complexities and bureaucracy of the modern music world. According to Variety, while most of Mitchell's albums were removed from Spotify very quickly, a handful remained available to stream for no clear reason. Some of those albums were owned by Universal Music Group, but the company complied with Young's request, so it's unlikely to be their fault. And several of the lingering albums are actually owned outright by Mitchell, making their continued presence a mystery.

Prince was a musician who never backed down from a fight, especially when it involved his music. This is the artist who famously changed his legal name to a symbol to protest his contract with Warner Brothers, after all. And Billboard reports that Prince worked tireless to regain full control of his music, ultimately succeeding and setting up his own distribution network.

So it wasn't really a surprise when Prince suddenly removed all of his music from most streaming services in 2015. According to The New York Times, the move was strategic—Prince left his music on Jay-Z's Tidal service, which was perceived to be a much more artist-friendly platform. The fact that the decision to remove Prince's music came one day after Apple Music launched is significant: Apple's new streaming service was heavily criticized on its debut for refusing to pay royalties on songs streamed during its free trial period. According to Rolling Stone, a month later Prince signed an exclusive deal with Tidal.

When Prince died unexpectedly in 2016, he left no coherent instructions about his estate. After the exclusive deal with Tidal ended, Prince's estate returned his entire catalog to most streaming services. Whether this would have been what Prince himself wanted is a question that will probably never be answered.

According to Rolling Stone, Jason Aldean's 2014 album "Old Boots, New Dirt" set a record for the best-ever country music debut on Spotify with 3 million streams in its first week. Then Aldean abruptly removed the album from the streaming platform, initially without explanation. Aldean later confirmed speculation that his move was inspired by Taylor Swift's decision to remove her entire catalog from Spotify to protest the low rates it paid songwriters. As reported by Taste of Country, Aldean explained his decision by saying, "I'm an artist whose career has been built by the songwriters, publishers, producers, and engineers that line Music Row in Nashville. What they do has value."

Aldean's previous albums remained streamable, however. And Rolling Stone reports that like many artists at the time, he partnered with Jay-Z's newly-launched Tidal service, citing its better terms for songwriters and artists.

As noted by MusicRow, less than a year later, he returned "Old Boots, New Dirt" to Spotify, claiming he was responding to fan demand. The removal from streaming services didn't seem to hurt album sales—the disc debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum with more than a million copies sold just a few months later, according to The Boot. It was the only country album to do so in 2014.

Back in 2015, Adele's third album, "25," was easily the biggest release of the year. As noted by Billboard, the album earned a diamond certification of more than 10 million copies sold in less than a year after its release. That put Adele in the very small group of artists who don't need streaming platforms to succeed. And as if to prove it, just 24 hours before the album was released, Adele pulled the option of streaming "25" from all streaming platforms, according to The New York Times.

Billboard notes that Adele's previous albums, "19" and "21" were still available for streaming, prompting speculation that the move was more about boosting physical record sales than taking any sort of stand against streaming in general. And this is supported by Adele's decision to release "25" to streaming less than a year later—when "25" was approaching 20 million in worldwide sales, according to Music Business Worldwide.

Six years later, Adele had shifted her strategy towards influencing how streaming is experienced. As noted by NPR, when the singer released "30" she convinced Spotify to remove the shuffle button from the album's landing page so that listeners would have to play the album in sequence as she intended.

Band drama is the best drama, and it doesn't get much more dramatic than the long-simmering feud between Neil Young, David Crosby, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills. The drama crisscrosses in several directions. As noted by Rolling Stone, Crosby has made comments about Neil Young's partner, Daryl Hannah, that Young didn't appreciate, and also managed to irritate Nash over some "nasty emails." And that's just the recent drama—as noted by The Toronto Sun, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was probably one of the most dysfunctional rock supergroups to ever record.

And yet, when Young removed his music from Spotify over Joe Rogan's comments around the COVID-19 vaccine, Graham Nash was one of the first artists to join him. As reported by The Guardian, Nash said he completely agreed with Young's stance and requested that his solo work be removed from the streaming platform. And as noted by NPR, just a few days later David Crosby and Stephen Stills joined him in solidarity with their longtime collaborator, asking that all recordings by the various incarnations of the group as well as their solo projects be removed. Most surprisingly, as reported by Variety, the request was made in a unified statement, marking one of the rare times in recent years when these legendary musicians have acted as one.

When you're trying to make a point, it helps to be one of the most famous musicians on the planet. There's no doubt that Sir Paul McCartney—former Beatle, founder of the band Wings, and prolific solo artist who scored his most recent No. 1 album in 2021 at the age of 79, according to Forbes—doesn't need any more money. But as noted by CNET, back in 2012 he pulled his solo music from all streaming services in protest over the low rates they paid artists—although Endgadget notes that he announced the move just before launching an exclusive streamed concert on iTunes, which certainly seems a bit cynical, especially since McCartney's music eventually found its way back to streaming services.

But this wasn't a one-time thing for McCartney. As reported by Digital Music News, McCartney continues to try to leverage his celebrity and streaming power to help lesser-known musicians. McCartney has described the amount of money paid to artists for streaming as "such a small percentage." And as noted by Variety, McCartney and Coldplay's Chris Martin were the only musicians from Spotify's Top 50 who signed an open letter demanding reform of streaming payments in the United Kingdom.