Neil Young bashes streaming services on Facebook, pulls music

Neil Young announced Wednesday on Facebook that he will be pulling his music from every streaming service.

Although Young mentioned that royalties for him, as well as other artists, were “dramatically reduced by bad deals made without my consent,” his reasoning had more to do with sound quality than revenue. Young believes that his music was being devalued by “the worst quality in the history of broadcasting.”

His first post, which began, “Streaming has ended for me. I hope this is OK for my fans,” and included a picture of a vinyl record melting, generated more than 1,000 comments from Facebook users. Many of the commenters wrote that he’s being selfish or unreasonable. Some even found the post “laughable.”

Two hours later, Young posted a second message, stating that AM radio, analog cassettes and eight-track tapes were all superior. This post got more shares and likes than the previous one but received additional comments from fans angry that he is preventing people from listening to their music.

Thus far, the comments have not persuaded Young. On Wednesday afternoon he posted an old video of himself performing with the caption “pine knob, still clear as a bell, peace.”