Neil Young vs. Trump: donates music to Greenland and takes it off Amazon
The Canadian rocker will allow his songs to be played for free by the island's inhabitants. And in the meantime he spites Bezos, friend of Donald
It is said that at the age of 80, one mostly looks over one's shoulder rather than imagining the future. This is not the view of Neil Young, America's (and the rest of the world's) best-loved Canadian rocker, who crossed the 80-year milestone a little over two months ago but still understands music as he did when he was 20 years old: in controversy with US President Donald Trump he has decided to remove his own catalogue from Amazon Music and 'donate' free access to the 57,000 inhabitants of Greenland, the Danish island that the White House tenant would like to annex, despite the NATO allies.
"I hope that my music and music films can alleviate some of the stress and unwarranted threats you are experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government," the artist wrote on his blog. "It is my sincere wish that you can enjoy all my music in your beautiful home in Greenland, in the highest possible quality."
The offer is valid for one year, although Young pointed out that it is possible to renew it' and applicants must have a mobile phone with a Greenlandic number. 'This is an offer of peace and love,' wrote the Harvest genius. A move that parallels the decision to deny listeners their own catalogue on Jeff Bezos's streaming platform, which, at the time of the inauguration, supported Trump with a million-dollar donation. Not to mention that for the making of a documentary dedicated to the figure of the first lady Melania Trump, according to the reconstruction of the New York Times, the family of 'The Donald' would have cashed in another 28 million dollars from the e-commerce platform.
"Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, a billionaire supporter of the president," Young wrote last week. "The president's international policies and his support for ICE make it impossible for me to ignore his actions. If you feel as I do, I strongly advise you not to use Amazon."
Gestures reminiscent of 2022, when at the height of the pandemic, the author of Tonight's the Night left Spotify, the Swedish streaming platform that had just signed a pharaonic contract to the no-vax podcaster close to Maga Joe Rogan. A rift that would only be reversed two years later, with Covid-19 archived (for the record: a further two years later, in the face of the Ice debacle in Minneapolis, even Joe Rogan distanced himself from Trump, but that's another story).
