Neil Young has gifted his entire music catalogue to the people of Greenland for free, while hitting out at Amazon, Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump.
The Canadian singer-songwriter shared an update on his official website today (Tuesday January 27), in response to the President’s consistent threats to annex Greenland.
Trump said at a White House meeting earlier this month that he “may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland”, which is a self-governing territory controlled by Denmark (via BBC News).
“I’m honoured to give a free year’s access to neilyoungarchives.com to all of our friends in Greenland,” Young began. “I hope my music and music films will ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats you are experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government.”
He continued: “It is my sincere wish for you to be able to enjoy all of my music in your beautiful Greenland home, in its highest quality. This is an offer of Peace and Love.”
Young confirmed that this would include “all the music I have made during the last 62 years”. He added: “You can renew for free as long as you are in Greenland. We do hope other organisations will follow in the spirit of our example. LOVE EARTH. Neil.”
Greenland citizens can sign up to a free subscription for Young’s music archives here.
Music from the Neil Young Archives is available in ultra-high-definition sound, with fans usually paying $24.99 to $99.99 a year to access classic songs at the highest listening quality.
In another recent post, Young criticised Amazon and Jeff Bezos. It comes after the legendary artist announced he would be removing his discography from Amazon Music last autumn.
“Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, a billionaire backer of the president. The president’s international policies and his support of ICE, make it impossible for me to ignore his actions,” he shared last Friday (January 23).
“If you feel as I do, I strongly recommend that you do not use AMAZON. There are many ways to avoid AMAZON and support individual Americans and American companies that supply the same products. I have done that with my music and people who are looking can find it in a lot of other places.”
Young went on: “Record stores provide all my vinyl and CDs, while the digital world has many alternative options to purchase my music if you like it. My music will never be available on AMAZON, as long as it is owned by Bezos. My position is unfortunately harmful to my record company in the short term but I think the message I am sending is important and clear.”
He concluded: “Thanks for buying music locally or from independent Digital services.”
In October, Young wrote: “The time is here. FORGET AMAZON. Soon my music will not be there. It is easy to buy local. Support your community. Go to the local store. Don’t go back to the big corporations who have sold out America.”
Young condemned Trump in an editorial recently, urging Americans to “rise up” in the wake of ICE’s fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minnesota: “He knows nothing about love. He does not know you are. Use your love of life, your love of one another, your love of children and theirs and ours.”
He previously attacked the POTUS, and the “looting oligarchs” Mark Zuckerberg, Bezos and Elon Musk. Young is a long-standing critic of the current US president, and also hit out at him with the protest song ‘Big Crime’ last year.
In March 2024, the musician announced his return to Spotify for the first time since 2022. He’d said he would be removing his music from the platform after episodes of Joe Rogan’s controversial podcast spread misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines.
Explaining his decision to make his music available on Spotify again, Young explained that “music services Apple and Amazon [had] started serving the same disinformation podcast features I opposed at Spotify”.
“I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did with Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all,” he continued. “So I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it. Qobuz and Tidal, where my music is presented, are all High res as well.”
