Neil Young is pulling his music from Amazon, the legendary singer-songwriter revealed in a blog post published on his personal website on Wednesday (Oct. 8).
In an apparent protest against the Trump administration, Young wrote, “The time is here. FORGET AMAZON,” under a header that includes the words, “BEZOS SUPPORTS THIS GOVERNMENT,” a reference to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“Soon my music will not be there,” Young continued of Amazon. “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.”
The revelation came in a post that included a larger call by Young for people to discontinue shopping at Amazon and the upscale grocery chain Whole Foods, which the online retail giant acquired in 2017. He also seemed to call for a boycott of Facebook, writing “FORGET FACEBOOK” under a logo of the social media platform’s parent company, Meta. In August, Young left Facebook after a Reuters report claimed Meta had allowed AI chatbots to communicate with minors using “romantic or sensual” language.
“We all have to give up something to save America from the Corporate Control Age it is entering,” Young continued. “They need you to buy from them. Don’t.”
Related
The singer also referenced the current shutdown of the U.S. government, writing, “They shut down our government your income your safety your family’s health security. Take America Back together, stop buying from the big corporations support local business. Do the right thing. Show who you are.”
Young has been openly critical of President Trump over the years. Last month, he released the song “Big Crime” with his band Chrome Hearts that railed against recent actions by the president — who is never mentioned by name — with lyrics like, “No more money to the fascists/ The billionaire fascists/ Time to blackout the system/ No more great again.”
Young’s music remained available on Amazon Music at the time of publishing. Representatives for Amazon Music and Young’s label, Warner Music/Reprise, did not immediately return requests for comment.
Related
This isn’t the first time Young has boycotted a digital music provider. In January 2022, the star pulled his catalog from Spotify over its lucrative deal with Joe Rogan, through which it retained exclusive rights to, but not ownership of, the host’s wildly popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast. In a post on his website at the time, Young accused Rogan of spreading “misinformation” about the COVID vaccine on the podcast. “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both,” he wrote.
Young’s stance inspired several other artists to remove their catalogs from the service, including Joni Mitchell and Young’s Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmates David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills. Young restored his music to the streaming giant in March 2024 following the expiration of its exclusive deal with Rogan. The previous September, Billboard estimated that Young’s decision to remove his catalog from Spotify cost him roughly $300,000 in lost recorded music and publishing royalties up to that point.
More recently, artists including Massive Attack, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof and Sylvan Esso have pulled their catalogs from Spotify over founder Daniel Ek‘s reported $1 billion investment into defense company Helsing, which sells AI software to inform military decisions.
