In October, Neil Young pulled his catalog from Amazon Music and called for a boycott. "BUY LOCAL. BUY DIRECT. BEZOS SUPPORTS THIS GOVERNMENT. IT DOES NOT SUPPORT YOU OR ME," he wrote. Now, he's reasserting that stance on his website and announcing that he's gifting his entire catalog to Greenland amid Trump's threats to seize the territory.
"Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, a billionaire backer of the president," his blog post from Friday (Jan. 23) begins, continuing:
The president's international policies and his support of ICE, make it impossible for me to ignore his actions. 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.
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.
Thanks for buying music locally or from independent Digital services.
Despite removed his music from Amazon's streaming platform, it's still available to purchase on physical formats from Amazon.com. As for Greenland, he wrote in a separate blog post today:
I'm honored to give a free year's access to neilyoungarchives.com to all of our friends in Greenland. 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. 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. All the music I have made during the last 62 years is yours to hear. You can renew for free as long as you are in Greenland. We do hope other organizations will follow in the spirit of our example. LOVE EARTH
Earlier this month he also shared op-eds on his website about ICE.
