Talking His Generation: The Who's Pete Townshend On NFTs, Joe Rogan And Spotify

Ahead of an upcoming tour for The Who, legendary guitarist Pete Townshend shared his thoughts on several topics in a Rolling Stone interview — including his thoughts on non-fungible tokens and Spotify SPOT.

Townshend On NFTs: Pete Townshend hates non-fungible tokens and likely won’t be among the musicians using the space to offer fans additional rewards and utility.

“If what we’re going to have with the glory of artists having the right to control their own careers in the shape of non-fungible tokens is that we’re all going to buy f***in’ videos of monkeys’ heads, then f*** it! Just f*** it, f*** it, f*** it! It’s just junk,” Townshend said.

Townshend jokingly said he’s not against people making a quick buck, possibly taking a dig at the lasting power of NFTs.

The rock legend also admitted that he’s made many predictions that have turned out wrong before.

The comments on monkey head NFTs could be in reference to Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the most popular and valuable NFT collections.

Related Link: What Is a Non-Fungible Token (NFT)? 

Townshend On Spotify: Townshend weighed in on the big topic of Spotify, a music streaming platform that saw several artists including Neil Young asking for their songs to be removed, citing COVID-19 misinformation from podcaster Joe Rogan.

“I think free speech is free speech,” Townshend said. “I don’t know where I stand on it.”

The guitarist said that removing Young or Joni Mitchell from the platform isn’t going to make a huge difference.

“It’s the fact that Spotify are paying [Rogan] $100 million bucks!”

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in 2019 that musicians weren’t paid much because the company has to pay to keep its service going or it would go bankrupt, Townshend said. 

“So maybe podcasts have saved online streaming, and who knows what’s around the corner?”

Townshend said not all have heard the music of Young and Mitchell's era. 

“[Young has] written some of the most beautiful songs that have ever been written and also some of the most rocking. That’s true of Joni as well.”

Townshend admitted he knows what it’s like to take on a big tech company, citing a lecture where he attacked Apple Inc AAPL.

“My attack was based on what they’d done,” Townshend said. “They’d come along and imposed themselves on the music industry as it stood then. They extracted money from it.”

Photo by Ross via Wikimedia.