Corporations Respond To Neil Young's Anti-GMO Album
Neil Young, along with his new band, Promise of the Real, featuring Willie Nelson's sons Micah and Lukas Nelson, are going on tour next month armed with their new album, The Monsanto Years.
The much-discussed album, coming out on June 29, is loaded with fighting lyrics pointed at large conglomerates such as Starbucks, Walmart, Chevron and, of course, Monsanto, an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation. Billboard asked the targeted corporations if they had anything to say for themselves, to which they put their best PR foot forward and found a way to skirt past a rebuttal. Walmart cited its recent starting wage raise to $9 an hour in response to Young's claim in "Big Box" that "People workin' part-time at Walmart never get the benefits for sure/Might not make it to full-time at Walmart." Chevron refused to comment.
Monsanto, for its part, said that many of its employees are fans of Young but called his lyrics "myths" and said that the album "may fail to reflect our strong beliefs in what we do every day to help make agriculture more sustainable."
Young accuses Starbucks of joining forces with Monsanto and suing the state of Vermont to halt accurate food labeling in "A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop," to which the company said it doesn't have a stance on GMO labeling and "prefers a national solution."
Neil Young and Promise of the Real released a music video for "A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop" recently. Check it out below.