10 Artists That Went Head-To-Head With The Music Industry And WON
5. Neil Young Vs Geffen
Neil Young has put out some of the finest albums in the history of popular music, including channelling influences including rock, pop, folk, the blues. Albums like Harvest and After the Goldrush are landmarks for singer-songwriters, and his work with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young is still highly regarded by music critics.
Its because of this extraordinary reputation that its such a surprise he ran into trouble with David Geffen, who accused Young of releasing a sub-par album on purpose. He said the albums Trans. and Everybodys Rockin works which forayed into electronic and rockabilly music respectively were unrepresentative of his music and could be considered a breach of contract.
Remarkably Geffen sued Young in 1983 for a $3m. Young, however, sued back for a whopping $21m and basically scared the !*$% out of his record label, who dropped the charges and were ordered to pay the fees. Young argued he had complete creative control on his Geffen deal and the judge agreed, basically saying he was free to do whatever he wanted, whether it was commercial or not.