Neil Young’s answer to iTunes

[bijou]

When I met legendary rocker Neil Young recently, he was pretty disparaging about iTunes. It’s like all new digital media technologies, he said: great for convenience, but the sound quality sucks (since I have a tin ear when it comes to music, I’ll leave others to judge the validity of that comment. But Peter Gabriel, another musician who’s been working on new ideas for distributing digital music, certainly agrees.)

Young let slip that he is now talking to record companies about licensing an alternative digital platform that he has been working on - something , he claimed, of far higher quality that could provide an alternative to the privacy-prone download world, and perhaps even a new business model for music.

The technology behind this was first shown off last month at Sun’s JavaOne conference (we blogged about it here.) Young, who is something of a techie, has spent 15 years experimenting with different technologies to assemble a complete archive of his career. He is now finally ready to release the first multi-media instalment. It will come out on Blu-ray discs, with the capability of adding extra content in future through downloads.

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link

While this may turn out to be the best thing since sliced bread, I am the sort of person who has to wait until a format is taken up by everyone else before I adopt it.  I have just about got comfortable with iTunes.

[Jim]

while there is a difference with MP3 and more traditional media, its hardly great.  most people cannot tell them apart.  sounds like Ole Neal must have a stake in the superior format.

of course with the advances in storage, making media files small is a lot less significant.  Thats where MP3 came from, the need for small.

[EastFacingNorth]

while there is a difference with MP3 and more traditional media, its hardly great.  most people cannot tell them apart.  sounds like Ole Neal must have a stake in the superior format.

of course with the advances in storage, making media files small is a lot less significant.  Thats where MP3 came from, the need for small.

I hope you're kidding.  On a proper set-up, anyone should be able to tell the difference between a .mp3 and a WMA Lossless file.

.mp3s sound like shit, and that's why I only use my iPod as a portable hard drive.  If I want to listen to music, I'll use my Zune, thanks.

[Zeus]

while there is a difference with MP3 and more traditional media, its hardly great.  most people cannot tell them apart.  sounds like Ole Neal must have a stake in the superior format.

of course with the advances in storage, making media files small is a lot less significant.  Thats where MP3 came from, the need for small.

I hope you're kidding.  On a proper set-up, anyone should be able to tell the difference between a .mp3 and a WMA Lossless file.

.mp3s sound like shit, and that's why I only use my iPod as a portable hard drive.  If I want to listen to music, I'll use my Zune, thanks.

Not all players petrform equally. lot of times it's not the recordings fault it's a crappy player. An operators piss poor settings on the playeralso degrades music quality.

[Jim]

while there is a difference with MP3 and more traditional media, its hardly great.  most people cannot tell them apart.  sounds like Ole Neal must have a stake in the superior format.

of course with the advances in storage, making media files small is a lot less significant.  Thats where MP3 came from, the need for small.

I hope you're kidding.  On a proper set-up, anyone should be able to tell the difference between a .mp3 and a WMA Lossless file.

.mp3s sound like shit, and that's why I only use my iPod as a portable hard drive.  If I want to listen to music, I'll use my Zune, thanks.

Not all players petrform equally. lot of times it's not the recordings fault it's a crappy player. An operators piss poor settings on the playeralso degrades music quality.

and its all for naught if the phones are off.   my ipod is not as good as my Zen. 

[Chris_]

I don't care what y'all say about all this new fangled stuff.  You can have my 8-Tracks when you can pry them from my cold, dead fingers.

[bijou]

I don't care what y'all say about all this new fangled stuff.  You can have my 8-Tracks when you can pry them from my cold, dead fingers.

8 Track?  Cool daddio!

*adjusts reel to reel*   

[Thor]

Maybe I'm partially deaf or something, but I can barely tell the difference between a 192kbps mp3 and a cd. 320 kbps mp3s do sound much better than other lower bit-rates, but, even with the cd, some things are lost. The best media for audio are LPs, despite the crack, pops and hisses. I won't download a song if it's less than 128 kbps. Might as well listen to AM radio 

[Chris_]

Neil Young's music doesn't exactly span the audio spectrum.

Just sayin'

[Red October]

C'mon, Neil... how exactly is Live at Massey Hall supposed to sound?    It's just you strumming a guitar and crooning a couple hits and a slew of your obscure stuff.  What, exactly, is iTunes supposed to be doing for it?  

[Lord Undies]

Neil Young's music doesn't exactly span the audio spectrum.

Just sayin'

True, but he has been to Hollywood and he's been to Redwood.  He'd cross an ocean for a sound that's gold.

[Chris_]

Neil Young's music doesn't exactly span the audio spectrum.

Just sayin'

True, but he has been to Hollywood and he's been to Redwood.  He'd cross an ocean for a sound that's gold.

But he's gettin' old.

[Dixie*Darling]

Well I heard Mister Young sing about her,
Well I heard ole Neil put her down,
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember,
A southern man don't need him around anyhow

... jus' sayin' ...