Slashdot Mirror
Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services
An anonymous reader writes: After years of complaining about modern music formats Neil Young today announced that he's pulling his music from all streaming services. He made the announcement on his official Facebook page saying: "Streaming has ended for me. I hope this is ok for my fans. It's not because of the money, although my share (like all the other artists) was dramatically reduced by bad deals made without my consent. It's about sound quality. I don't need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution. I don't feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It's bad for my music. For me, It's about making and distributing music people can really hear and feel. I stand for that. When the quality is back, I'll give it another look. Never say never."
The wire/coat hanger point is irrelevant.
Compression used for streaming certainly affects quality. There is no debate. I can easily tell the difference between low bitrate and high bitrate MP3. It not even close. So you need to be more specific.
320Kbps MP3 can sound great, but often has clipping due to improper gain setting. So as a medium it has its problems.
AM quality is horrendous, and FM isn't as good as the average MP3 file. So, Neil, you gonna make radio quit playing your songs?
What his excuse for not putting his music on there?
Because it's not really about the sound quality, as he asserts.
As it happens, I've listened to Neil Young on and off over the years. Excellent sound fidelity is definitely NOT especially noticeable on his records, nor is excellent sound fidelity something that his music particularly benefits from. His strengths lie elsewhere, which is why this whole PONO thing and now his fake streaming protestations ring especially hollow.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
That guy who's songs are on the AM radio stations, usually the ones that are nearly out of range.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I think you'll find most people making arguments against the thing have not heard it. I'm thinking of a variety of sound engineer and musician friends not associated with Young. One guy was a mastering engineer, one's a modern-day musician who does interesting stuff with sampling and sound layering, including sounds like a dog bowl whirring on concrete.
It'd be pretty dumb to say 'the Pono doesn't sound great' when it blatantly does (it's battery life that sucks! :) ). What some people are saying is that everything, all the streaming and earbuds and detritus of the 2015 audio life, also sounds great, wonderful, perfect.
errrrrr no.
> Analog Cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming's ass,
This is where he proves to be full of shit.
Have you ever listened to an 8-track? AWFUL SHIT.
Cassette? Perfectly fine - if it was encoded with HX Pro and Dolby C, and you have a deck with Dolby C decoding, AND you've aligned the heads properly, AND demagnetized and cleaned them regularly. In that case it would sound near-CD-quality--- the first few times you play it. Cassettes degrade over time. Streaming already sounds way better than 8-Track (even if highly compressed, low bit rate), and as far as cassettes are concerned... I don't miss them.
Neil Young is obviously deranged from the Damage Done.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Worse. He's claiming that AM has better sound quality than streaming.
In truth, all the songs I can remember by him weren't exactly audibly precise even on FM. There's a lot of artists I'd worry more about losing sound quality on than him.
He's not as famous or as well-played as he thinks he is, and all this is going to do is make him even less so.
What I think is hilarious is Neil has been in studios all his life yet can't seem to grasp how (and more importantly WHY) digital studios work the way they do.
For those that have never recorded music? Its REALLY simple to explain why you use 192k in the studio and not on the finished product...ready? The music in the studio AIN'T FINISHED YET, its really THAT easy folks! When you are recording you are gonna be adding effects, EQ, layering multiple tracks, that extra headroom helps when it comes to adding these things without raising the noise floor, once the mastering is done? Its done and you don't need that extra headroom because there is nothing to be added later, you already know where the noise floor is and have dealt with it, its done folks!
And audio ain't like video folks, where they could add infrared and ultraviolet and you'd just never know it was there,because of the way AD/DA converters work all that no longer needed bandwidth you are adding to those tracks? Unless you bought pro studio monitors its gonna get translated as hiss, WITH pro studio monitors? You'll have paid $$$$ to hear the sounds of...silence. Because again the increased bandwidth is not there to give the 1% of the planet with super hearing a few extra high notes, its to lower the noise floor to give you room to work.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
bose?
as they say, "stopped reading there..."
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
and pretty well known. saw him live two years ago in Helsinki. a pretty good concert.
HOWEVER when it comes to his hifi music digital audio player, he's full of shit.
this is just so he can sell/promote PONO. I'm not sure if he believes that the hifisupadupasound of PONO is really better or if he's just a knowing shill. it's just a player that plays lossless files - nothing special there!
besides, streaming services have BETTER sound quality than RADIO and his music is played on radio all the time. streaming is also much better than cassettes.
he says it's not about the money, but sound quality blabla.. IT IS ABOUT THE FUCKING MONEY.
also, is he going to do home calls and check that his music is only played on hifi stereos and never on multimedia speakers?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Worse. He's claiming that AM has better sound quality than streaming.
Citation please. Seriously.
Good analog is better than shitty digital.
Shitty analog is, well, just shitty.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
What's classic rock?
Classic Rock is music that come about in the '60s and '70s and continues to be played with just about the same frequency today while music of the '80s, '90s and '00s faded into obscurity, and by all appearances, the '10s will go the same way, and Classic Rock will still be getting airplay after this decades music succumbs to bitrot.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Mandatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/915/
Neil has invested a lot into the Pono Player, hence his complaints about streaming and other digital formats, he is trying to make a buck.
Personally, I think his acoustic work has bordered on brilliant. Electric? Not so much.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."