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."

Comments

Stop the false headlines

[riskkeyesq]

In no way did Neil say he music was too good for streaming. Read your own darn summary. The false headline is beneath even the Dice crowd.

Suck it, Neil

[Just Some Guy]

A 256Kbps AAC is objectively equal to CD sound quality, as confirmed by double-blind test after test. Furthermore, a huge portion of listeners will be hearing your angel's choir over cheap-ass ear buds or crap laptop speakers. Maybe you have a golden ear and can tell the difference between a CD and a FLAC file (are those good enough for you, or do they lack the sharp ones and smooth zeros of the digital masters?). Maybe you're not actually a delusional once-great who has lousy hearing and permanent tinnitus after years of playing rock concerts, and, well, being almost 70. Maybe your home hi-fi (do you still call it that?) was hand-wired by a wizened master of recording engineering fame. Maybe you have your own private anechoic chamber so you're not exposed to anything but the pure and sweet sounds of your own singing. But the rest of us listen to normal-person music with a dynamic range that's been shot to hell in the loudness wars, via normal-person audio formats, through normal-person digital-to-analog converters, into normal-person speakers, in a normal-person environment with kids playing and horns honking and dogs barking and coworkers chattering.

Your music, pristine to the heavens though it may be, sounds no better than Miley Cyrus when piping out of my MacBook. You've become a crotchety old curmudgeon trying to remain relevant to those kids who won't stay off your lawn, and maybe it's time to sit down with a hot cup of keep your yap shut and enjoy a nice book.

Good day, sir.

Re:Suck it, Neil

[Chris Johnson]

Yeah, but I like stuff like Tangerine Dream, or obscure psytrance bands from Sweden, where there IS no 'lyrics' and the sound is literally the only thing. It's OK if Neil is being insulting to you, you don't have to care. He's brought out some playback gear that's really, really good at playing the music _I_ like, a lot cheaper than that stuff usually runs.

I prefer fancypants 192K (or 96K: same to me, frankly) 24 bit, to vinyl. Unhesitatingly (though there are times when the vinyl mastering helped the sound of the record, and just taking the master tape wouldn't give you as good of a mix).

But I prefer both to CD quality, except when the vinyl's real noisy. Assuming I can pay attention, because if I'm doing something else none of it matters. But if I'm doing something else I'm NOT listening to music at all.

And I prefer CD quality to any form of lossy compression: and have told them apart in ABX testing, up to and including a 320K mp3 example. It was a castanet sound, and if it had been some other instrument (such as a flute, or an 808 kick sample) I would never have been able to tell. The attack of the castanet sound had less personality as 320K mp3, and I ABXed it successfully that time (it's a challenging test!)

I am not obliged to listen to crap just because, if the crap was playing a 300 hz sine, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I can use something that's equal to any listening/content situation I can throw at it. Or, I can get something that's happily overkill and know there's no way I'll ever have issues with it. To me, 96K is already overkill, probably 64K would suffice, but 44.1K is a little chintzy.

I have a car that'll drive way faster than 90 mph, too, even though I stick to around 65 most of the time. Is that immoral? Am I obliged to only drive something that struggles to get to 70, that being faster than I'll generally use?

Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right

[MightyYar]

No, Neil Young is not being misrepresented. Straight from his Facebook page:

I was there.
AM radio kicked streaming's ass.
Analog Cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming's ass,
and absolutely rocked compared to streaming.

Streaming sucks. Streaming is the worst audio in history.
If you want it, you got it. It's here to stay.
Your choice.

Copy my songs if you want to. That's free.
Your choice.

All my music, my life's work, is what I am preserving the way I want it to be.

It's already started. My music is being removed from all streaming services. It's not good enough to sell or rent.

Make streaming sound good and I will be back.

Neil Young

I hope for his sake that he is really just trying to push his magic sound machine and doesn't believe any of this.