The folk-rock legend is to release his entire back catalogue on Blu-ray Disc to combat the scourge of the MP3. He might just be too late though
May 8, 2008 2:30 PM

Neil Young imagines his guitar is an MP3 blogger



When Neil Young announced the impending release of his Archives on Blu-ray Disc earlier this week, he made it clear that there was a technical reason for his decision.

As well as making his entire back catalogue and a large amount of related items available in one collection of shiny discs, he was striking a blow against the MP3. "Putting on a headphone and listening to an MP3 is like hell," he said. His aim is to give the audience "quality whether they want it or not. You can degrade it as much as you want, we just don't want our name on it".

Which begs the question: are MP3s degrading music? Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay don't seem to think so, as each have distributed their music, for free, online and it's worked out tremendously. For other bands, the "leaked album" has proven a true scourge. Talking about the leaking of their LP Stadium Arcadium in 2006, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea said: "For people to just steal a poor sound quality version of it for free because some asshole put it on the internet is sad to me."

Do consumers agree? In the age of the MP3, it seems truly uncertain as to whether sound quality matters any more. Noble intentions may lie behind Young's high-grade multimedia project, but it will be interesting to see how many people sign up for it. The MP3 hungry public, who already seem to have little regard for formerly key LP elements such as artwork and tracklisting, might already have moved on.

What do you think Prince would make of this?

http://blogs.guardian.co....battl.html

I will buy a blu ray player if/when this comes out.

High Rez music is not for snobs, but for music lovers, who want nothing but to see the whole "painting'

I always repeat cover up 60% of your fav painting and is it still the same masterpiece. I say no fng way. What most people listen to (quality 128K),sounds terrible IMO


MP3 has it's place, but with a 160 gig ipod and probably a 300gig coming soon, you can rip at high levels, apple lossless or 320 AAC. SO why sacrifice quality

I honestly think:

A> people like to say they have 30,000 songs, although at crappy @ 128K period. They may not even listen to everything, but they got it on a illegal peer sharing program. Not to get on a high horse, but I have never illegally downloaded music cause I feel it's so important to support creative artists. I also have acquired my 1000 plus recording's by listening to everything and anything and seeing what moves "me" not what Itunes hot 100 says. People nowadays want a "Now here this compilation to do the work for them. You can't be a music fan and feel that the hunt for good new/old archive music is a chore. Read a magazine, have a friend on the org suggest something etc.

b. quality in general is at a low, artistically and technology wise with regards to what "general consumers" feel is important. Not sure why, maybe we are moving so fast we forgot how good things could sound.

With that said, I know in my heart that although I love high rez surround and 2 channel music, and blu ray is clearly superior to dvd-audio, it will fail.

I think it is doomed since people are using itunes 128aac to purchase albums these days.
[Edited 5/8/08 12:52pm]
[Edited 5/8/08 12:54pm]

I think that in a martial arts type of battle, the MP3 will win.
However, if it's more of a straight-up fisticuffs contest, then I say that the upperhand has gotta go to Neil Young. He's a scrapper, that one.

I do like having a CD with the liner notes etc....to read.

Downloading an MP3 has it's uses but playing them on a CD makes me happy.

I may be old fashioned but I still have Vinyl for my 12"s and Albums plus my CD racks would be useless without my collection.

do you know what would ensure the highest sound quality?

if neil young marched his picky old ass over to my living room and just played the music right in front of me.

THAT would be high sound quality.

barring that option, i'll go with the best balance of convenience and affordability. if that means CD, great. if it means mp3, so be it.

the old fart never seemed to have a problem putting his albums out on 8-track, shit.

^
8 track isn't compressed , no comparison

Anxiety said:

Or at least if he took a voice lesson!

Anxiety said:

Yeah, it looks like Neil won't win this either.

Timmy84 said:

i was with him on that whole "this note's for you" dealio, and when he was making crazy albums to screw his record label over i thought he was a total bad-ass. i think this whole deal just makes him look like an old fart.

old fart hey ?

so be it

mp3 is inferior

Dewrede said:

but it's more accessible and more portable than blu ray, which in my opinion has not proven its lasting power and could very well go the way of the 8 track.

so yeah. old fart.

ok , gotta admit i don't a blu-ray player yet

Doesn't a Blu-Ray cost more than an MP3?

And this is the same nucca that sung "keep on rocking in the FREE world!"

Anxiety said:

yeah especially since, as you said, his stuff came out on 8 Track and Cassette, both being inferior media.

TheMightyCelestial said:

LMAO! THAT was funny!

Savage said:

This is just all kinds of wrong.

Very few people can afford high-end equipment so that they might realize the best sound quality currently known to man (until it changes in a few months).

You want to talk about quality?

I as a child -- as is true of millions of others now and in the past -- listened to your music on a $5.00 FM radio where I taped your scratchy music (depending on the reception at the time) onto cheap tapes, creating an environment that would make MP3s sound like spun gold.

But this is really about the money and/or the control, isn't it?

Because you're no MP3 expert just because someone gave you a crappy copy of your music and now you're outraged.

I guarantee that you couldn't tell my MP3s from your CDs, because I can now afford fairly good equipment.

And just because you put something out as a high-quality source (CD or Blu-ray) doesn't mean that many are ever going to be able to spend thousands of dollars on playback equipment and speakers to actually benefit from your pin-perfect, audiophile creations.

No, most people are scraping by and listening to their CDs on $20 Walkmans or $150 boom boxes, because that is what they can afford.

Have you forgotten what it means not to be loaded?

Brendan said:

if you can't hear the difference you seriously need to get your ears checked

Good Music=good music on any medium.

Blu ray players will eventually be afforable to most.

However, this set is fantastic in that he doesn't a. mix to mp3 compression b.will include outtakes and rarities, etc.

I do see a point that he could also include mp3's in diff qualities for those that want to purchase them via a download service on a website.

We always talk about artist's rights. Well Neil for one has always complained about the sound of his albums on cd, as has Bob Dylan, Donald Fagen, etc.

So now he has said this is his canvas.

I am sure someone will buy it and rip to the web, and everyone will bit torrent the hell out of it anyway.

Plus it doesn't take a 20k system to hear mp3 at 128K sucks. Take your ipod and buy $99 Shure e2 headphones, burn your fav song at 128, 192, 256, 320 , and lossless.... and you tell me that it's the same quality.

It's about time we start to stand up and say we don't always want convenience, we want substance and quality in the fidelity and composition level of the songs.

Timmy84 said:

Are you kidding?!? Neil Young already lost since Pro-Tools was born.

Dewrede said:

Oh, it's much worse than that.

It would be painful to think about how most of my stuff were being played, including on some Donald Duck record player. But I'd eventually get over it, because ultimately I have almost no control over how my stuff is heard.

And I wouldn't conclude that vinyl is like "hell" just because my garage-sale record player and its blue-light special speakers did.

And I couldn't agree more, all audio-compression formats are not created equally (some are horrible, some are average, some are great -- and none of them, save perhaps "lossless" -- are audiophile quality).

If Neil Young is only talking about 128kbps compression, I would agree with him, even though that would still be better than my kiddie record player or my FM stereo that fell to the whims of reception based on quality that's already compromised even with a great radio.

But if Neil Young or anyone else wants to start a fund for creating the perfect sound in the perfect environment, I'm all ears.