https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/magazine/neil-young-streaming-music.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab
"Neil Young is crankier than a hermit being stung by bees. He hates Spotify. He hates Facebook. He hates Apple. He hates Steve Jobs. He hates what digital technology is doing to music. “I’m only one person standing there going, ‘Hey, this is [expletive] up!’ ” he shouted, ranting away on the porch of his longtime manager Elliot Roberts’s house overlooking Malibu Canyon in the sunblasted desert north of Los Angeles. The dial thermometer at the far end of the porch indicated that it was now upward of 110 degrees of some kind of heat. Maybe the dial was stuck.
When you hear real music, you get lost in it, he added, “because it sounds like God.” Spotify doesn’t sound like God. No one thinks that. It sounds like a rotating electric fan that someone bought at a hardware store."
ShawnG
PowerDork
8/23/19 2:48 p.m.
I hope Neil young will remember
I hear the southern man doesn't need him though.
P.S. pretty sure I would not characterize Malibu Canyon as "sunblasted desert". I can pretty much see it from where I sit now. It's a bit dry, but not a lot of sand out there.
I saw him a couple years ago at Farm Aid. No joke he spent about half his set going off on explative-filled rants about.... Everything. It sounded like the ramblings of a mad man.
Grizz
UberDork
8/23/19 3:29 p.m.
Considering the sheer number of bands I've found out about because of random diving into torrent sites or youtube or spotify or god knows what else, I'm going to disagree with the cranky old dweeb.
I love me some Neil, but.....
Not everybody can afford tickets to see Neil Young play live. Lower your prices and I'll come see you.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with his own streaming service and player, Pono, being a complete and utter flop.
aircooled said:
I hear the southern man doesn't need him though.
That’s cause they’re racist against canadians
Ethnic Food-Wrap Aficionado said:
I'm sure it has nothing to do with his own streaming service and player, Pono, being a complete and utter flop.
I really wanted that to be awesome. And after a lot of digging around and talking to my audio engineer cousin, I'm convinced that the losses compared between a normal CD and what he's doing are not in the realm of things the human ear can do anything with. And I don't mean most of us, and I don't mean in a way that someone with no hearing damage can still make out. I mean like having a PC monitor that covers ultraviolet and infrared; great, but it doesn't in any way change what I can see.
I still think Neil Young is pretty great, but I was disappointed by the Pono-go-round. In getting my attention it did make me update some things in my equipment that made a bigger difference (real speakers), and made me sit down and bask in some music, and that's good stuff.
Too much time hiding behind hay bales and cutting up credit cards for fuel?
Blah blah blah. Things are changing and I’m scared! Whatever. I still have danced with my wife many times while listening to harvest moon on... Spotify lol
Ransom said:
Ethnic Food-Wrap Aficionado said:
I'm sure it has nothing to do with his own streaming service and player, Pono, being a complete and utter flop.
I really wanted that to be awesome. And after a lot of digging around and talking to my audio engineer cousin, I'm convinced that the losses compared between a normal CD and what he's doing are not in the realm of things the human ear can do anything with. And I don't mean most of us, and I don't mean in a way that someone with no hearing damage can still make out. I mean like having a PC monitor that covers ultraviolet and infrared; great, but it doesn't in any way change what I can see.
I still think Neil Young is pretty great, but I was disappointed by the Pono-go-round. In getting my attention it did make me update some things in my equipment that made a bigger difference (real speakers), and made me sit down and bask in some music, and that's good stuff.
The high-quality streaming services are basically at CD quality....and you're right, the average person can't hear it. That's why this new "HD Audio" stuff is a complete ripoff.
It's just like the guys that claim they can hear the difference in boutique speaker cables, but when doing a blind test, they can't tell the difference from fancy wires and coat hangers.
Also, many artists who even have their music available on streaming services have spoken out against it because of the small cut they get. There is a new law set to go into place soon to raise their portion, that Apple/Spotify/etc are fighting against.
Being a miserable piece of E36 M3 has served him pretty well.
Stern was was playing clips of him ranting and raving about “evil corporate America” the other day...which I found pretty hilarious coming from a dude from canada who made his money from multiple corporations selling his music while he’s shaking his fist screaming on Sirius/XM.
As a teenager I loved Mr. Young's music, and I hoped one day to make my living with music. That ship has sailed and I don't really wish for it to come back. I still play and perform when I can, and I do it to share the music and for no other reason. If artists have a problem with how much the get paid off of the streaming services they can just try to market the music themselves and make a bigger cut. If someone is willing to pay to see you play, great! If you want to charge them to hear your music, great! If you hate Apple/Spotify/YouTube, great!
This may be preachy, whatever. Still like his music, but I dislike the politics. Artists (or maybe the label in some cases) have the right to share or not share their music 100%, it is theirs. Railing on the market is petty and small. Worrying about not getting paid enough isn't very "artistic".
/rant
The audiophile stuff is a different rant.
barefootskater said:
Worrying about not getting paid enough isn't very "artistic".
/rant
The audiophile stuff is a different rant.
But see that's the thing with the music industry as a whole. The labels make all the money, well now I guess the streaming services and Itunes make all the money. The artists barely get a dime. Something like 6 cents from every Dollar song sold on Itunes actually gets to the artist. I can only imagine it's getting worse with all the streams available.
When I sold CDs for a living in high school, our 40% employee discount wasn't even the whole cut that MediaPlay our corporate overlords made on each disc. For a $20 cd, the artist would barely make a dollar.
Some have gotten smart, especially in the rap world, and just started their own damn label, but too many people including famous artists, have no idea how horrible for them their "amazing record deal" really is.
I'd almost feel bad for them, except they were too stupid to read their contracts in the first place, so berkeley them.
He has lost 2 homes to fires in Malibu.......
Maybe that made him more of an angry old man........
as long as the royalty checks keep coming in.......
I watched a YouTube documentary on his life & career a couple weeks ago. Somehow it completely ignored his struggles with addiction, which I always figured was a main factor in much of is music.
I find it amusing that Neil Young, who sings with Neil Young's voice, is concerned about sound quality.
He could have been happy the rest of his life with a Cinnamon Girl and bypassed all the Spotify drama.
Sparkydog said:
He could have been happy the rest of his life with a Cinnamon Girl and bypassed all the Spotify drama.
its Daryl Hannah for Neil .......
Ironic how an artist who changed the state of the art then complains about how the state of the art changed.
Nothing in music has ever lasted on top. Ever. Deal with it, neal.
BTW, if you ever get a chance to see the documentary Echo in the Canyon, watch it. I'm not really a big fan of the era, but it was really interesting to watch and learn about it. Especially how much artists identified that they borrowed each others ideas. hugely. It'sll about the music that neal was part of.
