Neil Young Angered By The Way Today's Music Sounds

[JerseyGirl]

Rock legend Neil Young doesn’t have a bone to pick with the artists of today (well, he may but he didn’t sound off about it this week) but he is upset with the quality of recordings purchased through digital retailers.

“I don’t like it. It just makes me angry,” Young told MTV at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. “Not the quality of the music, but we’re in the 21st century and we have the worst sound that we’ve ever had. It’s worse than a 78 (RPM album)… Where are our geniuses? What happened?”

Young, at the Slamdance Film Festival to promote a film called ‘Journeys,’ explained that an mp3 only holds five percent of the data that an original file holds. He compares it to an artist only offering a small percent of a masterpiece to the consumer.

“That’s why people listen to music differently today. It’s all about the bottom and the beat driving everything, and that’s because in the resolution of the music, there’s nothing else you can really hear. The warmth and the depth at the high end is gone.”

The singer didn’t make it clear how his feelings on digital downloads will effect the release of the two (yes two!) albums with Crazy Horse he is working on. One is finished, and he says the other is in the works currently.

LINK: Neil Young Angered by the Way Today’s Music Sounds

 

[LG]

I agree wholeheartedly, and Elvis Costello said the same thing a while ago.

MP3's are okay for portable devices, but for proper in depth listening they are not good enough.

The 24 bit 96 Khz format is much better than CD...but seeing the record companies are bailing on physical formats soon I very much doubt things are going to change.

As I said before the Golden Age of quality for the home music fan is over now, the lossy format and slick marketing by one company in particular have seen to that.

 

[Soot and Stars]

Thank God this isn't another aging angry rocker bitching about the actual artist of today. Glad I was wrong. Honestly though, Neil Young doesn't come off as that bitter whiny type so I shouldn't have been surprised. I don't know. I guess MP3's, etc. aren't he best sound but honestly I don't like being an audiophile. Seems like to much thinking before setting down to listen to the actual music. Audiophile talk, no offense to my friends who love that stuff, puts me to sleep. To me if the song is a good song I could listen to it on nearly anything.

 

[JerseyGirl]

I agree wholeheartedly, and Elvis Costello said the same thing a while ago.

MP3's are okay for portable devices, but for proper in depth listening they are not good enough.

The 24 bit 96 Khz format is much better than CD...but seeing the record companies are bailing on physical formats soon I very much doubt things are going to change.

As I said before the Golden Age of quality for the home music fan is over now, the lossy format and slick marketing by one company in particular have seen to that.

I knew you would chime in with your knowledge of this LG.

 

[LG]

Thank God this isn't another aging angry rocker bitching about the actual artist of today. Glad I was wrong. Honestly though, Neil Young doesn't come off as that bitter whiny type so I shouldn't have been surprised. I don't know. I guess MP3's, etc. aren't he best sound but honestly I don't like being an audiophile. Seems like to much thinking before setting down to listen to the actual music. Audiophile talk, no offense to my friends who love that stuff, puts me to sleep. To me if the song is a good song I could listen to it on nearly anything.

Without Audiophiles and Engineers and Producers who know quality and how to achieve it there would be rudimentary live shows and music as we know it would not have evolved.

It is because of the Pursuit of the best quality possible that the evolution of music happened in the first place.

Sorry Sooty, I respect you a lot but if we left this to people with your attitude we'd be listening to Wax Cylinders like Thomas Edison invented.

It's the Passion of a select few that Moves the world forward in music and always has. To see it all lost in less than a decade makes me want to cry.

Oh and the Smashing Pumpkins on my reference system...you would be in your glory hearing things Exactly the way Billy and company intended when they were in the studio.

 

[Soot and Stars]

Without Audiophiles and Engineers and Producers who know quality and how to achieve it there would be rudimentary live shows and music as we know it would not have evolved.

It is because of the Pursuit of the best quality possible that the evolution of music happened in the first place.

Sorry Sooty, I respect you a lot but if we left this to people with your attitude we'd be listening to Wax Cylinders like Thomas Edison invented.

It's the Passion of a select few that Moves the world forward in music and always has. To see it all lost in less than a decade makes me want to cry.

Oh and the Smashing Pumpkins on my reference system...you would be in your glory hearing things Exactly the way Billy and company intended when they were in the studio.

I don't know LG! Maybe I don't have the ear for that sort of thing as I and even some fans I read commenting on the Smashing Pumpkins reissues said that they could here barely a difference. I don't think that was the remaster quality LG as you could tell work was done but I think only audiophiles like yourself really have your listening experience changed by these things. I had the same passion for it as I did with the original recordings. Do I notice the difference in the big leagues of change? Sure! I prefer c.d. over cassette by bounds and while I know c.d.s sound better than MP3s I don't notice that the experience changes. It's the song itself to me that counts.

 

[Slip'nn2Darkness]

I know this dosn't come as a surprise, But my guess is the music industry dosn't give a crap what Neil say's about the quality of todays music..It's about huge profits to them.. Maybe one day they will wake up and get back to making quality recordings..

 

[LG]

I don't know LG! Maybe I don't have the ear for that sort of thing as I and even some fans I read commenting on the Smashing Pumpkins reissues said that they could here barely a difference. I don't think that was the remaster quality LG as you could tell work was done but I think only audiophiles like yourself really have your listening experience changed by these things. I had the same passion for it as I did with the original recordings. Do I notice the difference in the big leagues of change? Sure! I prefer c.d. over cassette by bounds and while I know c.d.s sound better than MP3s I don't notice that the experience changes. It's the song itself to me that counts.

Didn't you once have a Musical Truth social group? For those addicts that can't get enough? My way of going about music is exactly the same the gear required for you to enjoy music was invented by people like myself, where the bare minimum was not enough. The pursuit of excellence was the goal, to reproduce as faithfully as possible a live show, or studio recording for you to take home and enjoy the sense of "being there".

It's quite simple Sooty, if the labels want to give folk like me 24-96 quality we can downsample that to whatever format you like, even 64kbs if that is what the masses want.

But by taking away even our 16-44 CD's we cannot Upgrade a lossy format to suit our needs. And that is not fair and backwards.

Labels should offer the full studio tape quality downloads if they take CD's away soon. I would spend $20.00 for an album of that quality.

I don't like being herded off a cliff following an Apple icon just because they have taken over the music distribution side of the music business. That is why I hate what they have done. They could have catered to my generation as well, and offered upgrades as they went along but no, they figure 10% of a recorded piece of music is good enough.:mad

I have lost this battle and realized it a long time ago, kids today drive the industry and like Slip says maybe in time someone will cry out for a return to full quality for now Apple wins.

I refuse to look at a black and white photograph and have someone tell me it's as good as a color photograph, I know the difference and music is the same to me.

End rant.

 

[Soot and Stars]

Didn't you once have a Musical Truth social group? For those addicts that can't get enough? My way of going about music is exactly the same the gear required for you to enjoy music was invented by people like myself, where the bare minimum was not enough. The pursuit of excellence was the goal, to reproduce as faithfully as possible a live show, or studio recording for you to take home and enjoy the sense of "being there".

It's quite simple Sooty, if the labels want to give folk like me 24-96 quality we can downsample that to whatever format you like, even 64kbs if that is what the masses want.

But by taking away even our 16-44 CD's we cannot Upgrade a lossy format to suit our needs. And that is not fair and backwards.

Labels should offer the full studio tape quality downloads if they take CD's away soon. I would spend $20.00 for an album of that quality.

I don't like being herded off a cliff following an Apple icon just because they have taken over the music distribution side of the music business. That is why I hate what they have done. They could have catered to my generation as well, and offered upgrades as they went along but no, they figure 10% of a recorded piece of music is good enough.:mad

I have lost this battle and realized it a long time ago, kids today drive the industry and like Slip says maybe in time someone will cry out for a return to full quality for now Apple wins.

I refuse to look at a black and white photograph and have someone tell me it's as good as a color photograph, I know the difference and music is the same to me.

End rant.

It was called Musical Thirst and the whole purpose was a group of people focused on listening to anything regardless of genre and era and discussing it respectfully and civilly and in turn given the same member the same token. We listened to it by youtube clips mostly so sound quality wasn't really the issue at the time. Just exploring new music that we may actually like.

 

[TheSound]

The difference in sound quality to my ears is pretty negligible, and I can live with it without giving it a second thought, but then I'm not an audio nerd, and I really could care less just as long as it's reasonably decent quality. The accessibility and user-friendly nature of MP3 is just phenomenal, I can get around 1,500 complete albums onto a device not much bigger than a postage stamp. If Neil Young prefers to try carrying around 1,500 wax 78's with him to give him the same options, then he's going to need quite literally a whole herd of Crazy Horses.