Neil Young’s Lonely Quest to Save Music

I think there are more people creating music now than anytime in history with the advent of computer technology. Case in point is my brilliant Silicon Valley buddy who moved back to India and created a software system to create traditional India music. He wanted people without means to be able to create music.

an obvious point being missed here is why major recording lables are not posting their artists albums in online HD accessible formats thus bypassing physical production of discs and their associated packaging.


if no HD versions of the recorded masters is doable, then at least post the Red book lossless versions.

or they will or should soon pursue a third party facilitator to aggregate and dispense those digital files for them.

I’m not keen on upsampled files merely taken from Red Book formats.

an old adage here said trash in, and its trash out. upsampling does nothing to aid increases in fidelity. it takes a natively rendered HD format to actually achieve higher resolution.

that said, higher res files vs streaming each has its place.

there is content out there which will not be enhanced by upsampling, yet will be acceptable provided in lossy formats, ie., vintage era music from before the ’90s on average.

I use Apple Music and am not thrilled with all of its ins and outs, though the catalog is impressive for discovery and arranging playlists.

Spodofy prem is my second but only streaming app and I find it a tick or so above Apple in SQ, but not quite so friendly with user defined playlists creation.

at some point going forward major lables will undoubtedly provide their Artists natively cut tracks.

some independants already do.

that is the next wave to come.

Neil is right. lossy music has anestasized an entire generation from what music is to what music is supposed to be.

there is a Youtube vid which has several audio gurus paneling a discussion on the genre. Van der steen, d’Agostino, McGowan, Noodle, and Stewart from Meridian. its hosted by the TAS editor.

in it Bob S makes a great analogy about the present state of affairs on lossey vs lossless music, and our latest generation’s designs on it/them.

in all a highly rec’d video.

what’s missing is a place where you could download all music all genres in Flac or Wav., just like shopping at Tower Records but online. Amazon is pathetic, only Mp3 format if the album is available. major labels should host such websites, but charge reasonable prices for their entire catalog of music. Presto is great for classical and i use their service. for Rock, Folk, ect. the only alternative is PB.  have not tried streaming services since the SQ sounds dubious.  i prefer a landline.

I loved reading this piece in the NYT. Well written and thought provoking.

I do, of course, agree with Neil’s perspectives. However, the reason I am chiming in here is that, while vinyl continues to be my primary source for listening, I do have a DAC in my main system (otherwise tube-based) and stream from time to time. I am shocked that no one has mentioned Deezer as their streaming source. The quality is incredible.

Anyone else using Deezer?

thanks

Yes - Mr. Young is right!