Neil Young takes on the iPod and MP3s for destroying the quality of music

A singing voice doesn't have to sound like Mariah Carey or (insert any other "angelic" singing voice here) to be "a singing voice" and I somehow doubt you'll find many people who will stand in the "Neil Young can't sing" line with you.

With that said, I have a few problems with his myopic view of the issue, most of which boil down to:

Apple isn't the problem, certainly not when it comes to file size restraints. The labels are the problem and they're dictating quality.

If Neil Young were to approach Apple and say:

"Hey, guys. I care about high fidelity audio. I want to put my Album on your service (and anyone else who will listen) at the highest possible quality at a reasonable rate, without dealing with the studio bull@!$%# that you usually have to put up with..."

His album would be on iTunes, at a higher quality.

Labels like Deutsche Grammophon have started selling higher quality files (and without DRM). They had issues with Apple's inflexible pricing (all individual songs 99 cents). With classical pieces, that obviously does not works as well since many of the tracks are 10-15 minutes.

Amazon sells 256 Kbps MP3, DG sells 320 Kbps. Neither is close to CD quality, but it is certainly testing the waters. If they start to gain momentum, I would expect Apple to pressure the labels to let iTS carry higher quality audio.

BTW, I believe that Neil Young has had something up his ass about digital music since the dawn of the compact disc. If I remember correctly, he was one of a small group of artists trying to get the labels to distribute their work in analog form only. They believed that all digital music lacked character.

He has been against digital music from the get go, I think he's one of us that can hear a difference between analog and digital.

Well I blame Neil Young for his quality of music, but I digress...

Which music? *All* of his music? Nothing from the Neil Young catalogue is any good?

I didn't say none of it was good. I will say that I don't enjoy what I have heard. I respect him as a musician, but wouldn't choose to listen to him. Every time I hear Heart of Gold, all I can think of is Dana Carvey's HBO Special.

There's nothing wrong with wanting the quality of music to be better.

I doubt anyone would argue against higher quality. What I think Mr. Young really should be complaining about is producers and engineers not using the available technology to it's fullest to make the music better.

Then Apple and all the 3rd parties can offer the 2TB iPack in rainbow colors.

maybe next year when they roll out the Terabyte backpack with Bluetooth stream for you leisurely jog.

It's kinda difficult to take your hi-fi with when you go jogging too. I'm trying to understand if you two think there's any place for digital music, or even the lowly mp3 at all. How good is good enough? Short of hearing music played live there's going to be loss in any form of recording. I will agree with Neil Young on one point ...

Young complained that music has become "like wallpaper" - more Muzak than music.

There are times when I treat music as wallpaper or background music because I'm focusing on something else like riding my bike or reading on the train. I like to have music on because I can't stand sitting in silence. Is that necessarily a bad thing? If I'm not listening to superior quality I shouldn't be listening at all? I'm not going to sit down in front of the sound system every time I want to hear a song.

Then why are we settling for average music quality that hasn't advanced in years? It's not like we're limited by file size that much anymore. Can you really listen to 100GB of MP3s? Do you actually like all of those songs? Why not cull out the garbage and fill that space with better quality music?

And that's exactly what I'm saying. Apple says that it's lossless format will compress a 700MB CD to about 350 MB. If you bought the 160 GB iPod and filled it with nothing but lossless music that comes out to about 450 full albums at CD quality in your pocket for $350. The limitation there doesn't come from the iPod, it comes from the CD itself.

The iTunes store is another story. I honestly don't know if Apple is even trying to provide songs in lossless format, or if the labels would allow it. I'd easily pay for the higher quality though if it cost at most the same as a CD.

How good is good enough? Short of hearing music played live there's going to be loss in any form of recording.

That primarily is the issue. The age old question "is it LIVE or is it memorex?" I still have my favorite T-shirt with memorex guy sitting in his chair in front of the speakers with his hair and scarf blowing backwards.

It is a rarity anymore that I can get the time to actually sit in front of my home system with the volume up, listening to my favorite CDs. The quality being only as good as the device you are playing it on. Even headphones range in audible quality.

You can't put the fat back in the filet mignon

Our audio selections that we purchase are limited to what the recorded media allows, and what the market is willing to pay for. Once it is on CD it is digital! Yes I believe digital audio, whether it is a variable bit rate of 128kbps or 192 has its place. Again, it is hard to choose a side here.

The Digital Audio format that promised clearer fidelity didn't take. The players were expensive and so were the CDs. Not only that but there was more cost in post production. If the labels didn't eat the cost, and it was up to the artist to foot the bill, knowing that many people, who don't have discernable ears would choose the cheaper option.

Sony has that proprietary software, even the MiniDiscs (which sound remarkably well for live audio recording even in the louder db range) use software that if you want to extract or add to you need. Otherwise the download to PC would be sacrificed through analog means and defeats the purpose.