Neil Young Discusses His New Album, Trump, Future of Pono | Rolling Stone
Neil Young Discusses His New Album, Trump, Future of Pono
The entire interview with Young is available on the latest episode of podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now.
Some highlights:
Regarding future work: "I've got a lot to do without touring,” says Young, who's working on a TV show about the cross-country journey of his electric car and writing another book (this one may be fiction). But primarily, he says, “I'm actually just focusing now on recordings for awhile."
Regarding PONO: "We're pushing towards getting a presence in phones," says Young (though iPhones' internal chips are not currently compatible with higher-than-CD-quality sound). He's working with a Singaporean company on a method to "maintain our quality level when we go to streaming."
Regarding Crazy Horse and CSNY: "Billy's in great shape, he's fine," says Young, promising to work his way back to the band. "Crazy Horse has a cycle. If you look at Crazy Horse's history and when Crazy Horse played and when they didn't play, you can see that we're still in the pocket."
When he's reminded that Crosby, Stills Nash and Young have a 50th anniversary coming up, he responds with savage sarcasm: "Oh, yeah, there's a huge anniversary coming up. Huge. It's terrific! I love it!" At the same time, he won't rule out a reunion with that group, who last played together in 2013. "Anything is possible," he says.
Labels: interview, neil young
by thrasher@PermaLink: 12/12/2016 05:09:00 PM
22 comments
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22 Comments:
4 months in the studio to make Earth - incredible, ramble on
How about getting the Pono Music store back and running before moving on to phones? Updating the existing players so they can handle larger memory cards and not take 20 minutes to update the library every time you turn it on? Fixing Pono World so you don't have to update every 6 months.
Oh wait, there are electric cars to build, Archives 2 to get out, Oil companies to protest, Indian reservations to visit, Darryl Hannah to date.
And get back with Crazy Horse, build bridges with CSN, make a new record with POTR & the PONO saga has done him no favours. Fans like me who bought the Blu Ray archives are left with a dinosaur - live updates????? I feel like Pegi.
It's not the seventies anymore.
No wait! It's the early seventies!
Seventy-one to be exact!
Go, Neil, go!
Say what you will about CSN, but I'm betting the words "refreshing viewpoint" will never be uttered by David Crosby when discussing Don the Con Man. But hey, Vladimir Trumpkin is already showing his true colors, so maybe this will be like that Reagan infatuation period and it will be over soon--I'll give Neil one every three decades or so.
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Fred - the Pono will take 256gb cards now, so that solves that problem. Neil also speaks of getting the store up and running to provide downloads, so there's that. He talks about Pono at the 18:45 minute mark on the download.
As for the J River software, they say they will be offering a program, for a reduced cost, that "will be updated to better support the Pono Player" according to their website. Big plans - we shall see.
As far as I'm concerned, the benefits of Pono are purely psychological/placebo effect. I know a few people still disagree with me on that, but less than a few months ago, I'm willing to bet.
But regardless, surely the whole point is to get people away from their phones and into something more substantial, at least for a few minutes? So it sounds like a very flawed concept to me.
Neil is a great musician; he's not an expert in sound tech. That probably sounds obvious when it's written down. But I think this has got him into a bit of trouble over the last few years; he's doubled-down on hi-res audio so many times that it's now nearly impossible for him to take a step back and evaluate whether he was actually correct in the first place; whether a change of approach is necessary.
And I will say that so far the whole enterprise has been horribly, horribly managed. I'm not sure who's fault that is. But it's only a matter of time (months, not years) before it capsizes completely. If the business is to survive then it needs a complete re-evaulation, a complete re-structure and change of approach. So bear that in mind before investing too much of your money and getting burnt again.
The reason people don't care about having hi-res audio instead of CDs or streaming is because there is no demonstrable improvement. You can't show people (other than those already onboard) how or WHY it is going to make their lives so much better. That's the reason SACD didn't catch on with the general public, and it's the reason Pono won't either.
Huge promises of life-changing, massively-improved sound quality are one thing, but sooner or later you have to actually deliver on this promise for people to buy what you are selling. A lot of people are fed up with hype.
Despite this, I still think having a dedicated high-quality music player is a very good thing. Neil is essentially correct to suggest there is a lot of room for improvement in the overall music experience. And when Neil focuses on improving the music "experience", rather than "sound quality", then he stands a good chance of succeeding.
Scotsman.
"I feel like Pegi" is the comment of the year!
Well played, Andrew
@TOM - we're sorry that you find that to be the comment of the year.
@ Tom yeh I thought it was quite amusing........@ TW oh dear it was a joke me thinks we take ourselves too seriously sometimes
@Andy - right. Joking about divorce is so funny. You guys you should be ashamed.
Cut the typical "holier than thou crap", Thrasher
Neil has treated EVERYbody in his life like shit,
"following his muse", from Pono buyers to loved ones and EVERYone in between.
The analogy is ALL too apt, spot on and reflective of how many of us feel
@ TW read the comment in the context of the sentence please, I'm not ashamed of an innocent comment as ever here anyone who doesn't worship at the feet of ole Neil is castigated. The new record is awful let's move on.
@Andy - we, and many, many others are enjoying the album. So why move on? Why not just enjoy the moment.
No matter how much negativity you attempt to spread here, the candle will never blow out.
The flame burns as brightly as ever.
hiking down that "peace" trail into the sunrise...
I've been a fan of this site for several years & never commented before but Andy may feel like Pegi but I think he's a much bigger bitch than Pegi is on her worst day. Go away Andy
I don't really think I worship at the feet of NY and I haven't got a pono or anything but I don't feel like he's treated me like shit by releasing it or a few albums I don't like especially since a lot of people do. I like the new one though and listen to it several times a day for the pleasure of it. I don't get the 'move on' comment at all. What the fuck does that mean?
I've been visiting this site for about three years and this thread is a low point, thanks to Andy's never ending negativity. Why someone who has so many bad things to say about an artist spends as much time complaining about said artist on a site dedicated to that artist and his/her fans is beyond me.
Andy, it seems like Neil hasn't done anything that you like since around 1976, so maybe you should just accept Neil's failings and move on. I find it funny that you feel the need to diss on Neil to us, some of his biggest fans, as if that's gonna change any of our opinions. "Gee, Andy didn't like Peace Trail, I guess I don't either". I mean, honestly, true fans of Neil Young shouldn't even care what other Neil Young fans think. Worrying about other's opinions ain't what Neil is about, so I think a lot of his fans are the same.
I don't worship at the feet of Neil, but I sure as shit don't feel like I should be making snide comments concerning a relationship that isn't any of my business. Your Pegi comment wasn't cute, funny, or even edgy.......just kind of classless.
Thrasher, it's your site and you do what you want with it. But I think you shouldn't even respond to such continued negativity. Sometimes it's best to just ignore the babies and let themselves cry alone in a corner.
@Mr Henry - I agree you'd never hear those words "refreshing viewpoint" from Crosby. That's because he's nowhere near as smart as Neil as has been demonstrated repeatedly for decades. He's a far left ideologue (like many who comment here)who doesn't have the capacity to realize that Trump's message resonated with millions of voters who normally would vote Democrat. Neil is much smarter than that. Yes he leans way left but he knows there are many who do not - and that's ok. con man, Russia, blah blah blah.....
@Thrasher - the "Big Shift" happened already - it was on November 8th.....
I think I'll put on Prairie Wind.....sigh.......
@Richie - thanks for the support. Always appreciated.
@Jonathan - November 8th was merely a slight political shift from left to right. well, we've been through a 1000 times over the years, but we'll say it again. This type of thinking demonstrates being trapped in the duality of the matrix. So Nov 8 is pretty irrelevant when it comes to The Big Shift.
Maybe you need to go back and watch The Wizard of Oz again. Dorothy got the Big Shift when the curtain was pulled back and all was revealed.
Recall what Witch Glinda says to Dorothy:
"You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas."
Use your power Jonathan.
We'll see you when you get home.
No problem, Thrasher.
Btw, listened to all of Peace Trail last night and was pretty blown away. I honestly think it might be Neil's best work since Greendale, and maybe his best non-Crazy Horse studio album since Mirror Ball.
Maybe start another thread about it soon, so we can have more discussion about it?
I don't mind you speaking for me on this occasion.
Well said.
Ps. I'm a moderator on an AFL footy site and we always seem to have a 'shadow' person or two. When we've all had a gut full, we give them warnings, then time outs..if none of that works we let them go.Strangely, the shadow comes back in a a slightly different form. Goes with the forum territory I think. Carl Jung would know why..
Maybe I'll try asking him on Dream Google.
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