After several years of development, Neil Young launched his high-resolution PONO music player and its accompanying digital music store in 2015. Unfortunately, the product arrived at a time when consumers were beginning to move over to streaming music, and the online storefront was shut down in April 2016 before the project was officially shuttered last year. Despite moving on to his streaming service XStream, however, Young hasn't exactly let the loss go. In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Young blamed record labels for causing the failure of PONO by charging several times the cost for the lossless files compared to MP3s. “The record labels killed it,” he said. “They killed it by insisting on charging two to three times as much for the high-res files as for MP3s. Why would anybody pay three times as much?” Young added that “all music should cost the same,” explaining that a high-resolution file doesn't cost any more to transfer in comparison to a regular quality file. He also made the claim that pirated music is no longer a problem because “who wants to copy something if you can stream it?” Not to be deterred by the setback, Young hasn't given up on providing high-resolution music to the masses. In December, the musician launched a free online music archive containing his entire catalog. Most of the music is available to stream in high-resolution audio format through XStream, although there's a toggle to standard quality if users don't have sufficient bandwidth. The endeavor appears to be Young's proof of concept for high-resolution streaming services, but its success will be determined when he introduces subscription tiers for continued access later this year. “There's nothing stopping anybody else from doing this,” he said. “The record companies are in the way with the high prices. There should be hi-res streaming services everywhere.”
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Asian Dub Foundation have just finished a successful tour playing their critically acclaimed live soundtrack to the 1995 French cult classic film
In the brief time since his passing, the heirs to Prince's estate have time and time again taken actions that run contrary to the legendary musician's wishes. His music has been made available on streaming services, his back catalog has been mined as part of an ongoing reissue campaign, and recently, the estate obtained a permit to serve alcohol at Paisley Park during Super Bowl week. (During his life, Prince was famously anti-streaming, kept his music locked away in a vault for a reason, and banned alcohol from being served at Paisley Park.) One of the events taking place at Paisley Park during Super Bowl Week was a listening party for Justin Timberlake's latest album, Man of the Woods. Beyond the fact that the album is a dumpster fire of epic proportions, many Prince fans took exception with the event given that it was sponsored by American Express and alcohol was served to the A-list crowd. Additionally, Timberlake and Prince briefly feuded in the mid-2000's. During a post-Grammys party in 2006, Prince referenced Timberlake's hit “SexyBack” by saying, “For whoever is claiming they are bringing sexy back, sexy never left!” Timberlake responded by mocking Prince's height at another awards show, and then released a diss track in which he sang, If sexy never left, then why's everybody on my sh–?/ Don't hate on me just because you didn't come up with it.” Adding insult to injury, TMZ brings word of a gross tribute planned by Timberlake as part of his Super Bowl halftime performance tomorrow night. Specifically, Prince will be resurrected as a hologram. Prince's sister Tyka Nelson previously floated the idea of a hologram, but we had hopped the family would have come to their senses. Guess not. |
Camille Mullens
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January 2019
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