neil young: dumbest man alive or prophet of god?
 

canadians take dad rock really fucking seriously

with recent neil's criticism of the pipeline around here there's basically oil company representatives on tv round the clock explaining that he's a brainless old man who takes drugs and doesn't know anything about oil(can't really argue though i agree with neil ahaha) the amount of neil merchandise being dumped on the local value villages lately seems almost like some mass book burning frenzy(although people have definitely burned his products just not publically in massive numbers)


however while going down the youtube rabbithole of anti neil press conferences and songs i found something more bizarre. a few years ago local pastor john van sloten delivered this sermon explaining that neil young's work could only come from holy prophecy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RdR8_ohScc#t=189


so where do you stand on bernard shakey? dirty looking drug addict who needs to shut up and sing, or god's own voice?

Neil Young is GAWD.

Use this opportunity to go get On The Beach and Tonight's the Night on Vinyl

If that's God I'd hate to hear the devil

I'm kind of tired of his whiney voice and he's written some awful pop songs, anything with piano...

I know its sacrilege...

anyone who makes music for 40 years will write awful shit.

Neil Young has so many amazing albums of music that any quibbles about him are purely nit-picking.

those are being reissued on record store day, along with shirts. hopefully i'll turn up OGs but his stuff sells well in the record stores still. yesterday i got a tour shirt with an awful drawing that looks more like bruce springsteen, thinking of wearing it to the neil church.

Me and my friend Nick agree with this!

Oh, well if we're talking about songwriting, I'll give him some props. Here's a great great cover of "Southern Man."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4czTIjYwGlc

Sometimes his fragile, childlike voice works and can be affecting, but sometimes it's just goddamn annoying.

"Sleeps with Angels" was a pretty good record, and I remember liking "Mirror Ball." But is there anything from the last twenty years I need to hear?

i don't believe in religious bullcaca, much less from "pastors" (baaaaaaa), but he's the force behind the PONO player (look it up on kickstarter), and he's got my vote.

plus canada has really good fish.

pono is doomed, too expensive too specialist, not different enough from bigger competitors. i'm sure the sound quality is great but a minority of listeners pay attention to that or have non-trash headphones. the dude doesn't seem to have any commercial success with his cars and toy trains, i'd be pretty shocked at this point if a product developed by young was actually popular

it's a stereo component. it's for people who buy turntables, not for people who buy ipods. or maybe for the ipod user who wants a turntable without the size/weight/noise limitations. those people already exist.

they've blown their fundraising goal multiple times. originally $800K, they have now $4.2 mil with 26 days to go.

no it isn't for people who buy turntables, analog audio buyers who actually buy expensive shit don't fuck with digital, this product is being met with indifference by sources that actually write about gear for people who buy for people who buy turntables, hate to reference this annoying site but it drives home the point that turntable people with too much money don't view pono as relevanthttp://www.analogplanet.com/content/...-covering-pono


it's for people who buy ipods however they market it, the analog and digital divide among gearheads is wide, there's already great sound possible from digital there's no way a device like this of any quality is going over to the analog market in a big way, and the analog market is smaller anyways. it's an expensive ipod that sounds better but holds less songs and doesn't actually fit well in pockets or have a decent screen. kickstarter doesn't mean shit, their competition in the market get way more investment than that without needing to crowdsource their money. getting a kickstarter funded doesn't guarantee continued market presence. i think this item is going to sink before too long, most of the public comments i'm seeing on this thing are negative

we're talking about the future here so i could easily be wrong maybe everyone i know is going to actually buy a pono and it's going to be a huge hit, it's possible but would shock me, i'm thinking this product has a year or two before it stops being produced

as a dad, whose dad got him into Boofalloo Springfeld, I feel that I need to point out that Neil Young IS god.

how dare you besmirch His Name.

whatever! i feel more bongs and gitar solos.

New record:

http://thirdmanstore.com/featured/a-...-home-12-vinyl

Neil has been having this problem for the past 20 years now, as he has t battle with the reality that the majority of his fanbase are nostalgic old people who grown up to have starkly more "conservative" values than he does.. Personally, I think he gets kick out knocking these off his bandwagon. Really, isn't that what he has been doing his entire career, trying to sabotage his mainstream appeal?

uhhh is this a serious question? PROPHET OF GOD

btw,

funding a kickstarter != getting a product

not exactly. the over 1000 people who pledged 5 bucks only get a thank you. even if all the 18,000 who pledged put in enough to get the player that still isn't enough to keep an electronic item on the market long term

alright, you're right, it's for neither this nor that, but i'd buy it because i don't give a shit about what gearheads think and i'm not pigheadedly partisan. if anything, i'm for pleasure. i like digital portability but i hate the shitty tinny sound of mp3. even cd sounds clean but not fat enough to my ears. i dont like to run a whole fucking computer, monitor and all, to play flac files (since my ipod doesn't, and i don't wanna transcode, and i'm lazy), plus iffy sounds cards that who knows. i just want to load the album, punch a button and crank the stereo LOUD and feel the air vibrate around me-- not over my head and into my ears but in the air around me-- you know what i mean? you have a stereo with big fat speakers that can suspend objets in the air and shake them like a waterbed?

now, the article you link didn't say the pono was shit, they said they like the idea, they say better sound for all is good, but they wouldn't cover it so they can focus on analog. it's not the same thing. they don't reject it-- they just choose to specialize their business. a consumer doesn't need to specialize their business. a brewer that wants to be a winemaker is gonna make shit wine, but a consumer can buy craft beer from one maker and boutique wine from another (or mass-produced swill too).

i have hope for a high-def digital format-- not the 5.1 SACD bullshit but real deep, thick stereo sound you can crank LOUD and not sound like shit. fatter than a CD. like vinyl without the crackles, and scratches, and skipping, and dust. fat like butter, like bacon fat, like a deep-fried pork shoulder sandwich with avocado slices.

are there more people like me? probably. enough to sustain a product? no idea-- i think it's a matter of setting up the logistics to fill a niche rather than strive for universal appeal. a purple cow doesn't need to have universal appeal-- it just need to be special enough that its fans can support its economics. not every great restaurant has to turn into mcdonalds-- it just needs enough loyal customers to support itself.

plus:


this is just a matter of assembly--DACs already exist, flash storage already exists, lcds and knobs already exist, flac-friendly firmware already exists, they don't really need to invent anything, just put the high-quality pieces together-- don't they?

for record companies, barring the usual piracy problems, there is little added cost to selling these formats on the side since they are already used in recording-- protools records at up to 32-bit 192khz and mixes at 64-bit (right now), so outputting a lesser bit depth mixdown at the same bitrate is basically cake, and with no media manufacturing required, it's just more cash for their pockets. fuck, i think some blu-ray media already has 24bit/48khz audio, which is standard for raw video, there's also 24/192, it's just that plastic discs are a PITA and blu-ray isn't that widespread. CDs were "high tech" in the 19fucking80s.

Pono: I WANT I WANT I WANT. even if the pono fails, someone else will follow, given that there is label support. i'd buy something to sit below my stereo amp rather than a portable because i love big fat fucking speakers that can fill a room with deep audio lard, but since i'm already jacking a shitty ipod to my stereo i'd be okay with a toblerone too, though for actual portable my crummy phone suffices.