Neil Young introduces PonoPlayer kickstarter (video)

Neil Young created a new digital music player service called Pono, and on Tuesday, he launched a kickstarter in order to help fund the new idea. Bruce Springstreen, James Taylor, Eddie Vedder, Sting and Tom Petty all make appearances in a complementary video.

"It’s about the people who make the music and the way it sounds to us when we’re in the studio making it. It’s about you hearing what we hear. And that hasn’t happened in a long time. I want to bring back real music. That’s why we’re on Kickstarter. So that everyone who loves music can share in the release of Pono and the launch of the real music experience in the 21st century," Young said in the video.

Other stars are featured in the video as well, including Beck, Arcade Fire, Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Dave Grohl, Dave Matthews, Elton John , Patti Smith and more, as reported by The LA Times

Young informs the public of his “underwater listening” idea by comparing and contrasting MP3s to listening to music 1,000 feet under water. He makes another comparison of a compact disc and listening to music 200 feet underwater. Thousands of albums are being converted from Warner Music Group’s archives into 192 kHz and 24-bit sound, which is compatible with Pono.

The kickstarter has hopes of gaining $800,000 by April 15th, otherwise the project will not continue with funding. This doesn’t seem too hard to accomplish based on the kickstarter’s success so far—in less than five hours the kickstarter saw $500,000 of support, according to Rolling Stone

Prizes will be given away, including a dinner and listening party with Young and a limited edition Pono player signed by well-known bands such as Pearl Jam, Beck, Foo Fighters and Arcade Fire.

Pono’s main goal is to allow fans to listen to music the way it was intended to be listened to—the orginial studio recordings. Young chose the name “pono” because it translates to “righteous” in Hawaiian.

The Pono player, available in both yellow and black, will be able to store between 1,000 and 2,000 high resolution songs with 128 gigabytes of memory. Memory cards will be an available accessory as well which gives listeners the option of holding a significant amount of music.

Watch the video below:

Photo Courtesy of >Wikimedia Commons

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