Neil Young pulls his music from streaming services in sound quality crusade

Neil Young, the music sound quality crusader, is pulling his music from all streaming services. As one from the musician who created his own music player because he doesn’t like how the others sound, this move was all about sound quality.

Young told his Facebook fans that money has nothing to do with his decision, although he still took a dig at how royalties are calculated. Young insisted that his music shouldn’t be “devalued” by poor streaming quality.

“It's not because of the money, although my share (like all the other artists) was dramatically reduced by bad deals made without my consent,” he wrote. “It's about sound quality. I don't need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution. I don't feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It's bad for my music.”

Young continued, “For me, It's about making and distributing music people can really hear and feel. I stand for that. When the quality is back, I'll give it another look. Never say never.”

The Harvest singer is the driving force behind the Pono music player and the digital music service to go with it. While the downloads are much more expensive compared to other online music stores, Young insists that the tracks sound better. The Kickstarter project to launch the MP3 player raised over $6 million, so he clearly has supporters.

However, as The Verge notes, several streaming services have promoted high quality for streaming music. Tidal is even charging $19.99/month for access to Lossless High Fidelity sound.

image courtesy of PGKirkland/MPI/INFevents.com

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