These are publishing rights and have nothing to do with the recordings or masters being discussed in this topic.
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Thank you for the correction. My wrong.
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With a $20/year upfront cost you can download all his tracks in 24/192 for $1.29 each from his archives. Nice as you can skip the songs you arenāt mad about. Already have several albums in CD quality, but perhaps will fill in my favourites at hires and roon will just pick the right track.
I doubt any other service can compete with that.
Just saw this ā¦
Whatever impact this has
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None, look 3 posts up.
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A financial decision emerges, shortly after an announcement that espouses Amazon HD, and 4 years after Tidal made MQA Master versions available (why did he take 4 years to withdraw?) is pure coincidence? It, at least, suggests financial factors may be informing decisions.
I am also puzzled, by both Mr Young and those that support his decision, why he tolerates anything digital. Presumably, all of the sold catalogue would have been produced for vinyl?
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Had they converted his albums to MQA though? AFAIK this is a recent move on behalf of Warner music / Tidal of converting red book to MQA.
From what I understand heās OK with 24/192 digital files (or whatever the best that digital can offer is) as he understands it makes the music more accessible, but still believes that a good analogue setup will still be better.
Thatās a good point, but I thought I had seen āGoldrushā and āHarvestā in MQA before. Unless someone had a screengrab of that, I donāt know how easy it will be to prove/disprove now. For example, the spreadsheet of MQA albums, that you can find in various places, does remove albums that are no longer available in MQA e.g. Grace Jonesā āNightclubbingā, which I definitely remember playing in its MQA form. Neil Youngās later catalogue is still listed, though presumably not for long.
In that sense, all streaming platforms are flakyā¦
If not vinyl, perhaps physical media will be on the rise.
Downloads are a good solution. Given a good backup strategy theyāre less hassle (space/organising/moving) and more resilient (fire/theft/wear) than physical media.
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You donāt need to guess what Neilās views on pretty much anything is. Just go to the Neil Young Archives (www.neilyoungarchives.com) and read his āContrarianā newspaper. Heās a big proponent of digital (which is why he created his own digital music player - Pono) ā heās not an analog guy who doesnāt like digital. He is involved in every aspect of the way his music is mastered and delivered and only wants to see in the resolution/format that he has blessed. A lot of his music is now in 192/24 format but not all. You can look at all his music and/or buy directly from his own store: https://store.neilyoungarchives.com/. As previously discussed he is a fan of Qobuz and Amazon where his music is represented in identical format. He hates MQA (because it doesnāt reflect the way his masters sound) and therefore has pulled his music from Tidal (and this has nothing to do with politics as some has claimed). You can also subscribe to his archives which gives you access to stream all his music from the site and also access a pretty cool timeline feature that lets you look at his music in the context of when it was created and where it was performed. And if youāve subscribed you get a large discount on buying his music in digital format. If you havenāt taken a look at his site, itās pretty cool.
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On the topic of Pono, it is a great sounding player. The store was amazing and a great forum for discussing music. My player still runs and sounds great. I have a signed Herbie Hancock edition which came with a couple of Hi Res Hancock albums.
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Sure, canonisation must only be days away. You can just trust everything he says, because it is entirely in our interests. If only more people who sell their catalogues for hundreds of millions were so ethically sound.
You just have to admire anyone who promotes Amazon.
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He sold 50% of his publishing rights to a company he wants to partner with to help monetize in the right fashion. Heās 75 and any artist who has a valuable catalog is stupid not to think of taking some money off the table in estate planning. I guess in your world any artist who does this is not ethical. Give me a break. And he is no saint but he always says what he thinks and stands behind what he says. In my book that deserves some respect.
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I appreciate he needs to make sound, business decisions, but the narrative around his anti-MQA/Tidal action would make any fool think the commercial aspects were irrelevant. I think other.
As with any divorce, for example, regarding Pono/Stuart/Hansen we only get the Young/Hansen slant, and if nothing else, the sentiment of Charles Hansenās communications would suggest other agendas.
Letās judge MQA on its sonic merits and not personalities? Nor indeed those that purport to be the custodians of some scientific facts, as if drawn from Archimedes or a Magus.
I could go onā¦
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If he is not on Tidal he will make less money as less people will have access to his music and play it. So your argument that itās for some commercial purpose is a silly argument. Selling 50% of his publishing rights has absolutely nothing to do with it. And nothing Iāve said about Neilās view of MQA is my judgement; it is his.
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Then, as you indicate, he is above any possible questioning, and his views of MQA have nothing to do with personalities or egos, or whatever happened re: Pono and beyond. Or states of mind.
Do you have any sense of what he might lose withdrawing from Tidal; must have been a bitter pill that?
I think the selling of his catalogue in sequence with the Tidal announcement is strategic, even if only from advisors.
One might also argue that as a 74 year old with this track record he might not be best placed to judge the value of an emergent format? If that seems harsh, I can find you much worse about Bob Stuart. This is our world; personalities not audio.
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Iāve never said he canāt be questioned. I just reacted to made up conspiracy theories like heās going to make more money by pulling off tidal. At this point Iāve said all Iām going to say on this topic.
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Neil Youngās words:
āTIDAL is calling their files of my songs Masters. But Tidalās MQA files are not my masters. I make my masters - not TIDAL. I donāt need some hocus-pocus file manipulation that claims to improve my workā
āTidalās master is a degradation of the original to make it fit in a box that collects royalties. That money ultimately is paid by listeners. I am not behind it. I am out of there. Gone. My masters are the original.ā
Interesting that MQA donāt make money on royalties from streams as far as I understand thingsā¦
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But that is where we differ. It is not unknown for people profiting from a change of contract. I have nothing against Neil Young, but I do with the monopolies of big tech, and thus Amazon. Amazon wants your money more than MQA, but why fight goliath when David is such easy prey.
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