Raging in the free world: the many furies of Neil Young

[ghostsinthemachine]

The rocker’s latest album – The Monsanto Years – rails against the GM food giant and Starbucks. But what else has he been angry about in his long career?


Digital sound quality

Few things make Neil Young as apoplectic as modern digital sound quality. In particular, his fury is directed at the MP3 download and its accomplice in crime, the iPod. Listening to music held on a tiny digital file through headphones or computer speakers accounts – says Shakey – for contemporary music’s “loss of soul”. Thus, Young poured his money into the Pono system, a “high-resolution” music service that he claimed would “rescue the art form that I’ve been practising for the last 50 years”. He previewed the launch with an album described by the Guardian’s reviewer as “arguably the lowest-fidelity album ever made by a major artist … muffled, distorted and buried beneath layers of crackle and hiss”. A Letter Home was created in the least expensive studio-like environment ever – a restored 1947 Voice-O-Graph booth (a fairground attraction which allowed users to take home a vinyl record of their voice). When the PonoPlayer finally arrived this January, the 24-bit, 192 kHz-sound, wallet-draining system was variously described as “making a dramatic difference” to the way we hear music or “junk science” – which presumably made Shakey apoplectic too.


Read a lot more: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/23/raging-in-the-free-world-neil-young-monsanto-years-starbucks-geffen?CMP=share_btn_fb

[Blue_In_AK]

1. What I appreciate about mp3's

Last edited Thu Jun 25, 2015, 07:30 PM - Edit history (1)

is that you don't have to buy an entire crappy album for the one song you like, not to mention that you don't have to constantly worry about scratching it or having it warp because you stored it in a damp place. Fidelity be damned.

Just sayin'.


Of course, I do love Neil Young. Who doesn't?

[awoke_in_2003]

4. You lose so much of the sound though. nt

[zappaman]

5. Especially the bass.

Gotta have bass!

[Blue_In_AK]

6. That's true, but

I do so appreciate being able to buy one song for $1.29 or $.99 instead of $12 or $13 for the whole album. I've got good noise-canceling headphones and a Bose docker, so the quality isn't bad. I can't do earbuds, they always fall out.

[tritsofme]

2. Southern Man is one of my all time favorite songs.

And 45 years later, the song's message is just as chilling and unfortunately...topical.

Neil is one of the greats.

[cascadiance]

3. Should also include "For What It's Worth" when he and Stephen Stills were in Buffalo Springfield

Buffalo Springfield singing it back in 1967...

Remakes affecting modern day struggles...

[ghostsinthemachine]

7. Monsanto message today

A Message From Neil Young -
As I write this, the dark act is up for a vote in the House of Representatives; representatives of the people. The dark act takes away the rights of those people to vote for or against things like GMO labeling in their states. It does seem ironic. If the act is passed, it will truly be a dark day for America.

Monsanto is a corporation with great wealth, now controlling over 90% of soybean and corn growth in America. Family farms have been replaced by giant agri corp farms across this great vast country we call home. Farm aid and other organizations have been fighting the losing battle against this for 30 years now.

Dairy and meat farming is done in those white sheds you see from the freeway, no longer on the green pastures of home with the old farmhouses and barns. Those beautiful buildings now stand in ruin across the country. This has happened on our watch while the country slept, distracted by advertising and false information from the corporations. Monsanto and others simply pay the politicians for voting their way. This is because of "Citizens United", a legislation that has made it possible for corporations to have the same rights as people, while remaining immune to people's laws.

Both Democratic and Republican front runners are in bed with Monsanto, from Clinton to Bush, as many government branches are and have been for years. This presidential election could further cement the dominance of corporation's rights over people's rights in America. If you have a voice you have a choice. Use it.

On the human side, the film I would like you to see tells the story of a farming family in America, but the same thing is happening around the world. It is a story that takes 10 minutes of your time to see. It is a simple human one, telling the heartbreaking story of one man who fought the corporate behemoth Monsanto, and it illustrates why I was moved to write The Monsanto Years.

The film presents a rare opportunity to hear from the source as Mr. White is one of only four farmers who is still legally allowed to speak about his case as all the others have been effectively silenced.

Thanks for reading this and I hope you look at this simple and powerful film, "Seeding Fear".

Neil Young
The Monsanto Years

the video, very good video, is at his facebook page. I can't bust it out to link it.