Neil Young wants to bring music back to where fans can listen to every cymbal strike, every guitar strum, every echo thought up by a musician, according to USA Today.
His kickstarter campaign for his high fidelity music player and online store Pono surpassed his goal of raising $800,000. As of 8 a.m. today 3,852 backers have pledged $1,267,213.
“Everything you know, cameras got easier to use, everything went up, everything went up but music went down,” he said during his 30 minute speech at South by Southwest on Tuesday.
He said his new system is not a format, has no rules, respects the art and respected what the artist was trying to do, and gives the listener what “the artist gave.”
The future of sound one day soon could be contained in a candy bar-size receiver that sits on a breakfast counter — a new music initiative he’s launching named PonoMusic, the legendary rocker told an audience of several thousand attendees at SXSW on Tuesday.
“This is rescuing music,” Young said. “It’s an artist-driven movement to take it back.”
Young appeared in signature black leather jacket and black hat, and paced back and forth across the stage as he described the new technology. He had been working on the high-resolution music project for more than three years and has decried the state of digital music in the past, particularly in his book, Waging Heavy Peace.
Can Pono beat the convenience of streaming? Do people want quality over quantity or convenience?
Time will tell.
What we do know is Neil is always lending his creative genius to world and that is good for all of us.
Neil Young’s music system baby “Pono” is now Live on Kickstarter, the world’s largest crowdfunding platform. The company’s mission is to help bring creative projects to life.
Righteous! (what Pono means in Hawaiian).
Woah! Check out the who’s-who of famous musicians talking up Pono in this video:
According to Kickstarter the project will only be funded if at least $800,000 is pledged by . The counter is clicking away. As of 8 p.m. on March 11 close to $700,000 has been raised by 2,133 investors who bought in. Minimum pledge was $1.
There are gifts for pledging. $5 pledgers get love and thanks! It goes up from there with T-shirts, posters, discounts on the Pono player, and artist series signatures Ponos from the likes of Willie Nelson,, Beck, CSN&Y, Tom Petty, Patti Smith, Pearl Jam and More.
Cost of the system is $399.
According to Neil: The record companies set their own digital music prices, label by label. High-resolution digital albums at PonoMusic.com are expected to cost between $14.99 -$24.99, and there may be exceptions. For this price you get the best quality digital music available anywhere, you own these albums forever – they don’t live only in the cloud, but also on your computer and backup disc, and you can play them anytime you wish on your PonoPlayer or other compatible devices.
We will also be offering many of your favorite individual songs. We’ll let you know the pricing soon.
About the shape:
“This triangular shape also has additional benefits: it can be held upright for one-hand operation or it can sit flat on your desktop or home stereo system. The display automatically rotates depending on the orientation of the device. But the best thing about this shape is that we were able to include the best sounding audio components with absolutely no compromises. The PonoPlayer will certainly be recognizable on your desk as the unique product it is – the world’s best sounding portable digital music player.”
It’s enough to make your head spin.
March 11, 2014 – (Santa Monica, CA.) – PonoMusic, a revolutionary movement conceived and founded by Neil Young with a mission to restore the soul of music, announced today that it is officially moving out of the R&D phase and is “open for business” with the launch of its Kickstarter campaign for thePonoPlayer.
Music veteran to unveil ‘highest resolution’ digital music service to take on Apple’s iTunes in SXSW keynote.
The Guardian writes that Neil Young will launch a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for his new PonoPlayer device on 15 March, with early buyers getting a discount on its planned $399 price.
The device will be supported by an online music downloads store called PonoMusic, which will sell files at a higher resolution than rivals like Apple’s iTunes.
“It’s about the music, real music. We want to move digital music into the 21st century and PonoMusic does that. We couldn’t be more excited about bringing PonoMusic to the market,” said Young in a statement accompanying the announcement.
PonoMusic is working with US hardware firm Ayre Acoustics to produce the device, which will ship with 128GB of memory to store music, as well as accepting memory cards to boost its capacity. The company will also sell earphones and headphones from its website.
There are critics: Twitter is abuzz with jabs at the system and it’s design (Like a Toblerone candy car).
Writes http://www.makeuseof.com/service/web-based/: “The design and pricing have been heavily criticized on social media, but the bigger problem may be timing. The PonoPlayer is surely a little too late to market, with the days of dedicated personal media players having been succeeded by the all-encompassing smartphone.”
“In fact, it could be said that the PonoPlayer is about as relevant today as Neil Young.”
“\"You can call me erratic, but I\'ve always been consistent about it — consistently erratic.\"” by -- Neil Young, Tower Theater Pennsylvania 2011
Neil Young on Tour
Sugar Mountain setlists
Tom Hambleton provides BNB with setlists, thankfully. His website is the most comprehensive searchable archives on the Internets about anything Neil Young related setlists. Goto Sugar Mountain.
Neil Young wants to bring music back to where fans can listen to every cymbal strike, every guitar strum, every echo thought up by a musician, according to USA Today.
memphish on 
Albert Stromann on 
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Baz on 
