Neil Young's New Sound
- Text by D'Arcy Doran

Everything you’ve heard is wrong. That was the message Neil Young brought to SXSW. Young came to say if you haven’t truly heard the music you love if you’ve been listening to MP3s, or any other digital format that compresses information in a song, sacrificing some of the most pleasant and satisfying aspects of the music to take up as little digital storage space as possible.
To change that, the godfather of grunge launched a Kickstarter campaign here for his new Pono music system on Tuesday at the music, film and technology festival in Austin, Texas. He said he initiated the project two years ago because he felt he needed to rescue an art form.
Pono is the latest example of Young putting his mind to something and going to extreme lengths to see it through. He’s also been working with engineers and investors for years on an electric car, the LincVolt.
In a presentation capping the technology part of the conference, Young showed a passion on stage that no other start-up founder who spoke in the previous days could match. His voice rose as he spoke about what was lost in an iTunes culture where individual songs were pale versions of what musicians intended and often bought separately instead of as part of an album.
“As a guy who had been making records for many years already at that point I was pissed off about that because I love making records,” Young said. “That’s what I do. I love every song on a record. I love every note on every song on every record. They meant something to me. They’re a family of songs that were telling a story of how I was feeling and they weren’t just filler.”
While video and photography technology constantly strives for higher definition, Young bemoaned that MP3s, the most widely accepted digital format for music was only 5% the highest recording quality available.
“People were still buying it because they love music,” he said. “But they were buying wallpaper. They were buying background sounds. They were buying Xeroxes of the Mona Lisa.”
Young did not give the capacity crowd at SXSW an opportunity to hear Pono’s sound quality during his presentation, but he played video testimonials from musicians who had, including Beck, Jack White, Patti Smith, Jack Johnson, Arcade Fire and Dave Grohl. By the end of his talk, Pono’s Kickstart has raised 75% of its $800,000 target.
Pono CEO John Hamm said they had chosen to raise money on Kickstarter to build a community around the system which plays any format of music from MP3s to ultra-high resolution 192kHz/24 bit recordings.
Young said he wanted to create “a new system that was not a format and had no rules, that respected the art, respected what the artist was trying to do, and did everything it could to give you what the artist gave.”
For more information on Neil Young’s Pono go to the project’s Kickstarter page.
Latest on Huck

Bernie Sanders introduces Clairo at Coachella, urging young Americans to “stand up for justice”
Coachella charmed — The Vermont Senator praised the singer-songwriter for her efforts in raising awareness of women’s rights issues and Gaza.
Written by: Isaac Muk

The Changing Face Of Brooklyn, New York’s Most Colourful Borough
After three decades spent capturing stories around the world, Magnum Photographer Alex Webb finally decided to return home to Brooklyn – a place that champions chaos, diversity and community spirit.
Written by: Alex Webb / Magnum Photos

The mundane bliss of New York’s subways in the ’70s
NYC Passengers 1976-1981 — During a very different decade in NYC, which bounced between rich creativity and sketchiness, photographer Joni Sternbach captured the idiosyncratic isolation found on its rail networks.
Written by: Miss Rosen

Analogue Appreciation: lullahush
Ithaca — In an ever more digital, online world, we ask our favourite artists about their most cherished pieces of physical culture. Today, it’s Irish retro-futurist lullahush.
Written by: lullahush

Spyros Rennt captures connection and tenderness among Berlin’s queer youth
Intertwined — In the Greek photographer’s fourth photobook, he lays out spreads of togetherness among his friends and the German capital’s LGBTQ+ party scene.
Written by: Isaac Muk

The rebellious roots of Cornwall’s surfing scene
100 years of waveriding — Despite past attempts to ban the sport from beaches, surfers have remained as integral, conservationist presences in England’s southwestern tip. A new exhibition in Falmouth traces its long history in the area.
Written by: Ella Glossop