Music

Neil Young admits Pono Player is struggling

by Jeremy Mersereau

Since becoming available back in January, Neil Young’s Pono portable digital player and music “ecosystem” hasn’t exactly been received the way its backers have hoped, nor has it done much to ignite a revolution for higher-quality sound.

Let’s face it: 90% of listeners aren’t going to be able to tell the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and an uncompressed FLAC file, and even a lot of people who can don’t generally care, and even those who do care are going to be somewhat reluctant to drop $500+ on a inedible Toblerone.

In a massive Facebook dispatch, Young clarifies some of the issues consumers have with Pono, chiefly the fact that the company’s promised high-quality lossless downloads are still only available in the US, despite worldwide Kickstarter backers being promised access to the PonoMusic store:

Today we are trying to set up stores in multiple countries and are restricted by a lack of resources. This is our highest priority. As soon as we have the funds, those stores will open. We wish it could be faster than that. Canada, Great Britain and Germany are among our first targets. Our highest priority is to bring Ponomusic.com to those countries and operate within their business rules.

Neil also explains Pono’s struggles with direction and focus, explaining that the company “has no proven business leader” at its head, and that “the search continues for one who could do it to our liking and understand what our goal is and how big it is.”

As usual for these sorts of PR damage control posts, Neil also extols the virtue of Pono’s business partners and concludes with some unquantifiable claims like “music changes your DNA”. Hm, I was wondering why I had an extra toe ever since I heard 311’s Soundsystem. Neil concludes by railing against music as a “21st century fake shallow Xerox facsimile, with all of the essence taken away and replaced by a thin exterior with no passionate core.” Wait a sec, is he describing music as a whole or just Living With War?

Read Young’s full post here.