Piracy is the new radio, says Neil Young

[Smokey]

You know what the biggest problem with music today is?

"Sound quality.", That’s Neil Young’s take on the issue, anyway.

In an interview in D: Dive Into Media conference, Young said that while modern music formats like MP3 are convenient, they sound lousy. “We live in the digital age and, unfortunately, it’s degrading our music, not improving it.”, he said.

While modern digital encoding schemes might sound clear on our iPods and smartphones, they only feature a small percentage of the musical data present in a master recording.

“It’s not that digital is bad or inferior, it’s that the way it’s being used isn’t doing justice to the art,” Young said. “The MP3 only has 5 percent of the data present in the original recording. … The convenience of the digital age has forced people to choose between quality and convenience, but they shouldn’t have to make that choice.”

Young proposed that fans stage a grassroots movement to demand higher-quality audio.

Also, Young discussed piracy, which he doesn’t view as the threat that some other musicians do. “Piracy is the new radio,” said Young. “That’s how music gets around.”

Neil Young on Music Quality, Record Labels and Steve Jobs - John Paczkowski - Dive Into Media - AllThingsD