Pono: Neil Young’s attempt to “save” music
There are lots of evils that people have said that music needs to be saved from the clutches of, many of which have existed for years and some of which are incredibly prevalent in today’s climate. Industry greed has always been something that artists have rallied against, with labels and media giants always taking far too much of a share of revenue away from the original creators who put in the hard work. Illegal downloading is another force that artists have had to reckon with in the past, although the rise in streaming platforms has seen this dip in importance in the last few years. The rise of artificial intelligence being used in music is the most recent evil that artists have been trying to tackle head-on, which is seeing people remove the power from artists and leaving the creative process to the whims of a computer brain.
Despite this, there have been many inventions in music that don’t have quite the same nefarious undertones. The invention of various formats of listening has changed how we consume music and has offered different qualities to the overall experience of music consumption that some prefer over others. You might prefer the authentic feel of vinyl or cassette or the digital-friendly CD format, and both are equally fine. The invention of streaming services in the 21st century has also dramatically changed how we listen to music as well, with entire libraries of music available at the click of a button now, and if you prefer the convenience that that offers, then that’s okay too.
Several people don’t like the quality that streaming and digital files offer, though, and one famous figure within music who has regularly raised concerns over the huge amounts of audio compression that is added to digital files is Neil Young. Ever the purist, the Canadian songwriter has regularly voiced his dislike for the MP3, and even went so far as to attempt to create his own alternative in a bid to “save the sound of music”.
Pono was Young’s stab at reshaping how we listen to music. It was conceived as a way of bringing the warmth back to audio files that compressed bit and sample rates had been removed from analogue listening methods. Aggrieved at the fact that the likes of iTunes and Spotify were offering 44.1kHz as the default sample rate on their platforms, Young decided that Pono would offer the high-resolution alternative of 192kHz to listeners to wipe out all of the digitally-created artefacts – unwanted crackles and pops that are often produced as a result of digital audio compression.
Founded in 2012, Young’s earliest demonstrations of the improved sound quality that Pono would offer were between him and some of his close friends. After playing some songs with the high-end sample rate to an audience of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis and Flea, alongside producer Rick Rubin, the trio were astounded by the stark contrast between the experience that Pono had afforded them when compared to the regular quality that other services were offering at the time.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Flea proclaimed that the difference was so noticeable when Young played him a high-resolution version of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ through his car stereo. “It’s not like some vague thing that you need dogs’ ears to hear,” said the bassist. “It’s a drastic difference.”
Young claimed that he simply wanted his invention to improve the listening experience for music consumers and that it was never about the financial rewards that he would benefit from as a result of major record labels utilising the service. “His reasons are so not based in commerce,” explained Flea, “And based in just the desire for people to really feel the uplifting spirit of music.”
While future plans to create portable music players that would utilise Pono’s higher-quality sound were also designed and made available, sadly, his innovations would never catch on in terms of disrupting the market in the significant way that he might have hoped. Perhaps it was due to being eclipsed by the near-simultaneous emergence of streaming platform Tidal, which also focused on delivering high-fidelity music at a competitive subscription rate, or perhaps it was down to the fact that he made his alternative to the iPod look like a fucking Toblerone. Who knows.
