Neil Young to release material on Blu-ray
Neil Young is to release his previous material on Blu-ray discs. Is that big news for rock music fans? Neil Young is almost always big news, but not this time I am afraid… His fans already own his brilliant albums in vinyl and CD form. The transition from analog to digital took years and many records had to be re-released in remastered form due to inferior sound when the CD was young in the 80s. So it is hard to believe that those same people will rush out to buy the same music in another format…
DVD-Video releases offered the much wanted visual part for video clips and live shows, but their crappy MP3-like sound performance never attracted the attention of audio lovers. DVD-Audio and SACD had the performance but suffered from cumbersome use -why need a screen to use DVD-Audio for example?- and limited catalogues, so quickly disappeared into oblivion.
So what remains now? Funny enough, in my opinion sticking to CDs is the best thing. I like them because they can be played anywhere, cover any taste and appetite, and for now offer quality that is unmatched by rubbish MP3 files. But if I want MP3 files, conversion is not difficult. Clearly, relying on CDs for ever is not that great either, hopefully that’s until sites selling music online finally decide on wav files or better.
It is now too late for Blu-ray to get on its feet and big names like Neil Young are hardly going to make a difference. Whereas digital formats made in the past things very clear-cut with the emergence of CD and DVD formats for audio and video respectively, we now pass a face of huge uncertainty.
We all know and feel that quality non-DRM downloads are the future, but in which form exactly? And how is long term compatibility with hardware going to be ensured? Maybe HDtracks-type downloads are the music market of the future, but only bet on lossless audio if the heavyweights also decide on that kind of thing.
Artists seem to be taking wildly varying courses of action. Established names like the Nine Inch Nails can afford to risk freebies in varying quality levels, but what about starters? In the age of dead easy downloads who would pay later for a group with a limited catalogue that has been already circulated online? I do not know about you guys but I’m in no mood for wasting money on Blu-ray these days, patience seems to be the name of the game…
