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Joni Mitchell joins Neil Young and returns to Spotify
Joni Mitchell has quietly returned to Spotify, after quietly exiting the platform two years ago. This is happening just a few days after Neil Young put his music back on the streamer.
Neil Young is returning to Spotify after boycotting it over Joe Rogan's vaccine comments
Neil Young is back on Spotify after boycotting the platform over two years ago.
Crosby, Stills and Nash return to Spotify after COVID-19 misinformation boycott
The music of Crosby, Stills and Nash is once again available to stream on Spotify.
Joe Rogan apologizes to Spotify over backlash and promises to 'balance things out'
Shortly after Spotify announced that it would add a 'content advisory' to COVID-19 podcast episodes, Joe Rogan has issued his own response to the controversy.
Joni Mitchell will remove her music from Spotify over 'lies' that cost 'people their lives'
Mitchell published a short statement saying "irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives."
Neil Young was fed up with Spotify’s ‘shitty’ sound quality anyway
The musician 'felt better' after his music was removed from the platform this week.
Spotify will remove Neil Young music following Joe Rogan dispute
Spotify is removing Neil Young's music after the artist gave an ultimatum over Joe Rogan's vaccine misinformation.
Neil Young threatens to quit Spotify over Joe Rogan vaccine misinformation
Canadian musician Neil Young is not pleased to be sharing Spotify's platform with podcast star Joe Rogan.
Neil Young book chronicles fight to improve digital music
Music legend Neil Young has spent several years trying (and failing) to push high-resolution music to the masses. A new book by Young tells the story of how the Canadian songwriter set out to develop Pono, his $400 portable digital music player that went out of business in 2016. Co-written by Young and former Pono Chief Operating Officer Phil Baker, To Feel The Music: A Songwriter's Quest to Save High-Quality Audio is set to be released on September 9th. Along with details on Pono, readers will also learn about how Neil Young came to develop Xstream, his high-resolution streaming platform, as well his decision to release his entire catalog online for free.
Well I hope Neil Young will remember, an iPhone man don't need him around anyhow
Remember Neil Young's PonoPlayer? The Kickstarter campaign for the vintage rocker's "revolution in music listening" raised a huge US$6.2 million, with notables like Norah Jones, Elvis Costello and Tom Petty spouting about how the new $400 music playing box made them "feel the music" more than standard digital music players. Well, industry pundit and former professional musician David Pogue took on PonoPlayer in a Yahoo! Tech post last week, finding that a majority of listeners in a blind test actually preferred playback of music from an iPhone over the pricy and oddly-shaped yellow block. I'll let you read the full article from Pogue over at that other site, but the gist of it is that a) most people cannot hear or "feel" the difference of the Pono playback, b) many songs in the Pono store have not yet been remastered in the 192kHz/24-bit format Pono is promising, and c) it's a lot cheaper to buy a pair of good headphones and use your iPhone than buy a new player and re-purchase all of your music. Pogue's "taste test" can be seen below in this little video clip. Enjoy!
Weekends with Engadget: GS5 and Fire TV reviews, Sony's Yoshida on VR, and more!
Welcome to Weekends with Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines from the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. For even more action, subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!
Neil Young on digital audio: You're doing it wrong
When news first broke of Neil Young's plans to serve up high-resolution listening to audiophiles last year, we wondered how he'd get folks to splurge for a $400 player and re-buy their existing libraries. Sure, six to 30 times the resolution of MP3s looks great on paper, but will we really be able to hear the difference? The rock icon says yes, and it's because there's nothing that's currently available that even comes close to Pono. Young says that existing audio formats are unable to adequately present a full range of tones, so he "decided to create an ecosystem that provided exactly what the artist created." From the bits of info we've seen so far, the outfit claims people who love music and really want to be able to hear songs as those artists tracked them will be sold easily.
Ngmoco shutting down some titles March 31
Ngmoco announced on its website earlier this week that some of the game maker's biggest iOS titles, including We Rule, Godfinger and Touch Pets Dogs 2, are going to be shut down for good on March 31. The games will be off of Apple's App Store later this week on February 1, so no new users will be able to download them, and the servers for the games will go offline at the end of next month, effectively ending the games completely. Ngmoco didn't give a clear reason for the shutdowns, but it's not hard to guess: The company, once one of the biggest app developers on the App Store, has been fairly steadily transitioning over to Android titles in the past few years, and has seen a sharp decline in popularity on iOS. Not to mention that many of the figures who made the company so large, including former EA exec Neil Young, have left the company in recent days. In other words, it's finally game over for Ngmoco on iOS. Ngmoco was purchased by Japanese network DeNA a little while ago, and that company is still steadily trying to grow its own iOS sales and popularity. But Ngmoco as a brand is effectively done on the App Store, especially since these once-thriving games are shut down. One of the biggest names of the App Store's first generation is finally on its way out the door.
The Game Archaeologist: EA's Majestic
"This is not a game. Or is it?" Conspiracy theories and paranoia were hot with pop culture in the 1990s, largely thanks to movies like The Net and TV shows like the X-Files, which had the tagline of "I want to believe." With the rise of the internet during the decade and the fantastic leaps and bounds technology had been making, people were not only experiencing new ways to play games but also growing suspicious that these tools could have a sinister side. It was into this niche that EA stepped to create an ambitious $20 million project that would fuse massively multiplayer interactivity, the growing variety of technological mediums, and conspiracy theories together. The project was Majestic, an alternate reality game (ARG) that would be the most expensive and highest profile attempt to date. It generated great amounts of interest and publicity, had a promising start, and then flared out hard by the end of 2001. Considering how ARGs and MMOs have crossed paths since, most recently with The Secret World, I wanted to take a closer look at an attempt to develop a game that would run parallel in many ways with the industry that we love today.
ngmoco co-founders Neil Young and Bob Stevenson leave, Clive Downie new CEO
Neil Young left Electronic Arts back in 2008, at the time for a new mystery project – it only took little over a week for Young to announce he had co-founded mobile outfit ngmoco. After a long stint as CEO, Young has stepped down and will be replaced by Clive Downie. The other ngmoco co-founder, Bob Stevenson, is also stepping down.Young has spent 11 years at Electronic Arts before co-founding ngmoco and taking over as CEO. New CEO Clive Downie also spent time at Electronic Arts before joining ngmoco as VP of studios. ngmoco was acquired by Japanese publisher DeNA in 2010 for $400 million.[Image credit]
Neil Young leaves Ngmoco
Well it's the end of an era for one of iOS' first big companies. It was just about four years ago that I posted here in this very space that former EA executive Neil Young (no relation) was going to start up a company called ng:moco, and it was soon after that he published the breakout hit Rolando, following it up with the freemium title We Rule and eventually creating an empire (and changing the way a lot of people think about freemium games). Over the years, however, ngmoco has fallen from its peak in popularity, as it was acquired by the Japanese social gaming giant DeNA, and then decided to focus mostly on bringing cheap ports of that company's games over to Android instead. And now, Neil Young and cofounder Bob Stevenson have decided to leave the company, moving on to what they hope will be "their next adventure." They leave Clive Downie in the position of CEO with the company, another former EA VP who's been with ngmoco for a little while now. Ngmoco certainly inspired quite a bit of hate from players -- the company's focus on freemium games left more traditional titles like Rolando in the dust, and its acquisition of venerated Mac publisher Freeverse essentially resulted in the death of that classic brand. But ngmoco's popularity during the rise of iOS is also undeniable, and Young's ideas on freemium gaming have been adopted by many, many App Store game developers working today. It remains to be seen what Young's next project will be, but there's no question that, by starting up ngmoco, he's left an indelible mark on the short history of Apple's iOS platform already.
Neil Young's Pono music service wants to democratize high-quality audio (video)
Neil Young isn't shy when it comes to embracing new technology, something he put beyond question with his latest appearance on The Late show with David Letterman. The artist took the opportunity to reveal plans for his high-fidelity Pono music service. The aim is to tackle the poor quality in which he believes most people receive their music these days -- the humble MP3. Young's offering would comprise a three-pronged approach, including a music store with high-resolution recordings, a digital-to-analog style conversion technology, and portable hardware to listen to it all with. The simple intention is to offer music as it was originally intended to be heard, but at this time there's no detail as to what this actually entails (sorry specification fans). According to Rolling Stone, the big three labels are interested, and the goal is to unify, rather than diversify, the quality of recorded content. The Pono players (that yellow wedge you see above) will serve up your existing catalog, but you'll likely need to re-buy some of your collection if you want the holistic experience. With no cards fully on the table, we're at the ransom of Young's celebrity endorsements, which all claim that the benefits are tangible. Young, of course, says "You can't get better than this, this is what they do in the studio," but until we get some details, or ears on, everybody knows this is nowhere. [Image credit:CBS]
Daily Update for February 1, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Neil Young: Steve Jobs's death hindered Apple's high-def music efforts
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honoree Neil Young has been focusing on high-definition music for some time. At the News Corp. D: Dive Into Media event yesterday, Young said that he had been in discussions with Apple personnel -- including the late Steve Jobs -- about ways to improve digital music quality. Young and others had been in discussions with Apple about improved digital music file formats, ways to download the much larger files that would result, and creating devices that would play the high-def files. Digital music is currently "packaged" in either AAC or MP3 formats, which create small, easy distributed files, but also lose a lot of the nuances that are found in masters or live performances. High-def music files would be much larger than those currently in distribution, so downloading and storage would require more resources. Jobs was a rabid music fan his entire life and arguably had more impact on the digital music industry than any other executive. According to Young, however, "When he (Jobs) went home, he listened to vinyl." Young believes that without Steve's passion for music, Apple as a company has lost any ambition it may have had to rally behind high-def music. Musicians and recording industry execs might both get behind high-def music, since it would allow the industry to sell a higher-quality product at a premium price. Whether or not Apple will be at the forefront of the move to high-def music is up to the current executive team. [via The Mac Observer]
CE-Oh no he didn't!: NGP will be 'dead on arrival,' says ngmoco boss
In all honesty, you would expect the leader of a team concerned exclusively with producing games for smartphone platforms like iOS and Android to be dismissive of a new dedicated handheld console's chances, but it's still jarring to hear such a strident dismissal of the Sony NGP's chances. In an interview at GDC this year -- yes, the same place where we were treated to some very impressive demos of the NGP's performance -- ngmoco CEO Neil Young has expressed his belief that Sony's next PSP will be "dead on arrival." Claiming that the new portable will be incapable of competing with the rich ecosystems and affordable pricing models that smartphones now offer, Young says not even the crazy specs or PS3-like gaming will help the NGP survive. This echoes comments from Satoru Iwata last year saying that Apple, not Sony, is the "enemy of the future" for handheld consoles, though Young does close off on a positive note, saying that he sees brighter prospects for the 3DS thanks to Nintendo's rich collection of own-brand franchises and reserves of fan loyalty. So that's it, folks, better start selling those Sony shares while they're still worth something! Or not, it's up to you. [Thanks, Dominick]
