Why Does Neil Young Need 6 High-Resolution Internet Music Stores?

Why Does Neil Young Need 6 High-Resolution Internet Music Stores?


Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young thinks music sounds like crap. Not in an old codger, music-just-ain’t-the-same way, but in an I’m-developing-six-high-resolution-services sorta way. Which could be great! But why six?

The services, which have names like “21st Century Record Player”, “Earth Storage” and “Thanks for Listening”, cover digital downloads, discs and storage of high-res music. They seem pretty comprehensive. Here’s a description from the (identical) trademark applications:

Audio and video recordings featuring music and artistic performances; high resolution music downloadable from the internet; high resolutions discs featuring music and video of music and artistic performances; pre-recorded digital media containing audio and video recordings featuring music and artistic performances for storage and playback.

Online and retail store services featuring music and artistic performances, high resolution music downloadable from the internet, high resolutions discs featuring music and video, and pre-recorded digital media featuring audio and video recordings for storage and playback

Now, there are no technical details in the trademarks, but it could be that Neil Young’s going to go it alone at this hi-res music thing. Which would be pretty cool, frankly. But could this also be positioning for a run of trademark trolling? (That must be a thing, right?) Stands up to logic that it might be, but gosh, we hope not. Or we could just chalk this up as “old people and the internet”. [USPTO via Rolling Stone via Verge]

Image: Larry Busacca, Getty Images Entertainment