Vinyl may be on the rise but Neil Young isn't buying it. Though the physical format may be on the rise (though to be fair, those rises were from low bases) the Canadian rocker thinks the entire charade is simply "a fashion statement."
Believe it or not, too, Urban Outfitters is one of the largest retailers of vinyl — as if that didn't prove Young's point sufficiently. Vinyl sales in the U.S. and U.K., according to The Guardian, rose significantly last year.
In the U.K., sales on physical pressings passed 1 million units for the first time since 1997. The formatalso saw a 49 percent year-on-year sales rise in the U.S., with almost 8 million in purchases.
But, as the musician notes, there's no real basis for buying a lesser form of audio. If you're a music lover, as Young claims, you may want to stick to digital audio.
He even says to Exclaim on the sales rise, "A lot of people that buy vinyl today don't realise that they're listening to CD masters on vinyl and that's because the record companies have figured out that people want vinyl."
He continues, "And they're only making CD masters in digital, so all the new products that come out on vinyl are actually CDs on vinyl, which is really nothing but a fashion statement."
And in the same interview, Young promoted his new digital music player, Pono, which he says is a high-resolution digital player and doesn't create analog sound. Instead, the player generate the best digital sound on the market.
So next time you're perusing the vinyl shelves at your local retailer just remember that there's an entire digital world of music that's at your fingertips and, also, sounds much better.
Regardless, here's some Young in the meantime.
