Neil Young slams iTunes sound quality

Neil Young has slammed iTunes, hates MP3’s and wants better quality musical products – and has a plan to make it happen.

Speaking to the Financial Times, the singer said: "It’s like all new digital media technologies," he said: "great for convenience, but the sound quality sucks – putting on a headphone and listening to an MP3 is like hell."

Young is developing an alternative, higher-quality digital distribution platform that could provide an alternative to the download world and perhaps even a new business model for music, the artist claims.

The technology behind this was first shown off last month at Sun’s JavaOne conference. Young has spent 15 years experimenting with different technologies to assemble a complete archive of his career, and will release the first part of this on Blu-ray disc, with additional content set to be introduced later on.

As Young explains his technology: "It has every media component you could want, and they’re all married together in a platform. That means other artists could use it, other record companies could use it and gain the knowledge of our 15-year development curve."