A small step, but a step nonetheless.


They might sound like great song titles, but "21st Century Record Player," "Earth Storage" and "Thanks for Listening" aren't new Neil Young tunes. They're trademarks that the rocker recently filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Rolling Stone has found, and they indicate that Young is developing a high-resolution audio alternative to the MP3 format.

According to the filed documents, Young applied for six trademarks last June: Ivanhoe, 21st Century Record Player, Earth Storage, Storage Shed, Thanks for Listening and SQS (Studio Quality Sound). Included in the filing is a description of the trademarks: "Online and retail store services featuring music and artistic performances; high resolution music downloadable from the internet; high resolutions discs featuring music and video; audio and video recording storage and playback." The address on file corresponds to that of Vapor Records, Young's label. (Young's representatives declined Rolling Stone's request for comment.)

Young faces about a year of paperwork before the government will register his trademarks. Last week, they were approved for publication in a public journal for 30 days, a step that allows competitors to challenge Young if they find his registration harmful. The journal is set to be published later this month; if the trademarks face no opposition or snags, Young must then file documents detailing how he intends to use the trademarks, which the government could register as early as the holidays, according to the filing schedule.

A press release issued last September by Penguin Group imprint Blue Rider Press, which is publishing Young's upcoming memoir, may have revealed the working title of Young's entire project. In addition to the memoir, says the release, "Young is also personally spearheading the development of Pono, a revolutionary new audio music system presenting the highest digital resolution possible, the studio quality sound that artists and producers heard when they created their original recordings. Young wants consumers to be able to take full advantage of Pono's cloud-based libraries of recordings by their favorite artists and, with Pono, enjoy a convenient music listening experience that is superior in sound quality to anything ever presented."

Such a service would allow music fans to download audio files that sound like the studio recordings of the past, as opposed to the über-compressed song files that are currently available at MP3 stores like iTunes and Amazon. (When reached for comment, a Penguin Group representative directed Rolling Stone back to Young's publicist.)

Young has a history of paying close attention to audio quality. His 1968 debut LP was one of the first albums to be mixed with the short-lived Haeco-CSG technology, which improved the sound of stereo albums played on mono equipment. Young has also been heavily involved with the remixing and remastering of his catalog for years.

In the last year, the rocker has also been increasingly vocal about his frustration with the sound quality of digital music. On January 31st, during an appearance at the D: Dive into Media conference in California, Young proposed that "some rich guy" should create "a modern-day iPod for the 21st Century" featuring studio-quality resolution. "When I started making records, we had a hundred percent of the sound," said Young. "And then you listen to it as an MP3 at the same volume – people leave the room. It hurts...It's not that digital is bad or inferior. It's that the way it's being used is not sufficient to transfer the depth of the art." According to Young, a typical download contains only five percent of the data that an original analog recording master offers, and the average studio-quality audio file requires roughly 30 minutes to download because of its uncompressed size.

Young also said that he met with Apple CEO Steve Jobs before his death last fall, and that the two discussed the possibility of developing a device similar to an iPod that could store roughly 30 studio-quality albums. "We were working on it," said Young. "Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music. But when he went home, he listened to vinyl. And you've gotta believe that if he'd lived long enough, he would eventually have done what I'm trying to do."

By Patrick Flanary
April 3, 2012 3:35 PM ET

Saint Neil. Seeker of Sound.

A few minor details about the trademark process are incorrect, but anyway, I am interested to see what he has come up with.

that's cool and all, but audiophiles are going to be the only ones interested in this, which is an incredibly small percentage of people listening to music.

shit, i fucking love music, but couldn't care less about FLAC even.

Sounds like a waste of time.

And? I mean, I really doubt he's doing it for the money.

I agree that most could care less about this.

Engineers, producers, musicians and anyone with a 2" tape recorder and a pro-tools rig will care. Nothing worse than spending months on something that doesn't sound how it was intended, but in the form of a squashed pebbly mess.

I agree only a few audiophiles will be interested in this initially. However, I think that we have all seen enough format changes that we can agree MP3 is not some sort of final, permanent format. Eventually a different digital format will emerge. I'm glad that at least someone is paying attention to quality in the pursuit of future formats. Perhaps eventually we will be able to get music in a format that combines top quality with ultra convenience. But without at least some people out there holding up the quality end of the spectrum we can forget about getting an eventual best of both worlds and resign ourselves to whatever can be made cheapest and easiest.

Wow. I find it incredible that people even listen to MP3s these days. I have crappy hearing, and the MP3s sound bad enough (bassy, highs diminished) to me that I almost always have to buy the CD or I can't bear listening.

I don't consider myself an audiophile, either, so I'm gonna disagree with you there.

I guess this is why when I listen to the ipod on umbilical to the stereo, i have to put the bass way down and treble way up. I never realized it was an mp3 thing so much as my having an old system non -converting the digital sound from the phono input.

I'll disagree if the sound from the .Neil file format is noticeably clearer. I'd love to hear something better than an .mp3 if possible and if the .Neil format file becomes ubiquitous, then great.

The beauty, in theory anyway, of newer and better digital formats would be that your hardware doesn't become instantly obsolete. Everything you own should just be a software update away from playing the latest and greatest.

I think it's great that there's still a desire to improve amd innovate digital media. Sound has been a big deal with Neil for a while; my copy of his Live at Massey Hall disc included a DVD with 24/96k PCM. The show is recorded and mastered so well, though, that it still blows me away even on a lossy codec.

I use FLAC for storage, and ~150kbps AAC for everyday/iPhone/iPad listening suits me fine. If Neil or someone else releases a considerably better codec which Apple chooses to support (per dw's last comment on obsolescence), I'll consider switching.

This brings up a question, since you specifically mentioned Apple.

If someone come sup with a format that has much better quality than .mp3, say even better than CD, but it can be delivered as quickly and cheaply as MP3 with the same portability and convenience... does Apple have to support this format for it to succeed even if it is inherently a far better format? Or, is this perhaps what someone would have to come up with the topple the iTunes empire?

Sounds like rust

What kbs were your mp3s at that they sounded so shitty? 192kbs sounds pretty darn good to me.

As the market stands, Apple would have to adopt the codec for it to become ubiquitous, but given the above assumptions I suspect they would try to put their on own stamp on it. That could mean they create a near-equivalent (Apple lossless vs. FLAC) or put their spin on something standards-based even if it's turns out to be inferior (iTunes AAC vs. Nero AAC). Of course, Microsoft will attempt the same thing under the "Windows Media" banner, and without either of those players I don't think a new codec stands a chance at mainstream acceptance (Vorbis).

Neil and Jobs were working on the format, so yeah - it'll have an Apple stamp on it

What would be really cool is if the format also allowed encoding of mixer data, so if you wanted to, you could pull out individual inputs, or remix a song to your liking. A lot of people would probably freak out over that though.

Check out the video on this page. Starts off with Marc Ford, which is awesome, and then proceeds to blitz through gushing testimonial from so many A-listers that he couldn't possibly have bought them all off. Interesting watching... plenty of things to be horrified by as well (the manequin next to Anthony Kiedis -OH WAIT that's his girlfriend, or the bad state of Patti Smith these days).

I've got crappy hearing as well (30 years of headphones) and that's one of the reasons I'm doubt I'll really be that interested in this. Is there really going to be any tangible sound quality difference with a pair of $50 headphones in an iPod, walking down the street with all the background noise when your hearing is virtually shot anyway?

I suspect under those conditions it won't make enough difference to be worthwhile. Also, for me, the whole point of having an iPod is that I can stick almost everything I could possibly want to listen on it within the confines of the hard drive. I don't really want massive file sizes restricting the amount of music I can put in my pocket.

If you are an audiophile you probably only have music in digital format for convenience and if you want to listen to something in high quality you are going to do it at home, on a good quality stereo system.

I wouldn't say I was a full on audiophile but I do think it's a shame that, as technology has progressed, sound quality has gone backwards but I just don't think this really helps much. Audiophile music is always going to be analog based in my opinion but the way music is consumed these days has moved on so that gulf is always going to be there.