Neil Young Touts New Digital Format

Good old Neil. Jamming out blistering live renditions of Beatles tunes and searching for alternative fuels aside, now he has told the Financial Times that he is "talking to record companies about licensing an alternative digital platform that he had been working on - something, he claimed, of far higher quality that could provide an alternative to the download world and perhaps even a new business model for music."

Neil is a dreamer, and his "why can't I do this?" attitude is to be admired. So while sometimes I look at his big ideas with a big of a grain of salt, you also have to take the guy seriously. Because he is dead serious about his ideas.

From the article, Neil says:

"We're in discussions right now about developing our own media platform based on that," he said. Something record companies can sell their artists' works on. Something that can't be downloaded, something that's got much more depth.

"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."

This needn't be limited to music, according to Young. "How about the history of the civil war? How about the British empire? If you have a career spanning 40 years, maybe it's George Washington's life. It could be a lot of things. There's so much to this that we can't tell, that you can't see in one sitting. Maybe there's a structure there that could save the music business - a new thing, where it is creating new products."

Neil is great example of a guy who throws his weight behind ideas with relentless passion, and doesn't give up, even against long odds. The fact that he kept his Archives project on ice for more than 15 years until technology caught up with his vision is admirable.

If even half of Neil's ideas pan out, good things will happen! Go Neil!