It might have started as a bid to create his own iPod back in January 2015, but Neil Young‘s Pono brand has since converted into the streaming service opening today to coincide with the release of his thirty-ninth studio album, The Visitor, featuring Promise of the Real. “December 1st will be big day for me,” Young wrote on Facebook, according to JamBase, stating: “The Visitor will be coming to your town. I will be going to my town. You will be able to hear me and see me. My archive will open on that same day, a place you can visit and experience every song I have ever released in the highest quality your machine will allow. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. In the beginning, everything is free.”
While Young’s streaming service is no longer pushing Pono, the format is “Xstream Music high resolution streaming by OraStream,” which allows “the listener to hear all of the music available at his or her current listening location.” Young supports Xstream Music because he says that they are “uncompressed masters,” meaning that they do not “compromise the quality” regardless of allowable bandwidth. What we have built here at NYA (Neil Young Archives),” continued Young, “is a result of a great effort by many people over a long period of time.”
After logging in via Google, Facebook, or by creating an account, a letter from Neil Young opens explaining how things work:
“There are three distinct ways to explore my music on this site. Each one has its advantages.
1. You can view all songs organized chronologically in the file cabinet, giving you a list view of everything I have released–you will find some unreleased things in here, too.
2. To go a little deeper, you can view all recordings as an info card, sliding chronologically in either direction left to right, to listen and view detailed information about the recording of every song.
3. Lastly, the most comprehensive view is the timeline. Here you can view all of my albums on a chronological timeline, with touring information; relevant events in our lives, and my books, videos, and films. The NYA timeline will also include galleries and videos–any content that might lie outside the scope of an album, film, video or particular recording.”
According to Brooklyn Vegan, the account you create is free until June 30, 2018, when it becomes available for “a very modest cost.” You can visit the Archives site here, which spans and details every song Neil Young has ever recorded from 1963 in Canada to present day. Watch the tutorial for the Neil Young Archives below.
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