John Mellencamp is not an iPod fan

I just bought "Jack and Diane" through iTunes over 3G on my iPhone while stopped at a stoplight, I played it through a stock 2010 Prius sound system and it sounded amazing. Sonically better than if it had been played on FM radio, plus I gladly paid $1.29 for the privilege, hopefully a bit of which will go to Mr. Mellencamp.

Thought of it, bought it, enjoyed it in 7 minutes total, less time than it would take to park at the mall or any of the great indie stores here in Portland that would probably do the hipster scoff if I asked for a single off American Fool. Then there's the hooking up the USB turntable, cleaning up the noise, putting it on the iPhone, at which point I would have already heard it on Pandora and got my fix.

This new tech is good for you, John, in so many ways. Besides, the highest fidelity is presented by you live where the good money is made anyway:)

Incidentally, Sirius/XM and so-called "HD Radio" are 96 kilobits per second, while tracks from iTunes are generally a minimum of 256 Kbps.

But then again, I listen to the radio when I'm in my car, where audio quality is secondary to hearing new music that someone somewhere thought was worth playing on the radio. Too bad it's still mostly terrible.

John Mellencamp is poorly informed. The iPod has supported Apple Lossless since what, iTunes 4.5? back in .... 2003? Since it's *lossless* compression, when it is uncompressed on the fly it produces the same stream of samples that were on the original CD. This makes a huge difference - check out

http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/

Perhaps he has issues with the DAC in the iPod? I'd say it's better than most CD players, but if you have to have the absolute best quality, there are external DAC devices like the Wadia.

Then again, this is the man who released his best (? or at least most popular) album, American Fool, in 1982 on LP, cassette and 8 track (which I note you can find on ebay if you like - just search for "john cougar 8 track.")

Having listened to many cassettes in my lifetime, I'd say that compression artifacts of well-encoded MP3 and AAC tracks are certainly no worse than, and to my ear generally vastly preferable to, the hiss, dropouts, flutter and wow that plague portable analog tape formats. Analog tapes may sound "warmer", but they also sound like crap. Which you may not care about if you're listening in your car or outside, which is what you often do with a portable stereo!

So, to conclude: iPod bad, cassette and 8 track good?

That Melon camp is awesome :)

Lemme see if I have this right:

The fidelity of an iPod is clearly inferior and is lacking compared to 80's technology of AM/FM radio and cassette tape?

We'll discount AM right off the get go, FM has an audio response no better than an iPod. And on competitive CHR radio formats, there is nearly no dynamic range due to audio processing. Cassette tape was no better.

The only thing analog radio has over the iPod is no lossy compression. But given many radio stations use automated digital cart systems these days shared among many stations, they too use lossy compression techniques.

John drank the RIAA Kool-Aid that it's all about piracy. And, it might be a little of that. It's also due to the fact that John has been crowded out by his own industry that comes up with formulas for success and cranks 'em out cookie-cutter style.

Perhaps John would be happy if we all used gramophones?

How do you spell hypocrite? M-E-L-L-E-N-C-A-M-P

He's on some sort of old-school trip lately, with his latest album, which was only recorded using gear that would have been available in 1950. Of course, he's promoting it on the Internet. Go check out his web page and let him know what you think:

http://www.mellencamp.com/

He was also heard saying "You darn kids! Get off my lawn!"

Why don't you just buy better headphones hahah

I like the way music sounds on the iPod!

John Mellencamp is right. We should be buying his music from the bottom of the 99¢ bin at Kmart, rather than online in the biggest, retail music catalogue ever offered in human history.