Neil Young: Pono Star

Neil Young’s Pono music has become the third most-funded project in the history of crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, sailing past its target of $800,000 to raise over $6m. The high-end audio project has 18,220 backers, raising $6,225,354 (approx. £3, 706, 440) during a 30-day campaign.

Funders are apparently contributing to their own mid-life crisis by investing in a device that reportedly produces sound quality that is wasted on human hearing (a bit like the new Elbow album then?).

As reported, Young launched the Pono player at SXSW this year, with a rapturous reception from Young’s celebrity mates including Bruce Springsteen and Jack White. PonoPlayers will cost $399 (approx. £240), with 128GB of memory.

A subsequent storm on Twitter erupted, with one astute observer noting that it “looks like C3-PO’s dick”. Who is The Gen to argue?