News 

The veteran rocker is well known for his objections to certain new technologies, and the iPod does not escape his wrath.

"Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway," Young told Fortune's Brainstorm gathering. "Quality has taken a complete backseat - if it even gets in the car at all."

Young has previously railed against CDs - which "don't sound good no matter what you do" - and MP3s - "the quality sucks".

The iPod is one factor that has tuned music into "wallpaper", though the real object of his ire appears to be the compressed form that most iPod music takes.

"We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the missing elements," he said.

Certainly he is no Luddite, with plans to release a multimedia archive of his entire career on Blu-ray later this year - presumably with uncompressed audio. He hopes other musicians will follow his lead.