Labels Ditch CDs?
Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 12:02AM CD collectors, begin your long goodbye. Apparently major labels are banding together to ditch the CD format by the end of 2012.
Yep. It’s the end of an era. Nearly an end to music, too.
I’m one of the few people I know who still prefers a physical CD over an album download. I do buy lots of music on Amazon and iTunes, but I still get the physical CD if at all possible. I feel like having something tangible 1) proves what I spent my money on and 2) that the band is worthy of existence. Any musician can record a song and throw it online these days. It takes just a little bit more effort (but not much) to release a physical CD.
I know people say I’m old fashioned or even antiquated, but I loved going to music stores when I was kid. That was how I found new bands to like! I would wander the Kmart music section constantly, just looking for that next big “thing” in my life. I picked up bands because of cool album covers. I also grabbed CDs because they were playing on the record store’s sound system at the time. And sometimes I watched what other people were buying and then I would copy them (usually these people were wearing band T-shirts, etc.)
Since music stores – and music sections – basically don’t even exist anymore, I guess music is less important to our lives, right? Well, not less important to our lives, but to the general public. Anymore, music is nothing more than a throwaway commodity to be used in car commercials and to usher models down runways. Audiophiles are few and far between because everyone listens to compressed tunes through inner earphones. It’s sort of sad.
Remember back in the 80s when people would walk around with those giant boom boxes, blasting tunes? You heard new music that way too! And hey, I won’t bash all technology. I’m very grateful I can Google the lyrics to literally any song and find out the title/artist/album in about two seconds. But still, I’m sad. I spent all my money on CDs as a teenager and now kids just steal music. It really is true: when you work and spend your hard earned money on something, it’s a little more important to you.
I’m resentful that major labels are forcing this change on all of us – because, hello – not everyone uses an MP3 player (at least, not yet). I’ve got music strewn about everywhere. CDs, records, tapes and tons of MP3s on about 15 different electronic devices. I doubt I am unique in this situation. I suppose the phase-out of CD players will come at us fast. I guess this means I need to move all my CDs to my iTunes library. What a bloody hassle.
Reader Comments (26)
I also don't think that disappearing music sections in stores is a sign that we value music less. We're just moving to a model where physical stores don't make sense any more. Besides, there are lots of people who still like collecting physical music, so there will always be niche music stores.
But that aside, I think the concept of "ownership" of media is disappearing with streaming services. Just like Netflix etc. is making the concept of 'owning' movies obsolete, companies like Spotify & rdio.com are making the concept of owning music obsolete. What's the point in spending $15 on a CD when you can spend a low, flat-rate and listen to what you want, when you want and how you want? The freedom & choice of this model provides you with is astounding.
As for the CD, I'm definitely not going to when they disappear. Like all physical media, they scratch, they can get misplaced, and they take up a lot of space to store.
Bryon, you make some valid points.
Reality is, there is no longer a mass market for CDs, only the niche you describe.
Our niche is GLAM METAL from the 80's to the present and future.
I collected about a thousand Glam Metal CDs from 1988 to 1993. It was only until 2007 I started actively pursuing buying 80's/early 90's Glam Metal CDs almost exclusively, leaving my appreciation of other genres of music pretty much on hold as I chase down every great Glam Metal CD on the planet, particularly "The Holy Grails of Hair Metal"' those elusive, ultra rarities that bands independently pressed to circulate at record companies and shows to assist them in getting a record deal.
This has turned into an obsession as I have discovered many, many bands virtually unheard of, apart from the awareness Al has been bringing to them here and collectors have been in pursuit of for years.
Brass Kitten, anyone?
These Indy bands put out albums on CD that are equal or superior to the major signings we keep dancing up on our proverbial head
of a pin.
Now the race is on even more for not only these Holy Grails, but the CDs of bands who got signed but barely sold.
Cats In Boots or D'Molls, anyone?
Fortunately, I've been at this for awhile so I've got a fair amount of our fave genre in my collection but, believe me, there is so much more to get including the new stuff coming out that will also be rendered obsolete.
One thing that may be the saddest by-product of this systematic abolishment of music in physical form will be the disappearance of printed album cover art. Gone will be an art form that has generated some of the coolest photography, illustration and graphics.
Geez, I thought it was a crime when they shrank it from LP size
to CD size and now it may only exist online the size of a postage
stamp, if at all.
I can still remember the record stores and the excitement of the new albums coming out. My fav. cover art, although inside, was Shout at the Devil.
Even after 30 yrs, I still try to dress like Tommy or Nikki. ie. my Halloween outfit this yr.
I like CDs. To me, digital files are too easy to lose...I've had my share of hard drive crashes. Plus, how can you get an MP3 autographed? :)
While labels ARE losing money on CD sales are on the decline, hundreds of millions CDs are still being purchased by consumers every year.
Maybe I'm wrong and maybe by the end of 2012 I WON'T be able to buy a new CD, but I'm not buying into this story until I see a more legitimate source report it and see quotes from the record labels.
A CD is just cheap piece of plastic with digital bits on it. Those digital bits sound exactly the same regardless of where they are stored - a burned CD, local harddrive, iPod, a thumbdrive, or some cloud-based storage (i.e., what Spotify.com uses) over the Internet. In all cases, the song is exactly the same if stored at the same quality level.
Yes, there are differences in quality based on compression, etc., and I too have heard some extremely crappy, low quality MP3's. But unless you're listening to music using very high quality equipment, the differences are virtually imperceptible at 128kpbs, which is a fairly standard bitrate. And as bandwidth & storage continue to increase, compression becomes less of an issue, which is why you now see a lot more of 256k or even full, uncompressed FLAC around.
That said, I totally understand the appeal of collecting, but I'm just not a collector at heart. I've always owned lots of music, but I was ecstatic when I could finally store everything on my hard drive and get rid of the all the CD's (I had previously done the same with tapes) that were sitting around gathering dust.
Also, just how are artists gonna make money now????
Artists will need to make money the way they did prior to the 70's: by writing terrific songs, building a fanbase and performing live. The days of huge record company advances are gone for all but a tiny few top bands.
Bands are going to also need to realize that the vast riches seen in the past are largely gone. There is no longer (big) money to be made in selling recorded music. Everyone's either giving it away on YouTube or via digital streams, or they are selling singles for 99 cents on iTunes. So the focus has to be on performing live.
The end of the cd may be in sight, but not that soon.
And you are right that an uncompressed file on a CD *can* sound different from a compressed MP3 file. But that all depends on the amount of compression used, and if you choose to store your music as uncompressed files, there is absolutely zero difference between the file on a CD and the one on your computer/iPod/whatever.
But the reality is there is no need to do that. Even at 128-bits, the differences between a compressed file and the uncompressed files you find on a CD are imperceptible to most people, even with the best equipment. And if you do notice a difference, it's easy to reduce the compression by going to 256-bit, 320-bit, etc.
But this is all a nerdy aside -- ultimately, the most important thing is that you can listen to your music when you want, regardless of format!