Is the CD Becoming Obsolete?

[admin]

Glancing at a report on Forbes.com this morning, there was an article showing that CD sales are expected to be down 20% 2008 (slightly higher than the 15% drop initially predicted). Why such a drop? Well, there has been a recorded drop of 18% so far in 2007 and the trend seems to be steady and indicative of future trending. But what's really happening?

Discuss "Is the CD Becoming Obsolete?" here. Read the article.

 

[avaserfi]

This wouldn't worry me so much if apple started selling uncompressed crap atleast. The main reason I like cds is because if I wish I can extract the uncompressed songs, atleast as far as what is given to me, from the cd not downloading 192kbps mp3s. Hopefully the market grows in such a way that keeps quality alive as well.

 

[westcott]

I feel the same way as avaserfi. I have nothing against the iPod or downloaded music, as a media delivery system. I just hope that this trend will produce a demand for high quality music, that at least matches CD quality.

Am I asking too much in the year 2007?

HD Video seems to be widely accepted and embraced. Why does audio have to take a back seat when home theaters seem to be a popular trend? Everyone that has experienced my home theater is awed by the sound, as well as the video.

 

[Aburtch]

Agreed that physical sales will continue to decline. But until entertainment servers become ubiquitous in every household, people will want some kind of physical form to hold and store their music.

Unlike almost every person I know, I am holding out on the move to digitizing my music until the sound quality can catch up to recorded CDs. When lossy formats such as mp3s and their ilk are gone and I can download high-resolution audio files on-line, only then I will be tempted to move to some type of iPod like system or an entertainment server. But I'm still going to want some type of format to back up or preserve it on.

Yes, the CD will become obsolete eventually, but what new standard may arise after it? Will holographic storage ever be a reality? Can the record labels change their business model in time to prevent them from going bankrupt? All questions that only time can answer.

 

[maggie]

Bye Bye CD's

One point for the decline of the CD that I don't often see mentioned is the constant to little reduction in the cost of the CD itself. No reduction in prices in 20 + years. Selling CD's at say $7.95 might have kept the download wolves at bay for a while longer. I still listen to my first CD - Dancing on the Ceiling - Lionel Richie, I think it cost me $15.
Maggie

 

[westcott]

One point for the decline of the CD that I don't often see mentioned is the constant to little reduction in the cost of the CD itself. No reduction in prices in 20 + years. Selling CD's at say $7.95 might have kept the download wolves at bay for a while longer. I still listen to my first CD - Dancing on the Ceiling - Lionel Richie, I think it cost me $15.
Maggie

I guess the other side of the coin is that it has not gone up, like everything else over the last 20 to 30 years (man, the CD has been around for a while now that I think about it). I have seen some CD's sell for $10 or less. Inflation of 3% a year would make a $15 CD now would make it almost $30!!!!

Have you priced a concert ticket lately? That is if you can actually get one that has not been presold to some monster company for a huge profit.

The real kicker is that a replacement techology has not been widely accepted and does not seem to be resolved any time soon! Downloads seem to be the next stop, whether we like it or not.

 

[cfrizz]

With most old technology & what not the price comes down. That has NOT been the case with cd's.

Example: Pink Floyd's 30+ year old Darkside Of The Moon. It only has 9 songs. But you walk into any record store & they will be selling it for $18.98!

Would you mind telling me why it is so expensive for this old album? (If you choose to buy it in a store.)

Yes you can buy cd's for 9.99. But have you looked at what they are selling? Most of it I wouldn't want in my collection anyway!

They make these cd's for pennies & then sell them at outrageous prices!

I refuse to pay those kinds of prices, especially for just 10 songs.

I will buy my cd's used, or download them!

 

[davidtwotrees]

I have a music server. To be honest, it isn't the revolution I thought it would be. Frankly, I still enjoy opening the cd and listening to it for the first time on my "reference" player rather than the server.

As to lossless, I had my money down on an Audio ReQuest unit last winter. It was $2200 and did lossless. I just could not come up with the scratch so I bought an Escient Fireball SE80. It only does MP3 320 kbs. You would be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and a cd. Hard pressed.

I buy my cds on line. From Amazon. I can usually preview every song, they offer twenty different sellers........It is cheap and easy.

The under thirty crowd have beaten this one into the ground-"if cds weren't so expensive, we would not download" . From the get go I have considered downloading "free" music stealing. Unless and artist wants their music downloaded, if you aren't paying for it, it is stealing. If gas wasn't so expensive I wouldn't have to steal it would be a similar argument.....

Frankly this topic is the classic "the sky is falling" stuff. I don't think the cd is dying, but if it is then as long as there is money to be had, and people want to enjoy music, you can bet there will be a way to deliver it.

 

[no. 5]

I buy my cds on line. From Amazon. I can usually preview every song, they offer twenty different sellers........It is cheap and easy.

That's what I do too, I can't remember the last time I was in a store to buy a CD; why pay $19.00 for a CD that can be had for $6-$10 from Amazon.com?

Sure a lot of times the best price is a used CD, but often times that means pennies for a CD.

 

[MDS]

All good points so far and here is my take:

- I always want to OWN the physical medium. I consider it the archival format - just like books in the library. I've ripped every CD I own and I save both the uncompressed WAV as well as make MP3s from them.

If your only source for the music is a digital copy (regardless of uncompressed, lossless, lossy) you have the problem of maintaining that copy. If your hard drive dies and you don't have a backup, you are SOL. Even if you do have a good backup strategy, as the collection grows it gets much more complicated and costly to maintain that collection and keep multiple backups in sync. If you have the physical disc you can always make another digital copy (although that is also tedious if you had to start over and re-do the entire collection).

- The music industry had agreed with big retailers to lower the wholesale price of CDs to less than $9 so they could be sold at retail for under $12. That agreement was broken before it even got started. It lasted about as long as the typical mid-east peace agreement - about two weeks.

- The industry keeps looking for ways to reduce their costs while at the same time keeping prices high. Case in point: 'digipak' CDs. These are the flimsy cardboard cases with the plastic disc tray molded in. It is promoted as a great innovation while the reality is that it reduces the industry's costs from 5 cents per jewel case to probably 1 or 2 cents and they absolutely suck for the consumer. The cardboard tears easily and will become torn and worthless if you handle the CD a lot.

- Used outlets are a great way to get music for a reasonable price, although some of them only discount a CD a few bucks. When the trend first started every store paid $2-$3 for a used CD and sold them for $7-$8. Some of the stores here in Austin want to sell a used CD of a newer release for $12 - hardly worth it at all even if you are a broke college student.

- The music I like, which is mostly 70s and 80s stuff, can be bought new for under $10 in most cases. It's mainly the new releases, most of which I have no interest in, that are ridiculously priced. Anybody that will pay $20 for a Snoop Dog CD is absolutely crazy.

 

[highfihoney]

More so than the CD becomming obsolete i think its artists putting out great albums that is whats really obsolete,artists or bands now days rarely put out an entire album worth listening to,a good song or two maybe but an entire album being great is a thing of the past.

If i was into the flashy new music that is on the market today i would never buy a CD or even own a player,if all the artists a person likes only have a few songs worth listening to whats the point of buying their CD.

If record companys want to sell more CD's they ought to start looking for some real talent to produce instead of sexy girls in skimpy outfits singing sugar coated nonsense.

 

[j_garcia]

I don't good WHOLE albums is a thing of the past, but it definitley is becoming more rare.

I never listen to the radio anymore because it has become nothing but crap for the most part. If I wanted to listen to the same 4 songs all day with lousy sound quality, I would download 128K MP3s....

 

[Leprkon]

If record companys want to sell more CD's they ought to start looking for some real talent to produce instead of sexy girls in skimpy outfits

Do we really have to put a stop to this ? The mental image of Metallica in skimpy outfits just isn't working for me...

 

[avaserfi]

I think both J_garcia and highfihoney are right here there has been far less emphasis on a good album in recent times seemingly because of increasing popularity of the radio and music video channels like MTV. These outlets only reward having one or two catchy and "good" songs per album while completely ignoring the rest and well its where all the money is.

 

[Leprkon]

completely ignoring the rest and well its where all the money is.

it's scarey to think how many classics would have been missed in today's one song world. "JungleLand" from Springsteen and "Paradise By the Dashboard Lights" by MeatLoaf jump to mind as songs buried on the B-side of albums that probably never would have left the studio today. We only got to hear them because they needed more material to fill out the album.

 

[MDS]

While I think it is very true that artists no longer create an album that is a concept and needs to be played in full to get the most of it, I also think saying that artists only care to make one or two good songs is missing the point entirely.

From the artists perspective, they probably think all of their songs are good. They just may be a collection of unrelated songs where each stands alone rather than aim to tell a story where each song adds to the whole.

The other thing is that just because one person thinks this artist sucks because they only have 'one or two good songs per album' others may think the entire album is great.

 

[davidtwotrees]

I wholeheartedly disagree with those that say there is no good music coming out today! You either aren't looking hard enough or in the right places! About three years ago I was coming home from a play in Chicago with another couple. The guy driving popped in a disc and as I listened to it I said Ooooh what is this music! He said "Zero 7" and I bought their two discs immediatly. I hadn't been buying Any music. My stereo was obsolete. As I listened to this "new" music, I found one of the singers, a young Australian woman named Sia Furler. I was, and am, enchanted by this woman and her voice. I have seen her live twice, and met her after the show at the House of Blues. I became a fan, and started hanging out on her website message board, siamusic.net. There are young people there from all over the world, but especially the kids from Britan are just a huge pool of information on bands they are listening to and seeing all over europe. I went from being sick and tired of classic rock, to totally entranced by all the new music I was being exposed to. Myspace and youtube have allowed people all over the planet to see and be seen. Is it as good as the great "classic" albums of yesteryear? Geez I don't know, but it is new and fresh and watching the guys of Zero 7 jam with Power Macs was really an eyeopener.
So now I have a kick *** stereo, and all kinds of new music to listen to. I could care less what medium it plays on, just so long as I can indulge my passion for music. There is much more music going on than what the bloated American music industry is belching forth........

 

[Davemcc]

I think Davidtwotrees hit the most important point. It's all about listening to the music, regardless of format. I think it's great that there are so many options now for acquiring and storing music, so many choices of quality levels and equipment for every taste and budget. Think about the time when vinyl or reel to reel was High Fidelity. Your only other options were 8-track or cassette. Pick a format and hope the recording is good. It's so much better now. Pick a format, CD, SACD, DVD-A, WMA, WAV, MP3, pick a bit rate, download or copy from CD and store in computer, memory stick, iPod, server, cassette (he, he) etc.

Yet it's the music that drives the whole industry, whether it's classic Sinatra, Pink Floyd or Snoop Dog. There always has and always will be choices of format for those that care about audio quality and those who don't. Being on the cutting edge of Hi-Fi will always be expensive, but the mainstream stuff is cheaper than ever for those not concerned about quality. Buying only the songs you want for $.99 would have been awsome in 1980 and for many, it still is in 2007.

I find the future of CD's irrelevant. Either they will continue to exist or they won't. If they don't survive, I'll adapt to the next best format.

 

[Boogerman]

Not Suprising

I'm not surprised at the sales drop,especially after the RIAA's war on music customers.Until the music industry starts acting right,I will not buy not 1 commercially produced CD.
I have boycotted CDs for some time now,not wanting the money paid to support the RIAA as they willy-nilly sue everyone -including pre-school kids and some people who just happened to be dead! Their Gestapo tactics have completely turned me off
Maybe the news that the tables are about to be turned on the music industry might help(Andersen vs Atlantic,et al,countersued for malicious persecution and fraud,invoking the RICO act)
I don't feel sorry for the music industry,just the artists,who it seems,never hardly see a dime from the music companies.

 

[davidtwotrees]

Just so long as you are not one of those that angrily boycotts the cd and the RIAA, and uses that as an excuse to download free music. Perhaps cd sales don't get as much to the artsist as they should, but I guarantee if you don't pay for your downloads the artist isn't seeing ONE THIN DIME!