Cds demise, or not?

Well, that's it really. Music isn't as large a part of the lives of youth as it was for previous generations so no, they won't purchase anything they could stream here and there .

Music junkies, like those on this forum, will usually want some sort of physical product just like an avid reader collects books whereas I'm content borrowing them from the library.

There are young people on this forum who actively seek out physical product all of the time but the less powerful music becomes as an art form, the more people will rely on a stream here and there as opposed to owning.

Most today only care about their new phones, not stereo systems.

 

Do you really think that's true? I mean, people seem to be streaming an awful lot, which suggests music IS a large part of their lives, it's just not by way of a physical format.

I pine for the old days like everyone else, but the reality is - I believe - that there's more music out there today than ever before. What I mean by that is, music that's readily available to just about everyone with an Internet connection. Surely if music was not as important, streaming wouldn't be a "thing". ?

 

Luxembourg was considered a bit of a joke in the 80s. It's not a joke now.

 

If anything, the digipak has been replaced by the cardboard sleeve.

 

I don't know for sure, to be honest. I have three nieces aged 17-25 and they couldn't care less about music at all, streaming or otherwise. It's background noise at best.

Music sales are in the dumps so I only have these numbers and my personal experiences to go by.

Very few records even go gold these days and I know audiences are more fragmented than ever before but I come into contact with plenty of young people and music is not something they're focused on, unlike previous generations.

 

It's one of the things the EU are concerned about with the UK leaving. We could also change our tax laws to encourage businesses to come here. So it goes......

 

I believe the biggest victim of streaming will be the concept of the album. It's so simple now to just play the tracks you know. The whole idea of an album seems obsolete with streaming, imo.

 

Oh, absolutely. We're definitely in a singles oriented market right now, similar to the 1950s in that regard.

 

Except that led to something great. Not so sure it will this time.

 

I think "music" is still "important" to a lot of people. Unfortunately most of them don't seem to really care what kind of music it is as long as it fits the mood and doesn't distract too much from the main activity they are preoccupied with. Maybe they just hate silence even more.

 

My daughters are going into middle and high school. The younger one still likes Taylor Swift and asks to listen to the pop station in the car. The older one doesn't really listen to music anymore. None of her friends do. They think listening to music when your older is weird, and buying music is something your parents and grandparents did and do if they're too dumb to know how to get it on the internet. The kids are more into youtubers than musicians. They're never going to buy a CD or album because that's not how they process the experience if they're even interested in the experience. It'd be like them using a pay phone or ordering something from the Sears catalog. And if the streaming services went away - music or video - something will replace them or they just won't care.

 

How does War of the Worlds relate to this?

 

/End of thread.

Music is superfluous to millennials and whatever the next generation is gonna be called. They are missing out. These things go in cycles.

 

The internet opened up a whole new world of music. It's not possible to collect it all.

 

Smartphones hitting critical mass and greater availability of unlimited data plans?

 

Hardly. 90% of the population probably lose interest in new music when they reach adulthood. It's the way it goes.

 

Well, given the state of contemporary mainstream music? Sure. Who can blame them? I wouldn't give a toss about music either if i was 15 today.

 

It would be less interesting if we could collect it all.

 

Gen Z.

Who cares about mainstream music? There's lots of excellent contemporary music out there – possibly more than ever. It's certainly easier to discover than ever. 15-year-olds can actually count themselves lucky.

 

I do think the unlimited data plan thing is a major factor.

 

This is like if in 1975 my grandfather told me that it was easier than ever to make my own buttermilk.

Boomers are going to be the only generation that made music collecting a lifelong pursuit.

 

You're so right. People's involvement with music hasn't changed much over human history -- mostly its social music and dance music and religious music. It's music for a purpose -- to set a mood, for background, to dance to when people are dating or at a function. Young people stream music, they go to concerts, they know the words to popular songs that they can sing along with and rap along with, they go dancing, they do all the same things previous generations of young people did with music. They just don't buy physical media so much because they don't need to to experience music. Every person I know from 12 to 26 has some involvement with music. They like certain kinds of music, they know the lyrics to songs, they maybe play instruments, at bar and bat mitzvahs the young girls all still get into a huddle and sing along to a favorite song. And like you say, there's more recorded music available to more people than ever before in human history -- one effect of that I observe among the young people I run across is that they're pretty agnostic to genre, era, whatever. They whole universe of music is their playground.

 

I don't see that in the circle of millennials I know like my daughter and her friends and the 20 somethings I've worked with. They all have interest in music -- they go to concerts and music festivals -- and sometimes they travel distances to do it, they go dancing, they put music on in the car and sing along, they make playlists of songs to listen to at parties or on the subway on their way to work, they follow musicians and singers on Instagram. They have shared musical icons -- Kendrick Lamar, Biggie Smalls for two. For a younger, whiter, more female cohort -- Ed Sheeran: go to an Ed Sheeran show and watch 20K teenage girls sing along with every word of every song and tell me they don't care about music like the girls at the Beatles shows or the bobbysoxers at the Sinatra shows did. Of the five top touring acts in the world in the first half of 2018, three are Sheeran, Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars, they're not principally selling out arenas full of boomers. There are teens and 20 something coming out of Berklee and Julliard every day. And, btw, I've had occasion over the last few years to work with some 20 something musicians, and they've all impressed me with being way more technically able and musically sophisticated than the young wanna be pop musicians of my generation were 30 and 40 years ago.

 

Loving this cd as we speak, and a twofer at that! No demise from here.