Perspective - What the vinyl resurgence really looks like

I observed the same at my local Walmart this evening.

 

It's pretty much like watching the LP death spiral of 1987-1991 all over again.

 

Hmmm...intriguing parallel.
Flash forward to the future:
what would be the comparable situation when/if MP3s (and other digitally downloadable formats) of certain artists or songs are "suddenly unavailable"?
Who would notice?
Who would care?

 

For some reason a lot of CD people on this board hate Vinyl fans. It's a weird place...................

 

Hmmmm, nowhere in my two line reply did I point out that CD sales are thriving so I think you are a little confused.

Of course CD's are in decline and sales will continue to reduce, although even if they drop by 10% or so a year they will continue to be a vital source of income for record companies and artists for years to come.

I notice that you didn't respond to me pointing out an anomoly in your argument that vinyl is the preferred product for physical buyers of music? 15 to 1 would suggest that's not the case.

I'm glad I have a foot in both camps, I have all my records from my teens and early 20's and really only buy CD's new now, but if the cost of records came down I would reconsider.

 

I think it's probably based upon a lot of misunderstanding and a little bit of paranoia within both camps. The fact is the large majority of people listen to their music on flawed systems and as such have very little empirical insight to offer the debate. It's best left well alone.

 

I'm not so sure about this. I think we're not so far away from a future where streaming/subscription services may supplant CDs (and iTunes) as the main revenue stream of the industry, if Spotify and other such services can solve the problem of moving all or most of their customers from a free model to a subscription model.

Even if this doesn't happen, as I noted above, based on my visit to Wal-Mart last night, I don't see CDs hanging on there in, say, five years, and if Wal-Mart ever stops carrying them, it's game over for the format. I was also forced to go into a Best Buy over Christmas, in a search for a last-minute gift, and was literally shocked by how dramatically their CD section had shrunk from what I remembered from my last visit to one of their stores, just two or three years ago.

 

Why do you say that? Are they the largest sellers of CDs today? I still buy lots of CDs and except for the occasional Best Buy special version I buy almost every one of my CDs from Amazon or some other on-line vendor.

 

A quick Google search reveals that iTunes passed Wal-Mart as the single largest U.S. music retailer six years ago. I believe Wal-Mart and Besr Buy are still #2 and #3, respectively, and, along with Amazon, sell the lion's share of new CDs in the U.S. I buy most of my CDs from Amazon as well, but, as always, we here are not the average consumer, and if the two main brick-and-mortar outlets ever stop carrying CDs, which I can see happening sooner rather than later, it would be very bad news for the format, as the casual listener isn't going to special order CDs online, no matter how convenient Amazon may make that process.

 

As long as CD's represent even a small percentage of the market I think they will hang on. At the moment I wouldn't call 30-40% market share as small, though I acknowledge it will reduce further. There is a danger that if suddenly they stop producing them one day, that the people who do still buy them will not spend an equivalent amount on streaming.

I spend more than the cost of a monthly Spotify subscription on brand new CD's each month (both new releases and reissues). I choose to do that knowingly that I could pay £10 for a spotify subscription, but if I did that, the money would be lost to the music industry, I'm not sure that is something the records companies would easily give up, as they realise there are a lot of people like that.

I know Walmart and Target type of shops are everywhere in the US and have previously had decent stocks of music for sale, but not sure how accurate a barometer that is. The equivalent in the UK are our large stores like Asda (which is owned by Walmart) and Tesco, and they have small CD/DVD sections these days, probably in line with Walmart/Target.

Where I am lucky is that there is still an HMV in my city (I know they have closed a lof of loss making ones down since restructuring) with a great selection of CD's and growing vinyl selection. Also, we have FOPP which is owned by HMV, but has a more independent feel about it. What I am probably trying to say is that it's not a real problem that my local superstore does not have many CD's these days as I can still go to a record shop.

 

I have been here since day one. A lot of vinyl fans hate CD lovers. It goes both ways around here. I wish people would just respect each other's preferences without getting offensive about it.

 

Like many an industry,90% of pre-recorded music sales come from 10% of titles.A store owner looking at so much potential non-returnable stock had no choice but to cut losses before the deadlines.Add to that,new acts,the real profit center for music manufacturers,are a gamble and no retailer in their right mind would bring in an unknown act with no ability to return a dud.Also important to note that returned vinyl was not necessarily exchanged for CDs.Cassettes were still a big part of the market,and,for the retailer,held a bigger profit margin and still had the returnable factor.As CDs gradually became the leading format,profit margins took a hit,leaving manya mom & pop to go in the used business in a big way or close doors.The manufacturers made deals with the chains,as they always did,for co-op ads,buying shelf space,sending huge amounts of promotional material their way,thus softening the blow of selling a product with reduced profit margins.Meanwhile the little guys,as they always did,got the crumbs.

 

There was a five- or six-period where Wal-Mart was the only store in my small American town that carried new CDs. Now we have a thriving indie record store, but it's probably 98% vinyl, although they'll get a CD copy or two of something like the latest Dylan Bootleg Series release. But if Wal-Mart stopped carrying CDs, and, let's get real, other than Taylor Swift and the Beatles catalog, they basically already have stopped carrying CDs, there is no other brick-and-mortar CD retailer where I live. And that's not good news for the format.

 

so we'd all have to possess the exact same "perfect system" to have an informed opinion? okee dokee then.

 

After reading this thread, I have made the decision to dump vinyl and change formats. I always hear all of you guys praising "DCC", so I'm going to take the plunge!

 

I'm sure the trend of CD sales will continue to go down. What worries me more as someone who basically does only physical product (CD, Vinyl, DVD, Blu-ray) is on the hardware side especially for CD and DVD/Blu-ray. The number of new players seems to be getting less and less each year and I wonder what players will be available ten or twenty years down the road. On the digital music side all the attention seems to going toward downloads, streaming and network/computer music players or Pono and other portable players. Makers of equipment for vinyl on the other hand seem to be announcing new products a lot more often.

 

That's awesome! I'm dumping vinyl too and going back to the roots of digital recording, so I can gain a full understanding of where the technology has gone. The piano roll. Fantastic packaging and artwork included.

 

Because that's not what I said. I said it's clearly a preference amongst those want physical media to go with their digital (streaming, downloads) media. Is that a slim percentage of music buyers overall? Yes, but I'd wager the dwindling audience for CDs is made up of a specific demographic that is, on the whole, less inclined to stream or download music.

 

Yeah, the Audio Advisor catalog is certainly not the be-all and end-all of the industry, but recent editions of it are overflowing with DACs and network /streaming digital audio players, and an expanding selection of turntables. CD players? Not so much.

 

Walmart and Target have a much larger footprint here compared to Asda and Tesco in the UK. If they suddenly vanished overnight, it would be catastrophic not just for some industries, but for some communities.

 

Thank God I don't live in the south, where sometimes Walmart is the only game in town.

 

Agreed. It's a vastly bigger country, and the isolated places are vastly more isolated than they are in a small, tightly-packed country like the UK. If one assumes the hypothetical that Wal-Mart completely stops carrying CDs, there would be many, many American towns where there was no brick-and-mortar store carrying CDs at all.

 

I rip all of my purchased CDs to lossless immediately- as long as I have a CD drive capable of ripping older titles to files and new releases/remasters are available in lossless/hi-res format for download, I think I'm okay with the eventual demise of CD. What I'm not a fan of is the idea of less-than-CD quality streaming for a subscription fee. I'm a big fan of actually owning the music I pay for.

 

Almost bought one of those back in the day & so glad I didn't...

 

In decades past, I bought a ton of records and CDs because there was that one song on them that I might want to hear some day. With streaming, that's not really necessary anymore. Obviously, for my very favorite artists, I want hard copies of their music. But for a lot of newer records, and for catalog stuff I'm only somewhat interested in, I've reached the point where I'm OK with not actually owning the music.