CD's Gone By 2020?

Wishful thinking.

 

I think this is pretty much stating the obvious. The music industry has decided to kill off CD, and to replace it with Vinyl. Nothing at all insightful or new there, it's been obvious for a while.

I'm not worried about CD's though. I mean, I have 1000's of them, and I can get 99.9% of the titles I want on CD. If they stop doing CD entirely for the titles I'd buy, then they've lost me as a listener. I'm not going back to Vinyl, and I'm not interested in streaming. So if a business stops putting out product you want, what do you do? You do something else! I will not be strong-armed into getting back into Vinyl just because some idiot in a suit has decided it offers the best anti-piracy mechanism they could come up with. After 50 years of buying music, and a lot of music, I could well be out of the game.

Except, I don't think it'll actually happen, since the vast majority of my purchases are niche releases anyway.

EDIT: Oh, and they can sling their hook with this CDR business. Sorry. I don't like it. I certainly don't like being charged full retail for it. It's cheap and nasty, and no better than I could do myself. So no thanks.

 

If the CD survives it'll be as a souvenir for fans, which is pretty much the way it's marketed in Korea (and increasingly in Japan). This is the new NCT-127 release, a pretty nice package for $17. And it's the #3 selling CD on Amazon at the moment

 

Nope! Anime soundtracks will continue to be released on CD because Japan. Also small indie artists will continue to sell CDs at concerts.

 

Having read the article I don't see any strong evidence that it is anything other than coincidence that vinyl sales increasing has anything to do with the popularity of streaming.

But, I do agree that the rise of streaming has of course gradually decimated CD sales.

 

And right now used CD prices are usually missing a digit. Go, vinyl, go!

 

It's total coincidence. There's been no concerted effort by record companies to kill off CDs. If you gave record industry execs the choice to go back to selling CDs like hotcakes they'd grab it in a second. The industry is just following the money and the money is in streaming. CD sales on an inflation adjusted revenue basis fell by nearly 2/3 for a decade before paid streaming took off and the industry did every it could to try to protect CD sales -- DRM, lawsuits. Consumers weren't buying. And vinyl sales, even after a decade of growth, haven't come close to replacing the lost revenue from declining CD sales.

 

CDs are probably niche now too.

 

Right! In a big niche now, but it will be a long transition to streaming. I think, when we can’t buy new music on CD, it is also the final end of LP. Maybe reissue companies will release some titles on LP, but not long.

 

I haven't had tone controls since the 70s.

 

Remember the experts who told us back in the sixties we'd have flying cars and holidays on the moon? Nothing has changed. I have never been less likely to believe an expert than I am these days.

 

I have 'em, but I don't use 'em.

 

That just depends on how wide you cast you sample. When it comes to physical media, CD is far and away the largest media sales wise - albeit trending down.

The labels will continue with Vinyl because a) It sells at high prices comparatively; b) It allows them to - once again - sell the same music over again to a "new" audience; c) It's copy proof.

Let's face it, most of the things people seem to want on Vinyl these days are old recordings. Just back catalog put out, largely without extras, at inflated prices. It's a model they've used time and time again. I expect Vinyl to continue on - I just won't be indulging myself.

 

I don't know man. I've been playing some of those Dylan box sets recently, and if they're going to do those kinds of releases then Vinyl becomes a real issue, imo. A full CD is what, a double Vinyl record or so? So how much is 12 slabs of Vinyl going to cost? And what happened to the people who said they didn't want CD's because they no longer had the storage space? Did they move to larger homes? Let along larger box sets (I just bought a 36-CD Herbie Hancock box set - 36 slabs of Vinyl just isn't practical in one set, imo)

There's a niche for CD - imo.

 

CD's are just another merchandise stream. As long as people will buy 'em, bands will sell 'em. Given that Metallica do brake mats and Sigur Rose do towels, you will still be able to order CD's from the band websites and merch stalls for a long time to come.

 

It depends on the act and the market and the genre. Already there's lots of new music that's not getting released on CD across all kinds of different genres -- from the new Hilary Hahn recording of contemporary solo violin partitas, released last week on vinyl, download and streaming only, to the four releases from the young R&B duo Chloe X Halle none of which have been release on any physical format I think. If you want to buy a re-issue of Brotzmann/Van Hove/Bennink + Magelsdorff's free jazz classic Live in Berlin 1971, you can buy it new, it's in print, but only as a digital download.

 

I'd add - they're cheap, don't have as many quality control issues as Vinyl, are small and light, and easy to store. Mastered properly, they sound great too.

 

No coincidence that Germany and Japan have the toughest laws against illegal downloading.

 

This is an interesting comment. Do you really think laws against illegal downloading has had any impact at all?

 

Maybe, but German and Japanese authorities appear to be very strict. They have the option of jail in Japan.

 

No impact really in Canada. Elsewhere, some companies have however developed some trolling scheme to get ridiculous amount of money from torrent users by sending them formal notice/invoice for illegal downloading.

Temporary cancelation of your internet subscription for illegal downloading seems like the best option.

 

I work in an office of about 100 people, ages ranging from early 20s to mid 50s. I’ve never come across anyone that still buys records or CDs.

 

Yeah, jeeze, now that I think about it, out of the many music fans I know, I think there's only like 2 or 3 people I know who buy CDs, and it's very infrequent even for them.
Like these days, CDs are no longer the impulse purchase they used to be, you have to be really proactive about finding and buying what you really want.

 

I am totally okay with CDs going away as I buy 99% of my music on iTunes these days. I haven't bought a new CD in a couple years. I think the only way I'd go back to CDs is if iTunes or other download sites quit selling downloads in favor of only selling streaming subscriptions.

 

When you find good stuff in charity shops for as little as 10p, it's hard to justify spending £10 on a new release.