Golden Age Of CDs ?

That was confusing to me because it said the RIAA counts shipments rather than sales, but Nielsen sales figure looked higher than the RIAA's shipment figure. How is that even possible?

Well that's the point, you would be spending way more than 10 dollars per month.

The industry's revenue (adjusted for inflation) peaked at the height of the CD era in the early 2000s. Both artists and labels must have been making more money then than now.

 

So I guess people who are not into physicals were simply pirating most of their music before streaming took off?

 

I have no idea. Perhaps. There was the time that Napster was out there and file sharing took a major bite out of the biz.

Another article

Slipping discs: music streaming revenues of $6.6bn surpass CD sales

Once again, the artist gets screwed but the labels do quite nicely (that is unless you are like, say, Fleetwood Mac)

 

Artists now ?
Hmm...read a lot of complaints about a paltry figures...more cents than dollars.

 

I'm sure they did but with the slashing of staff, etc. they ain't hurting now compared to when the bottom dropped out.

 

Here is the data from the RIAA. They count units shipped by record labels for physical media, not units sold at retail. Nielsen Soundscan used to estimate retail sales but it looks like they're not interested in physical media anymore.

http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/RIAA-2018-Year-End-Music-Industry-Revenue-Report.pdf
To summarize:
Streaming is where the growth is, accounting for 75% of music revenues for 2018 for the record labels

digital downloads 11% of revenues

physical media accounted for 12% of revenues:

vinyl 3.6% of revenues, 16.7 million units shipped

cd 6% of revenues, 52 million units shipped

dvd and SACD 2.4% of revenues, 1.9 million units shipped

 

Well, that's still a big decline in revenue from when CD is king. I guess it reached a point where too many people didn't want to pay for any form of music, until streaming came along.

As a 24 year old guy who loves CDs, this whole thing is sad to me but I think CDs can remain alive if artists/labels take the right steps.

 

consumers = good deal
Artists= not such a great deal

 

But didn't the article mention that Nielsen did estimate sales from last year?

 

Oh and Walmart needs to stop selling only censored versions of hip hop albums, that can't possibly be helping sales.

 

I agree. I'd prefer to have them around. I'm not against vinyl either personally especially for all of the artwork, etc. but from an expense perspective, CDs are certainly more cost effective if you want a physical media. As to HD downloads, some of them are priced well and some not-so-much. I've always been more of a physical media kind of guy for most stuff but if I can get a great sounding HD download at a decent price, i will go for that as well. I'm not wedded to a format BUT I fell in love with CDs during the early 80's (even with all of the flawed and great mastering out there).

 

Remain alive ?
CDs :Glory days are gone, past twenty years.
But CDs will remain a niche market, packaged well, sounding good a valuable artifact.

 

I could see them selling both--one for the parent concerned about what the kid is hearing and one for the parent or teen. They want to be so family friendly though, I think that impacts what they carry.

The ironic thing is that I have so much stuff (at least 6000 CDs and 200 vinyl and I'm not counting the cassettes which never made the transition to CD) that the only place I can find stuff that interests me in bricks and mortar stores are places like Amoeba although even then i occasionally walk out without buying something.

 

I do think that the love for CDs will always be smaller than that for vinyl. Vinyl has the advantage of being (or should be anyway) analog which doesn't have a direct competition. CDs have lower quality MP3's and HD downloads as well as streaming for competition. The fact is that there were many dragged kicking and screaming into digital that resented it and they never really warmed to compact discs.

I would love to be wrong of course. I do think that CDs and vinyl will hold some value for those looking for physical copies and that, after going out of print, they will go the CD-R market like they do now or strictly to downloads after the initial release.

 

The thing about downloads, I feel that if I'm going to pay for an album I'd rather have the CD. Otherwise I'll just stream it. I buy as many albums as I can and use streaming just to sample albums or listen to things from artists who have good singles but haven't really put out quality albums.

But yeah, I love CDs because they're cheap, have great sound quality, and satisfy my physical media craving. Amazon has a massive selection of well priced CDs, so I think that can help keep CDs alive.

The article brought up a good point about hip hop artists not releasing their CDs on release day hurts the sales, because hip hop moves very fast and even 1 month can be enough for people to lose interest. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I want to become a famous musician and eventually only release my albums on CD.

Yeah I know that the glory days are over but I'll be happy if they remain easily available.

 

Vinyl has the cool factor. CDs never had that. More of a convenience thing, sticking it in your pocket, compact.

 

My concern is the few remaining bricks mortar stores usually don’t have what I want so I have to order title ( CDs/vinyl ).

 

I know I recently asked Ryan U who masters the Tom Petty releases why HD and vinyl get the better mastering vs. CD and MP3 and it came down to the fact that CDs are really viewed as no better than an MP3 in their mind but the cost of doing the CDs (this was my impression from the brief exchange and if I'm wrong, it's on me) would be nothing. It's just the expectation that those that buy CDs aren't interested in an audiophile experience (that would be untrue and just a perception).

 

Yeah, they can sell both but as of now they only sell censored which is super lame. I would either go to Target or use Amazon for any hip hop albums.

I wish I had an Amoeba type of place near me.

Aren't modern vinyls sourced from digital files, though? Kind of defeats the purpose in my opinion.

What do you mean CD-R market?

I don't know if this is true or not but someone in a CD group on fb mentioned that CD sales are up 4% year to date, if that's true then that's good. Maybe people who are into vinyl will release that CD collecting is much cheaper while still satisfying the physical media craving (that's literally what happened to me, though I was never anti-CD).

 

Yeah, in some instances but for the folks that haven't just jumped on board, analog mastering and sourcing has made a come back for most. It's also important to the audiophile vinyl collector that, where possible, the chain be analog.

For hipsters who just adopted albums because they look cool, it doesn't matter. For hard core vinyl fans, it does and they do pay attention.

 

He would certainly be wrong because while I'm not super picky, I want the top tier sound quality available on my CD. Hopefully not everyone thinks like him. I have bought new albums on CD and thought they sounded pretty good.

 

The thing is, the vinyl resurgence seems to mostly be because of hipsters. And with hip hop albums especially, I doubt the whole chain was analog. Probably digital do digital to analog or something like that.

 

Oh and I have to imagine that new cars not having CD players will sadly, have a negative impact on CDs. New cars went from universally having CD players in 2016, to not many of them having CD players in 2019.

Of course, that is not an issue for anyone who is actively interested in keeping the CD alive, since listening to CDs in your house will always be a thing. I don't even have a car so all of my CD listening takes place in my room.

 

Someone needs to figure out how to get hipsters into CD. If it worked for vinyl, it can work for CD.

 

Right. The problem is, CDs don't have that very anachronistic, inconvenient quality that vinyls have, so they're not "dated" enough to be retro.

What I'm hoping is that the renewed interest in vinyl will lead to some renewed interest in CDs as well. I heard that CD sales are up 4% this year but I'm not sure if it's true.