Parting with CDs

I would bet that the cds that forum members have go a bit further than "generic". I'm surprised how much out of print cds are going for these days.

 

Yeah, I see that stat a lot and it seems like a rip off to the artists......until you start understanding just how many plays some of these songs are getting.

List of most-streamed songs on Spotify - Wikipedia

Bohemian Rhapsody, a 40 year old song from a movie that had a 3 month run, has been streamed 939 Million times on Spotify, producing $6.5 million dollars in revenue. Add in Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal, and other streaming services, that's probably $12.0 million dollars in revenue. That ain't chump change.

Shape Of You by Ed Sheeran, streamed 2.2 Billion times, that's $15.5 million dollars on Spotify, probably $30 million all-in with all the streaming services.

Good songs get an astounding amount of plays and generate significant revenue. Streaming is good for artists.

 

So, when I buy a used cd or record, the seller shares part of what I spent to the artist?

 

Who is Ed Sheeran?

 

Sure, a small fraction of the Used CD market has produced some circumvented revenue for the artists in question. But that's a small fraction. No 18 year old about to start college in 2 weeks and discovering Dark Side Of The Moon for the first time is going to go see them in concert. They're 70 years old now. Collective Soul are in their 50's.

Since 90% of new music is streamed and the recording industry seems to be surviving, I'd say that whatever contracts were negotiated between the artists, labels, and streaming services is working just fine. The big acts make the big money, the small acts struggle, its no different than the vinyl/tape/CD era.

 

It wasn't meant to be taken personally. There is a forum myth that says that streaming sound quality is inferior. My point is that it isn't if one is using modern equipment optimized for streaming content.

A 1990 Marantz rack system sounded brilliant back then playing CD's because it was optimized for CD's. A 2019 Apple HomePod or BMW 16 speaker car audio system or Bose Active Noise Cancelling Headphone sound brilliant because they are optimized for Streaming.

 

"...So it came to pass this year that, fuelled by visions of tiny homes and thoughts of all the ruinous excesses of late-capitalist consumer culture, I began asking myself some blunt questions..."

My goodness friend, this is what fuelled you? Doing "your part'?

You get one life. Do you love the stuff, or not? If you outgrew it, just say so. If you dumped the disks to feel like you made the world greener, well hooray.

I bought every piece of physical media I own to listen to it. To enjoy, to make me happy - not to be immortal. I suppose I could launch a massive conversion project to rip them all to hi-res files to save space. Or not. What I find as I get older is I'm tired of messing with making copies, best-of mixes, etc. I would rather just listen as much as I can.

CD is not my preferred format, but the thousand or so I have are going nowhere soon. They've earned their shelf space

 

There are more powerful speakers and/or you can daisy chain the HomePod to get a more powerful sound. Car systems and headphones are where the rubber meets the road for Streaming.

Remember, people haven't purchased mammoth speakers and giant rack systems of separate audio components and carved out dedicated in-home "listening rooms" in 25 years, that dinosaur way of listening is as out of touch as an Edison cylinder would have been to you when we were teens. Streaming isn't for these old "sound rooms" because people don't have sound rooms anymore. They are busy. They don't consume music in a dedicated listening space. They squeeze it in their bathrooms, their kitchens, their cars, and their commuter trains as time permits. That's the current lifestyle and that's why Streaming is so successful.

 

That's an excellent history lesson, and you are 100% correct.

Except it's 2019. And today, Streaming is so much woven into the fabric of social media and so affordable that ripping CD's and sharing files is as dead as the CD itself is. Steve Jobs was right that if the pricing were reasonable no one would steal music anymore. $0.99 cents to own a single song worked in 2002 and $10 a month for unlimited listening to 45 million songs works today.

So Used CD's are really the only thing left that hurt an artists ability to make money. It's a small fraction of the business, it's really not even worth discussing except to call out those who are anti-streaming on the grounds of 'ripping off artists' when they themselves are getting a free ride and shouldn't talk.

 

Post photos of your systems/rooms here! (Part 14)

Post photos of your systems/rooms here! (Part 15)

 

I'd replace "good" with "popular" in your sentence.

"Amount of plays" does not always equal quality as far as I'm concerned.

 

Yes. The way it works today is you keep your MP3/AAC library on your iPhone and you subscribe to a streaming service for $10 a month and you're covered for the rest of your life.

I've got dozens of out of print and boot CD's ripped safe and sound on my iPhone and in the same "Music" app alongside the motherlode of 45 million songs and all the new music that is yet to come.

When I feel like it I say "Hey Siri, play my Playlist Best Of The Beatles Outtakes" and on comes 100 songs from Swinging Pig and other boots that I've curated from files in my library. When I'm bored and want to hear something new, I say "Hey Siri, play the new album by Tame Impala" and on comes those songs streamed from the cloud. The physical ripped library and the virtual streamed library become one in the same in realworld usage though they are different data sources.

 

Great question. Here's your answer:

1. Keep your CD's and enjoy them.
2. Pay $10 a month to a Streaming service and enjoy that.

You will find that when you're in your listening room you'll walk across the room, grab Songs In The Key Of Life, and play the physical CD. But when you're everywhere else (showering, driving, commuting, exercising) you'll use Streaming. "Hey Siri, play the top songs by Stevie Wonder" requires no effort and produces a wonderful result. "Hey Siri, play Songs In The Key Of Life by Stevie Wonder" puts your album where you are without having to reach for a disc.

 

Problem today is that the person selling the CD to a used shop isn't "giving up his right to listen to the album" because he's ripped it. So every time a used CD changes hands its another lost opportunity for a sale and a violation of that gentlemanly 'understanding' from the 80's when they couldn't imagine a time that getting the music off the copy protected laser disc was even possible.

I think the thing that's missing here is that those of us who have embraced Streaming are still listening to our physical libraries too. And even though we own The Stranger on CD we don't use CD's in our cars, on our commuter trains, or on our workouts. For that, we just say "Hey Siri, play The Stranger by Billy Joel" and on it comes from our streaming service. Streaming is a convenience. It's not really about the discovery of new music; it's a way to bring all the music we already love into our active lifestyles. Yeah, we're paying $10 a month, but it's cool, the artists get compensated and we get all the music we care about anywhere we are in the world.

 

Hilarious!

 

Cable tv was a convenience too, and now folks pay through the nose to watch three shows on seven thousand channels lol Where they used to be able to watch those three shows for free on tv and have a couple of ads where they could make a coffee or take a pee.
Streaming ain't for me

 

Ever heard of BMI or ASCAP etc?

 

First off, thank you for fixing the font. You look like a "regular" poster now which is very cool. It's appreciated.

Next, your physical analogies like cars, engines, pants, etc. isn't the way it works in the music business. Think of Born To Run as you think of Electricity. Or Cellular. "Wait a minute, I paid $200 last month to run the air conditioner and the refrigerator so why do I have to spend $200 this month for the same thing?" "Hey, I paid $75 last month to make phone calls and this month I'm calling the same people, so why do I have to spend $75 again?" Because you own devices that can translate those streaming services but you don't own the content.

Born To Run isn't a physical product. It's a utility. It's something that comes and goes in your life but you don't own it, it's not yours. Albums were designed to last 10 years until the next great technology came about to make you, and the next generation of virgin listeners, buy it again. Sgt. Pepper, I think my family has bought 10 times (Edit: Let's see....mono vinyl, stereo vinyl, 8 track, PlayTape, MSFL vinyl, picture disc, cassette, '87 CD, '09 CD, '17 Remix Download, '19 HomePod Streaming....so that's 11) and that is the revenue that the Beatles expected for their legacy catalog over the years. And I'm not complaining. For 50 years of listening to a really great album, I think the band deserves my money.

 

I have never envied another human being on this Earth as much as I envy you.

 

I feel no guilt buying second hand CDs by artists who are doing all right financially like Pink Floyd, Supertramp and Guns 'n' Roses. I wouldn't even be given a Supertramp album for free to be honest. I do feel a bit bad and try to buy new when it's a less established current artist. But ultimately I've got to take care of my own finances as a priority.

I'm also sure that a lot of these musicians will have copied other artists albums as well as probably bought second hand when they weren't rich themselves.

 

I wonder if when streaming is the lord of the domain, and folks are paying a hundred dollars a month to listen to top forty hits from the last five decades, folks will regret it

 

The paranoia over Streaming services and/or recording companies "taking music away" is so 2014. Today it's 90% of the business and its not going anywhere. If an artist threatened to pull out, the Streaming service would counter by threatening to pull that label's smaller artists off the service. If a Streaming service threatened to throw out an artists, the label would counter by threatening to pull 10 other artists off and give them exclusively to a streaming competitor. It's too big now. They've all got each other in check and are working as partners to grow the business. And it's working. Streaming is probably the biggest technological leap in recorded music history.

What you've just described is exactly what Streaming does for you. It's all music ever released, upwards of 60 million songs, at your fingertips for less than a cup of coffee and a bagel each month.

 

I find it hard to fathom that anyone could make a case for financial recompense for the artists, when streaming is virtually cutting the artists throat and feeding the machine