The Weekly DiScussion: are CDs all but dead?

and don't know if I'd ever pay for a download (esp not on Itunes)

The way forward is bands giving out their music for free and having a paypal donations thing. Maybe.

I like having a CD/record in its physical form. I like getting it home, putting it on and thumbing through the booklet and the thankyou notes while I listen to it.

I want to be able to lend it to people, and to look at it 10 years after I bought it and have memories of when I listened to it first come back to me.

It makes it alot easier and cheaper to buy music. In fact, in alot of cases, it's cheaper than downloads.

and after moving house, my CDs remain boxed up, as there's just no point unpacking them.

They've always just been a means to get the music to the consumer. There're better ways to do that, now.

Karma download. They were pretty cool - but now theyve shut down :(

and there's always room for more!

Fuck downloading.

and lots of stuff 'online' which is just another form of media -I don't think they'll die, they're just more than ever just discs with info on, that's all

On here at least, the physical form is way more pleasing to have, pile up in ridiculously high piles and continually knock over when drunk thus annoying people by creating a mess in your room and potentially uncovering a Wildhearts single you'd forgotten you even owned and then sitting listening to CDs from the piles all night rather than sleeping. This might have happened to me recently.

I'm glad someone else brought up the 'what if your computer fucks up?' thing. If I bought all the CDs I'd bought this year as downloads and my PC fucked up I think my heart would stop.

and i like them because i get nostalgic, but i was reading an article that said that websites like i-tunes and libertunes are assuming that the cd is dead... or at least the pre-made cd is dead. I went to a show and one of the artists was selling id-sized plastic cards that had the art for his music on one side and a bar code on the other and the bar code meant you could download songs because he said he didn't want to spend money making cd's heaving them around on tour, etc. I couldn't believe it. What about CDs???? :(

i still buy about 5 cds a month, sometimes more.
i like having something to show for my money, that if i delete from my pc or mp3 player on accident i can get it back at no extra cost
i reckon cds will prob die out soon, but i don't want them to as i want to be able to play my grandkids my cds in the future and get them into the bands i like (lame i know, but true)
i don't want to have to store mp3's in my car or plug my mp3 player in all the time as its annoying and wastes battery.
so yeah i like cds... but my mp3 player is handy as i have like 6000 songs to listen to when i'm on the bus or train or in a boring lesson. but i still like having a cd collection.
since mp3's have been introduced i definately have ALOT more cds than i used to.

NEVER !

I have all of my music in digital form on my computer, because I find it's a more convenient way of storing and accessing it all.
However, I infinitely prefer either going to a shop, or even just ordering off the net, to get the physical object, than some intangible digital file. There's an innate value in a physical object that isn't there with files.

The biggest thing, for me, that puts me off the whole legal download business is - Stuff gets DRM'ed to hell and back. I know it's technically very naughty, but when I buy something like that, I want to be able to decide what I do with it, how I choose to listen to it, etc.
I certainly don't want Apple, Microsoft, et al, telling me that I have to buy their player to listen to what I've bought. The way it's going, that's a distinct possibility.
My friends and I also regularly lend each other our new CDs. I don't want Apple telling me that I'm not allowed to do that anymore. As an example, I got into The Smiths after borrowing their Best Of off a friend. Under a DRM system, I wouldn't have been able to do that, I would've had to have bought it out of trust (sometimes others can be right, not all the time).
DRM, and it's associated flaws, are easily my biggest problem with the digital music age.

but unless I REALLY like something, if I can get it for free I will. I still buy about an album a week on average but rarely ones that are recently released

If it were a choice of CD or mp3 at a similar price, CD would win out every time - even though I don't have a stereo other than my pc

re-ordering my CDs and listening to them through mega-headphones, I think I'd be devastated if they were to die off. They're not quite as 'loveable' as vinyl, but they're convenient and still have wonderful artwork and packaging and booklets and lovely sound quality etc etc.

Of course they arent, nothing beats the real thing, and what you have to show for it. i mean the odd mp3 of an artist youre finding more about or something but still.

"4) i want the track order presented as the artist intended"

YES!!!

Fuck downloading.

but too much of my music is downloaded. The ideal is to be rich and buy everything on vinyl. But I can't afford a record player let alone everything on vinyl.

And it goes to downloading albums what the hell is going to happen to our record labels and bands? People will never be able to be made pay for a download. Id rather see CDs survive for the sake of Minor labels and upcoming bands.

Are a convenient way of carrying your whole record collection around with you, but the sound is not as good as the original, and I'm of the opinion that artwork is an essential part of an album. CD's are cheaper than ever from online suppliers, so there's no excuse not to spend £8 on a CD and forsake a few £3 pints of beer

the best thing is a Bang and Olufson Record deck and all the latest releases on vinyl, untouched by human hands.

the next best thing is CD. The sound quality of digital downloads is atrocious. I would hope that the digital download never replaces a physical format. instead, I think the 2 formats complement each other well, and should continue to do so.

i admit to downloading stuff from 'new' bands, and then going to the shops to purchase a CD. How else would i have discovered bands like Metric? - whom i had a very mixed opinion of until i downloaded some of their stuff par example.

hmm, shouldn't really enter into intelligent discussions after going to the pub and boozing for 4 hours...

And I prefer to have my loud noises on vinyl and CD than downloads!

Just before I left the UK for Qatar, I transferred all my CDs to a hard drive. Took ages, but I was glad that I didn't drag all my records over here as I later found that the customs people impound CDs to check for their content. I could have kissed goodbye to my precious copy of 'Songs about Fucking'.

BUT - there is no romance with mp3s. I miss cracking open the CD case and reacquainting myself with the artwork and lyrics.

I especially miss that little wait for Sufjan's 'Vito's Ordination Song' to access from a CD, after I hurriedly press 'track advance' 16 times. Clicking onto the song directly in iTunes is not the same somehow.

Plus, I encoded my mp3s in 128kbps. Push the volume right up and the track's definition goes. Damn!

Incidentally, is anyone willing to send me some stuff on CDr, to my UK forwarding address? There are NO records shops here! And my house doesn't have a phone/internet line because the fuckers at QTel can't be arsed to fit one!

...artists with the know-how should sell their music directly to the consumer by their websites be it in CD or digital form. This way, they get all the money back.

Smart!

if vinyl is still around then why would CDs die out?

Having an entire music collection as a list on a screen would be bollocks.

I look at a CD collection in a similar way to owning art. You buy a painting which you can be proud to own and have on display for others to appreciate and admire. You don't download a digital picture just because its easier than getting off you ass and going to the shops. A digital imitation will never be as good as the physical thing. ever.

i think the majority of people who use this site are more into music than than the average person, and appreciate the artwork, sound quality and general product more than the casual music fans who just want to listen to one or two tracks from an album, which is the demographic in which CD sales will decline (or die, depending on how doom and gloom you want to be).
its also bizarre that media/industry types are so keen to kill off the CD, as if we have to run into the distant future of music faster than sonic the hedgehog through a level. can we not approach it a little more slowly, and with a little less extreme lanuage?

I would love to see artists doing something about letting you download the album if you buy it in physical format as well. I buy all my albums on Vinyl still, however I do use an iPod as I travel alot and it would just save the hassle of tracking down obscure albums through illegal downloads.

If people stopped releasing CDs, I'd probably buy nothing as I've never downloaded anything before and I still like have my tangeble item.

...and what about record shops? Most town centres are overrun with virgins, hmvs etc., all ready... I highly doubt I'd ever be able to stroll into my local indie record shop and have a good chat about what barcodes I should spend my weeks wages on..?

my life in a nutshell.

quoting "If anything the death of physical formats will be good for bands and smaller labels. Distribution of a files is a lot easier and cheaper than distribution of cds or vinyl" <- to my best knowledge smaller laber actually prefer physical formats, especially, vinyls..

yeah fopp is totally rinsing me, you always go in and see like the whole of bob dylan's back catalogue for £5 each

Once your PC/MP3 player/both fills up, then what? Do you have to start deleting the paid content?

I don't like the restrictions on what you can do with the files either.

I like artwork. And lyric sheets. Without having to find them, print them and do a bit of a Blue Peter job on a blank case.

And downloads allow people to decide that they don't like a track or two, therefore they'll just get the 'good stuff'. Killing the concepts of a) growers, and b) albums as an artists' complete statement.

If CDs go the way of cassettes I'll get very annoyed. I reckon it could happen, but I doubt it'll be within 5 years.

conversation at the pub on Friday night. A few people were trying to convince me that it's the same having a nasty little icon/pic of the album artwork on an iPod as tangibly having it in your hands. I was told that I was obsessive with my CDs. I'll download the odd song, usually a guilty pleasure, but I have to buy CDs. There's nothing more satisfying than having them all displayed, leafing through and putting one on.

downloads will slowly encroach. Brainlove hasn't made the switch to digital yet because it's still a minority of people that use those services, the audience for downloads just isn't widespread enough yet.

it makes more sense to buy cd's espically as at the moment you can buy a cd average £8 and it actually works out cheaper than buying 10 tracks online at 75/85p per tracks and you get artwork, a back up copy of your music and it does not compress the bottom and top end of the aound quality!

CD's WILL LIVE!

I was very impressed by that.

for the obvious reasons

i have to walk past 2 on my way home

avalanche in edinburgh is just as bad, they surrounded the university with shops for a while which was bad news for my bank balance.

but my several-hundred CD (and cassette) collection is gathering dust. Lots of it. I used to love buying CDs, at least a few a week, but downloading has reduced that to no more than half a dozen a year - most of those are pity-buys, where I think my favourite albums of the year deserve a little charity reward. And a little reminder of the "romance" for me.

As for filling up your computer, I've bought a solid-state file server and 300 gig disk, which will happily serve me for a few years. This is connected via Wifi to a Roku Soundbridge from where I can play any album on the stereo from the remote control without getting my arse out of the beanbag. And without having a computer on. Marvellous marvellous technology.

The whole collection is backed up on my work computer on the other side of London, so the whole of North London can burn down and I won't have lost a song. The CD-is-a-form-of-backup theory doesn't wash when your whole flat goes up in flames from the dopey people living below you leaving the iron on.

Downloading is utterly addictive. Think shopping in a second-hand music shop is fun? It simply doesn't compare to doing it drunk in your own house at 2am in the morning. Start at a random point on the All Music Guide and follow it wherever you want. Discover stuff you'd never a chance of finding in a CD shop. Stuff that's simply not even available in the country.

Yes, the quality isn't as good, but the first ten years of my music experience was all on the crappy mediums of cassette and AM radio. I'm used to it, and I'm more into the hooks and melody and energy besides. And the artwork I can generally take or leave, although I'm certainly not into burning CDs and having piles of bland things with your own messy handwriting. Where's the convenience in that?

One question though - someone above said minor artists make most of their money from live performances. Is this really true? I certainly go to a lot more gigs because of downloading, but a vague friend in the pub reckons bands make bugger all from it. Would really like some insight from someone who knows.

I'm depressed now.