slop101

Best Buy to Pull CDs, Target Threatens to Pay Labels for CDs Only When Customers Buy Them

Not in the last few years, but over the years, I've bought a shit ton of CDs from BB. And while I don't buy as much as I used to, I still buy a fair amount, but mostly fairly obscure stuff that I'd never expect BB, or any B&M outside of Amoeba, to carry.

So while my buying habits have changed some, BB's selling habits have also changed... which came first? Who's responsible? Who knows!

Alan Smithee

Another nail in Best Buy's coffin for me.

Mike86

Honestly I think it’s been getting to this point for a while. Walmart and Target have basically dwindled down their music sections to a row and an end cap of new releases (although strangely at my Walmart they’ve recently added a little selection of vinyl albums) and I won’t be surprised if they eliminate music sections all together or maybe just get in a few new releases.

hdnmickey

I'm perfectly OK buying CD's online, and only online. I haven't bought a CD at a B&M for years that wasn't some kind of exclusive and Target seems to get more releases that include exclusive song than other retailers). For all others there are far better prices online. And since I've also purchased some of those exclusives online I would actually prefer to do that as long as the price is right.

The Cow

Also posted in the store forum:

Best Buy to Stop Selling CDs Effective 7/1, Target Pushes Away CD & DVD Industry

I doubt I've bought more than 10 or so CDs over the years from BB, they never had much more than a mainstream selection. I have bought several Music Video selections from them over the years, though.

Why So Blu?

I'll stick to vinyl and streaming. I think the last CDs I bought were Megadeth and Rob Zombie's latest just to get the free vinyl through Target's promotion 2 years ago.

stvn1974

There is also a rumor that I read somewhere that starting around Christmas this year iTunes and amazon.com are going to do with away with selling downloads. You won't be able to purchase music and burn a CD-R anymore.

Troy Stiffler

There's discussion about how this is going to cut down funding for the artist (either for the industry, or their personal well being). I don't see it. I think the music industry is flooded with content. There's no going back from that. There's really no centralized artists anymore. And there have always been one hit wonders and similar scenarios with working-class musicians. And if you're in it to make a lot of money, then you're doing it wrong.

CD's are useless to me. I don't appreciate the clutter.

If anything needs restructured, then restructure it. That's between the artists and the vendors (Spotify, Amazon Music, etc.). But CD's are pointless.

gryffinmaster

Went to a reorganized Best Buy a few weeks ago that had recently moved from one building to another nearby, and it’s pretty obvious they’d already given up on CDs. The marginal stock they had was crammed on one rack in the back corner of the store, disheveled and with literally zero organization going on.

Still found one to get for $5, though.

Josh-da-man

I'd love to see vinyl come back as the primary physical format.

The biggest stumbling block is, I think, the price. $25-$40 is just too much for an album, especially one that is decades old. If I could buy records at $10-$15, I would be buying a shit-ton of the stuff.

Alan Smithee

If Target also phases out movies, then I will go to Wal-Mart more often for my regular shopping if they keep selling them. Usually I buy things on impulse while making those sorts of trips, or at least take a look at them.

Sad to say but there hasn't been a whole lot of great music lately, and when there is places like Best Buy and Target don't sell it anyways. Last CD I bought at Best Buy (mainly to use a $5 "Rewards Certificate") was the latest Pet Shop Boys album- the kid at the register asked me if they "were any good", I said they'd only been around for about 30 years or so. (I've been a fan of them since 1984, when they released the ORIGINAL and superior version of "West End Girls".) At another Best Buy store I saw some people actually trying to get some customer service in the CD section, and the salesdrone said "I don't even HAVE a CD player now!"

Other comments about this I've seen elsewhere today have said that people buy CDs and "rip" them, then just file them away. What exactly do you rip them to, and how is that better than just playing them?

JeffTheAlpaca

but they sound better than mp3's

slop101

Were you as condescending to him as you sound in this post?

Jason

But the whole point of resuscitating vinyl was to make albums $25-40.

PhantomStranger

In its heyday I spent thousands on CDs at Best Buy. The music section was as large as almost any place at one time, even carrying stuff that Tower wouldn't carry. This is sad but not unexpected. The writing was on the wall over the past two years. Walmart and Target still carry CDs but I doubt they last much longer as well.

I stopped shopping for CDs at Best Buy around a year ago. They stopped carrying much of a selection at all, even for newish releases. Barnes & Noble has carried a much deeper CD selection the past 3-4 years. If you still need to shop a retail store for CDs, go there.

stingermck

Yeah to me this is just another reason not to go to Best Buy. Mine became a glorified cell phone store a few years ago.

Why So Blu?

Unless you know where to shop to get them less than what they normally go for in stores. Unless it's a boutique label you can get most of what you want at decent prices.

Norm de Plume

I buy only very few CDs nowadays, but I still want to be able to. Maybe CDBaby will be the only option down the road.

kefrank

I've bought hundreds of CDs over the years and I can probably count the number I've purchased at Best Buy on one hand.

story

Does that mean you're stuck with a streaming service? Does that mean I can only get music if I have internet and/or thought to download it to my synced device? That's the future but wow, a few million people are going to be lost in the generational and digital divide on that one.

Alan Smithee

No, just a little surprised that he'd never heard of them. But the last "new" Pet Shop Boys song to get any airplay on US radio was their cover of "Where the Streets Have No Name" in 1991, despite their putting out lots of brilliant material since then.

I've said this before, but I used to buy TONS of CDs every payday and that stopped when the greedy record labels started increasing their prices. It seems a few new albums are priced a bit lower now, but my enthusiasm for buying more CDs died and that's not enough to bring it back. I have so many anyways that I hardly have time to listen to that I don't really need too many more, I mainly buy the new albums by older bands I'm a die-hard fan of and I've also been filling in the holes in my collection with older albums while they're still in print. Multi-channel SACD would've brought back my music-buying mojo, but they never had a lot of great material on that format and it was also overpriced.

Ironically, Best Buy's original name was The Sound of Music.

slop101

Well, if you wanna buy CDs, now's the time - they've never been cheaper or easier to find, and you can find multiple versions of almost everything. But I'm pretty sure, as with vinyl, there will be a resurgence of CD's popularity, and prices will go up, for used and new, and stuff will get tougher to find.

B5Erik

Having had multiple computers take a dump on me and losing everything on my hard drive I will never be a fan of downloads.

And as I can't do streaming in my car I need some kind of digital format to play in the car to listen to music. And I'm not interested in streaming, anyway. I want to be able to listen to anything and everything I want to, not just what that streaming service has contracted to make available.

Streaming is limited. Downloads can get corrupted and hard drives can go bad.

CD's are the best way to go. You not only get a master copy of the music you can rip, but you also get the booklet with credits, lyrics, pictures, etc, that you don't get with streaming and that you often don't get with downloads.

Artists need to be able to make money writing and recording music. It isn't free for them to do that. Time is money. Recording requires money. The less they have, the cheaper the music will sound, both from a songwriting and a sonic standpoint.

The idea that music has no monetary value is laughable. It's sad. And it will be the end of great music. Oh, there will be plenty of new music - but most of it will be amateurish shit.

morriscroy

Last month Warner Music officially announced "buyouts" for 100+ employees in the physical media department.

Most likely layoffs under a different name.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/bu...er-music-group

morriscroy

For the raw sounding "stream of consciousness" type of stuff on youtube (and previously myspace), it doesn't cost much of anything.

For a good sounding potential "hit" recording, definitely. Most of it will be paying the fees for a competent studio engineer and producer. If the original artist/group are not very good songwriters, there's always the additional fee of hiring a professional songwriter to polish whatever turds they previously wrote.