reverie

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4566186.stm

I support the music industry in the way that I love music, and love owning cds (given the choice, I'd much rather buy a cd than download music!), but I'm really getting tired of the constant whining and crying. Do they think nonstop bitching is going to save them?!

Tracer Bullet

They don't know what else to do. They're still too wedded to an outdated distribution system.

grunter

Sorry, but the distribution system is not outdated. It would still work if the industry as a whole actually supported the CD format. Currently there aren't enough suppliers of hardware out there that permits one to play a damned CD. Go to a Best Buy or a Circuit City - any big chain electronics store. Single-disc CD players are history - completely gone. Your choices are: (a) Buy a poorly engineered and thought-out multiple disc "carousel;" (b) a cheap handheld CD walkman; or (c) a CD drive/burner for your computer. There's NOTHING ELSE.

Whereas there are about 20 zillion different places to listen to the "1's" and "0's" that are downloaded "content."

Fuck that. I will never convert to a system that forces me to download new content. Forget it. If I can't buy the physical CD, then I don't get the music. It's as simple as that.

stevevt

What about single disc DVD players? Those also play CDs, and can be found just about anywhere, including drug stores. And you can pretty much pick any price over $20 and find one for your budget.

grunter

Do you know anyone who actually uses their DVD player as their primary CD player as well?

auto

It is a viable option.

jonnyrocks

I do, but not by choice; rather, I do it for the exact reason that you mentioned a few posts up: it's really difficult to find a decent single-tray CD player in your standard B&M store, and those carousel systems are totally not for me.

Granted, I know there are tons of options by going with audiophile systems, but until I feel like spending $300+ on a CD player, I'm somewhat forced to use my DVD player as my primary CD player.

Compared to the ease of use and the features available on single-tray CD players (I owned one until it died a few years back), DVD players are barely a worthy alternative. Of course, there's always eBay...

Jason

Good point. At least you can still get a single in-dash CD player for your car.

Tracer Bullet

They support the CD format as much as it is economically viable to do so. The paucity of players of a certain quality has more to do with the record industry's failed attempt to replace the CD with another format. Consumers are increasingly just not interested in traditional physical-medium music distribution.

I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing- I don't think downloadable music as it currently stands is much of a distribution model, either.

PJsig08

I use my DVD as a CD player for parties and such. Otherwise, it's CD's off my computer or MP3s.

The problem is CD prices. $10-15 is still WAY too much and until they get down to $5 a pop (which probably will never happen) we will see the music industry continue to struggle.

Why spend over $10 when I can burn it for the cost of one $0.10 CD-R.

UAIOE

I'll agree, prices too high and quality too low.

I only use the MP3 format for downloading long out-of-print songs or material that was never commercially released.

Drop the prices to sub-$10 ($9.99 doesnt count) and we can talk.

Giantrobo

Perhaps the real problem is some groups only release new cd's every 4 or 5 years. I mean some of my favorite bands have huge gaps in between new releases or they get lazy and put out LIVE cds which is nothing but rehashing.

To be honest, I'm still not on the downlaod bandwagon and I buy 99% of my cd's USED.

reverie

I dunno.. I don't mind the 'carousel' players. And just for ease and convenience, I'll probably be using my DVD player downstairs to play cds when we get it all in order. But I do think that if it ever comes down to having to download music or nothing, much as I love music, my new purchases will be few and far between.

It's surprising a little the way that's going. I remember all the predictions that physical media will never go away, because people liked to own stuff, and see it. But now, MP3s are kind of proving that wrong. Could movies one day follow the same path?

dadaluholla

I've only bought 2 or 3 new cds at a store this whole year (and a few used ones). There just isn't much of anything I WANT anymore. I don't see that improving in 2006.

And I haven't downloaded anything either.

Michael Sheridan

Nice summary....I feel the same way. Unless it was an album that debuted this year from one of "my bands", etc......i didnt purchase. Most of my purchases were from iTunes anyway...

Joeboo835

I honestly think it has NOTHING to do with the media that its on. The drop has everything to do with the complete crap that is released by the music industry.

I dare you to name 1 band or musician that has come out in the past 5 years that you can honestly see sticking around for 15-20 years. And you could argue that 5 years or less isn't enough time, but I just don't see anyone with any talent enough to think that they last very long.

The drop in CD sales SHOULD make the companies put out better music, but we all know it'll only lead to higher priced downloads or tighter restrictions, like DRMs.

grunter

I call "bullshit" on this. Several of the posts in this thread point to the fact that people would buy CDs if the hardware was there to support it and if the content actually warranted the price. Again, were CDs a better value, then sales might increase. The current trend of "dual-disc-ing" releases (further making prematurely obsolete the single disc players that can't accomodate the chunky new, but totally pointless, "flipper" CDs) or adding worthless never-played DVD content and increasing the prices accordingly will never lure in the CD "burners" who steal the music offline and make spurious "back-up" copies of everything they "own." And let's not even get into the recent bone-headed move of certain companies putting potentially damaging spyware on CDs.

When you're average CD price costs more than a DVD movie, you've got a problem with too many hands looking for a piece of the profit pie.

You've also got a problem with selection. In most chain stores, the only CDs available are literally just greatest hits packages. How many back catalogue CDs do you expect to move when you sell nothing but greatest hits compilations? The casual consumer buys that one disc and he or she is usually through with that artist.

I'm a dedicated CD buyer and always will be. Probably 70% of what I buy is used, but that's because the only place I can find back catalog material is in the used bins. I buy new CDs only when they are heavily discounted (under $11.99 for a single disc) and when I know the title will never hit the used bins for months and months. I cannot bring myself to pay any amount of money to "purchase" a non-physical download of a song. To me, that is a complete and utter waste of cash. Not having a permanent storage system that would preserve these "1's" and "0's" from my sporadic transfers of data from one computer to another, I just see no point to paying money for what is essentially an ephemeral product. Watch the uproar in a year or so when the new iPodlings hatched at Christmas discover that they're "pods'" battery just died and along with it went their several hundred dollars in downloaded iTune "songs." I'm sorry, but that, to me, is too close to renting one's music library. I refuse to get sucked into that endless money pit.

Brain Stew

Are you ok there Grandpa? Just from reading your post I can tell that you have never used an iPod or understand how they work. Personally, I enjoy just putting my iPod in my pocket rather than lugging around my cd player and cd wallets. When I am at home I will listen to my CDs, but not when on the go.

Also, iTunes songs don't "die" with an iPod. The files are stored on your PC and then synced with your iPod. If your iPod fails you still have the files on your PC and the ability to burn them to a CD. You don't rent music. You buy a song. That's it one time fee, you only pay as much as you want there is no "endless money pit." I personally only buy singles or exclusives on iTunes because I still like the actual CD. But I know that I am in the minority.

But what can I say? I am a "iPodling"

Lateralus

I think the CD's are fine but like other people are saying there is not just enough good music out there for me to spend money on it. I refuse to pay over $11.00 for a CD and I will not go higher, usually I buy my CD in the release week and I get it for under $10.00 and if I can't find it I wait till it comes out on half or ebay... $15.00 for a 40 minute CD... RIGHT!

I love my IPOD but I will NEVER pay for a MP3, when I buy an album I want the physical media and the packaging. If I don't think an album is worth buying then I just don't buy it, none of this paying for a single crap.

smw356

They need to stop bitching and work on promoting artists that actually produce music worth purchasing.

Tracer Bullet

Yes, but we're on an internet forum called "Music Talk". I highly doubt that the responses here have come from your average consumer: the kind of person that traditionally buys perhaps five CDs a year. True music aficionados will probably always (well, at least for the foreseeable future) prefer to buy their music on a physical medium, but that's hardly typical.

In regards to digital music, I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. It is just as wrong to rip your entire CD library and put it up for free download as it would be to make copies and sell them on the street for $4. However, people do have the legal right to do whatever the hell they want with the music they purchase as long as they use it for their own personal use. Rip it, put it on an mp3 player, keep a copy on their computer hard drive, whatever. Doing this doesn't make you a criminal.

Um... you can buy entire albums from iTunes for less than $10. Buy yourself 200 blank CD-Rs and go to town. Do you think commercial CDs are indestructable? I have had many CDs become unplayable from scratches. Now I don't even touch my CDs.


I think there are legitimate concern about the way the iTunes Music Store works, but that's just silly. Your music is archived on your computer, so even if your iPod dies, you haven't lost anything.

I would be more concerned about the copy-protection limiting what you can do with music you have purchased. Unfortunately, this is now not limited to downloaded music.

grunter

Uh, no, podling. I've actually owned an iPod for a little over 2 years. I just won't use the Apple software that came with it as that pretty much links you to iTunes forever thereafter. (Plus when I purchased my iPod, I was still running Windows ME and nothing in the literature or the advertisements for the iPod at that time warned consumers that you couldn't use the iPod with ME. I had to seek out alternatives or be stuck with a shiny expensive paperweight - which the iPod tends to be more often than not.) I use "alternate" programs, like ephPod, to rip and upload my music to the iPod. But quite frankly, the iPod has been such a hassle and such a fragile, tempermental player that I've pretty much sworn off the thing for the past 6-8 months. It just sits on my desk unused.

Sure, the synching technology of iTunes allows you to keep a copy on your harddrive at the same time you have one on the iPod. But what happens when your computer becomes obsolete? What happens - as happened to me - when your computer harddrive is destroyed by spyware and adware? Like I said, I, and I would guess most consumers, don't have a permanent storage device for these "downloads" and would lose these files if a transfer was necessitated unexpectedly.

reverie

I agree about there not being a lot of great new music, but even with that, I'm still discovering older people.. maybe not at the rate I did in the past, but still a couple artists a year. Enough to keep me busy while I still enjoy what I have. Plus I'm slowly trying to replace my tapes with CD.

As far as price, yeah, it is pretty high, most especially when compared to DVDs now. I try to limit the most I pay to $10-$15 (new). Depends what it is, and how bad I want it (mostly the former though).

Josh H

Just not much coming out anymore that I think is worth listening to. I mainly just by new albums by bands I already like.

I'm sure I could find new stuff if I dug around underground bands and what not, but honestly I'm a pretty casual music fan and just don't have the interest to put in any effort as I'm fine with the collection of music and bands I've been listening to for years.

Jason

I bet this is the story of a lot of MP3 players. Of all makes and models.