God, I Hate Enviornmental Packaging of CDs!
 

Look, I respect the Green movement. Still, a CD is designed to be something that's kept or shared. Why do I have to get a nice CD like Jack Johnson's or Coldplay's new album in a piece of crap piece of cardboard that won't last, will get lost in my CD rack, and will end up scratching up the CD? Are the landfills really filling up with CD cases? Really?

I admire the nod towards the environment (and Jack Johnson actually recorded his album using only solar power :clap: ), but c'mon give me a nice case if I'm paying $10 for your new album. I don't need another reason to NOT buy CDs anymore.

Preach on, brother!

I enjoy having a nice jewel case to store them in when not in use.

I picked up a DVD recently in an environmentally friendly case -- it feels more like hard rubber than plastic, and has a cut out on the inside depicting the recycling symbol. Why? I have no intention of throwing the case away.

I bet you drive a gas guzzler too...;)

Damn republican! GLOBAL WARMING! AL GORE! POLAR ICE CAPS! THE DOLPHINS! ;)

I hear you man, these slender paper cases just don't cut it, unless they're awesomely designed like the NIN releases.

http://www.autospectator.com/cars/fi...5-Sedan-10.jpg
EPA estimate 17 City / 24 Hwy. Just bought it.

I feel like an idiot for not getting a hybrid with gas as expensive as it is. Still, it's freakin' awesome, takes off like a rocket and has full ipod integration, so what you gonna do? :shrug:

trade it in for a Prius... :P

Completely agree. Jewel case or GTFO.

I hate 'em too. Didn't Pearl Jam start this trend?

They did one of the first "Digipaks" that I remember since I was working in a music store at the time. It was for Vs.

I still have the promo copy we got for the store. I am sure there were ones done before that one but it seemed like it was one of the first mass produced for a big release.

Glad someone finally brought this up! I've been bothered for a long time by these crappy cases! My biggest compalint is if it "breaks" (rips, dents, etc.), you're basically screwed. At least you could replace a jewel case. Why does it seem like as much complaining as the music industry does, it's constantly shooting itself in the foot?

I actually like digipaks a lot more. I mean ones like the one Electr-O-Pura and Vitalogy came in.

They're not my favorite sort of packaging ( I have a couple of digipaks with broken plastic in the spindle and the cd will fall out on the floor when I take the cd case off the shelf), but at least they have some thickness and a spindle for the CD. Those paper sleeve get totally lost in a cd rack and repeated use causes the CD to get scratched to hell.

The digipak isn't biodegradable, but again : who cares? It isn't a carton of milk -- I'm not tossing it out. If they really wanted a biodegradable case, I actually got a cool one for "Mad Season" by matchbook twenty. It was bound like a children's picture book and the CD sat on a spindle. I think Beck may have had an album packaged that was as well.
That sort of packaging I could live with. The cardboard sleeve (and the horrible paper/foam abomination that Universal is putting some catalog titles in) has gotta go.

agree 100%

thats the reason i dont own some dvds/cds

I don't think it's so much for the durability for the end user for the numerous costs of production. The plastic used in the jewel cases comes (I'm pretty sure) from petroleum, and we all know that's not getting any cheaper.

I think Radiohead had it right with "In Rainbows" since it had the pieces there to make a nice jewel case. After all, who doesn't have a few extra jewel cases lying around? And if you don't, you can certainly find them around.

Vitalogy wasn't a digipak... it was a cardboard sleeve that was attached to the back of the 'booklet' packaging. Digipak's have a plastic CD holder inside the cardboard package (at least as far as my understanding of digipak)... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digipak
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/1...ogy3xe1.th.jpg

I too dislike these sleeve releases...my In Between Dreams by Jack Johnson got a few scratches just from the regular in/out of using it's cardboard case. (It was an extremely tight fit) It does seem like a lot of artists are using this or digipak's now though, this past month I bought like 5 cd's that are all in this type of packaging!

Packaging rarely bothers me since I don't pay attention to it anymore. I buy the CD, store the packaging somewhere, rip the CD to my computer, and store the CD. More often than not if I need to listen to it (to put in a car, etc.) I simply burn a new CD with the tracks I want to listen to and/or extra tracks.

I agree with the digipack hate. Awhile back, I sold some cd's off that were basically gathering dust, and one digipack cd that I literally listened to twice was too scratched up for the guy to take, and the guy had no problem taking some cd's in standard cases that I played countless times.

That's what I thought as well - cheap cardboard packaging was more about cutting production costs than about any actual environmental issues.

If this topic were about DVDs, I'd be fully on-board. But I've gotten to the point to where I buy a CD, rip it, transfer it to my iPod and then store the CD and case in a storage bin. The only CDs I keep out are the ones with DVDs included or my DVD-Audios and SA-CDs.

So...I'm not really giving a crap about the fact that they're using cardboard cases now. I appreciate the fact that I don't have to mess around with the stupid stickers that were surgically glued to the plastic cases.

Nope, they're desidned to be biodegradable

When Universal Music Enterprises (UMe), a unit of Universal Music Group, the world's largest music company, releases its next wave of CDs in The Millennium Collection series, spanning more than 60 renowned artists, the standard package (both sleeve and tray) will be completely paper-recyclable for the first time in the music industry. A major new step in providing environmentally friendly packaging, the initiative continues the company's long-standing commitment to being "green."


UMe is the first North American music company to replace the traditional jewel case with recycled paperboard sleeves and the plastic tray with trays made from PaperFoam®, a new packaging technology from Shorewood Packaging, a business of International Paper, that is paper-recyclable and biodegradable. Shorewood Packaging is the first North American packaging supplier to produce disc trays from PaperFoam®. In addition, while the CDs in The Millennium Collection, the best-selling single-artist "best of" series in music history, will feature a four-panel card, the typical eight-page booklet will be available only by download from the UMe site www.ilovethatsong.com/green . Newly packaged The Millennium Collection CDs will be exclusively available at Wal-Mart for three months before their release in 2007 to all retailers.

"Looking at the way today's consumers are storing their music, which is often without the jewel box, Wal-Mart and other retailer's focus on sustainability, the move to this packaging made total sense," said Michael Davis, Executive VP and General Manager, UMe. "The result is a completely repackaged CD that's good for the planet and good for the consumer."

Among the artists whose The Millennium Collection albums will be repackaged are Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, Toby Keith, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, KISS, Barry White, Four Tops, Buddy Holly, Cher, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Boyz II Men, George Strait, ABBA, Rod Stewart and Neil Diamond. The first new The Millennium Collection release to boast the new packaging, "The Best Of Rob Zombie," debuted on October 10, 2006.

PaperFoam® was developed by PaperForm B.V., a Netherlands-based company, and is manufactured in a patented, one-step injection molded process using a starch-based fiber material. PaperFoam® is available in various colors, can be embossed and printed and provides excellent dust-free, scratch-free product protection.

Well of course that is what they are going to tell the public. But if it won't make/save them money in some way then they wouldn't do it.

Oh, I see what you're saying. I thought you ment their concern was the enviornmental issues of making jewel cases and not the biodegradable aspect. Yes, I think the real driving force behind the packaging is that it must be a lot cheaper to make. A downloadable booklet? Give me a break!

When you think about it, it's much more eco-friendly to rip your friend's cds to your ipod, but you'll never hear the executives encourage that sort of thing. :)

You're mostly right, but the first ones done for mass production were actually INXS - Welcome To Wherever You Are and the second Deee-Lite album - Infinity Within - both in '92 a full year before VS., although it did use the same style packaging. I worked in a music store then, too, and recall it pretty well.

In fact, the thing with these ones, too, as almost ALL other CD's in the US still came in longboxes then, was that you actually had to slide and fold them to assemble the actual disc sized package. Wish I had some pics to show you guys, but no luck. Of course a year later, the industry did away with long boxes, so all the new Digipacks came pre-assembled, and then they improved upon the design.

Anybody who knows me, knows I have zero love for Digipacks, too. Yeah I get that they are supposedly better for the environment - but like other posters, I want something that's really going to protect the disc. Most real collectors aren't going to be throwing the jewel case away. Digipacks rip, tear and wear far too easy for my tastes. The only reason I buy them is if I have no other choice. Sometimes I'll even wait to buy a CD, because I've found that 3 to 6 months after the Digipack version is initially released, the album will then come out in a jewel case version anyway.

Cool, but how popular were those two albums? Did their bands lead the charge for the digipak and cardboard revolution? Vs. followed by Vitalogy were monumental sellers which got the consumer used to the idea.

Add my name to the list of Digipak haters.

I really think this trend has less to do with being environmentally friendly than it does cutting costs and giving the consumer less. They're basically selling you CDs in a little paper folder.

Digipaks are fragile and can't be replaced the way a broken jewel case can. They're fragile and easily damaged, and offer less protection for the CD. So you're more likely to lose or damage your CD. And, because of this, they also probably have less value on the secondary/used market as well.

It's really quite laughable to think that selling CDs in later paper things instead of plastic cases is going to change ANYTHING in the big picture. With all of the plastic shit that can be found everywhere, I'm sure that the music industry uses up only a tiny fraction of a percent of all the plastic that's used in our society.

Actually, I think the first major release to push an environment-friendly packaging was U2's Achtung Baby in '90 or '91.

Back then, there was a minor hubbub over longboxes filling up our landfills. (Remember when CDs came in those foot long boxes?)

One solution was to package CDs in these cases that had dimensions similar to a longbox, which, once opened, folded down into a jewel-box sized case. Acthung Baby was, I believe, one the first (or only?) releases to come in this.

I still have my copy. Ironically, it's actually quite heavy and probably uses about as much cardboard as three longboxes.

Anymore, I don't really care. I rip the disc to the computer, pack up the case, and off I go.

People seemed to do just fine with vinyl packaging, which was essentially a cardboard sleeve. I can see the concern with scratching the disc, though.

I have a original 1991 Achtung Baby in a jewel case. Guess that album came both ways back then. I have two like that, though with the longbox that gets folded into a digipak (and two plastic sticks were thrown away as well)-- The Soul Cages by Sting and Luck of the Draw by Bonnie Raitt. I hated those cases then and I still do. If nothing else though at least they had spindles. I rented a couple of Jack Johnson albums from the library and they were scratched totally to hell from getting slid in and out of the cardboard sleeve.

My main point about all this is if record companies really want us to buy physical copies of albums, they should at least make the packaging durable enough to last. That press release from Universal basically acknowledged that they expect CD owners to rip their CD to the computer and never look at the CD again. If that's their point, why should we even buy a CD at all? :hscratch:

I also have Sting's "The Soul Cages" in that format. I remember when I got it, I wasn't sure how to fold it to put it together right. If I ever feel like listening to it, I reach for the "Gold Tour Souvenir Edition" that's in a jewel case instead. ;)

I hate all the non-jewel case packages too. I hate digipaks because the corners get dinged up and because the center spindle can break. I hate the all-cardboard packages because they tend to scratch the CDs and because they are liable to tearing (as well as the aforementioned corner-dinging).

As for preventing scratching, I've devised the following method. I take anti-static (polyethelene) sleeves -- the third item pictured here: http://www.sleevetown.com/plastic-cd-sleeves.shtml -- trim them down a little, and then slip them inside the cardboard packaging. In rare cases, when the package is so badly designed that tearing seems inevitable, I actually put the polyethelene sleeve right *beside* -- rather than inside -- the cardboard package on my CD tower.

Anal, I know, but it's tended to work!

You know, I'd forgotten all about U2's Achtung Baby and Sting's Soul Cages - which would have put the date at '91. However, I found it out goes even further back than that. I was telling a friend about this topic, and he told me he had a copy of Robert Palmer's Riptide in a Digipack - so that puts the date at around 1985. I stand corrected on both counts.

Yeah, it did. The version in the jewel case was released without a long box, and a number of stores and chains refused to carry it over theft concerns.

I miss the big cardboard boxes cd's used to come in. Cut open the bottom and you had free cd's

:lol: nice

Just an update : I found out too late, but the aformentioned "Viva La Vida" is available in a jewel case at Costco (encased in landfill-friendly long box -- NICE!)

The only time I mind the sleeve packaging is when the sleeves open up in the middle rather than the outside. Cat Power's "You Are Free" and Godspeed! You Black Emperor's "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven" are two of these that spring to mind. Because they slide out at the bend in the middle, the sleeve on the other side of the bend gets in the way and you have to bend the casing backwards to get at the CD, and then that bend usually makes the sleeve tighter and harder for you to remove the CD.

It's especially worse when there's no notch cut out to get easy access to the CD, like this:

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/6...sleevesqf1.jpg

As if just to mock me, Amazon has now made these things (actually a new line of Columbia catalog titles in "eco-friendly slider-box CD packaging") a marketing tool.
"Feeling Blue? Go Green!" :rolleyes:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/image...256732779_.gif


Check out the video of the crappy new product!!!
They actually have the audacity to use "Don't Stop Believing" in the ad. What would Tony Soprano think?

Well, I'm not calling you (or your friend) a liar, but I was an avid record collector from 1983-1993, and I don't remember Digipaks coming on the scene until after I graduated high school (1989). It's entirely possible that Palmer's record company did some kind of "trial thing" with Riptide, but I'm pretty sure they didn't become "standard" until at least 1990.

For the record, the first Digipak I owned was 10,000 Maniacs "Candy Everybody Wants" CD single, which came out in 1992. I hardly ever listen to "Candy", but I really love the single for their covers of Morrissey's "Every Day is Like Sunday", The Horseflies' "Sally Ann" and R.E.M.'s "(Don't Got Back To) Rockville". That's a good single, and worth tracking down.

Oh, and until 2003 (when my parents moved out of their house and I had to throw a bunch of junk away that I'd stored there) I used to have a HUGE collection of longboxes from the 80s. Heh - I wonder if anyone would have paid $$$ on eBay for an empty Dream of the Blue Turtles long box from 1985?

There's exactly ONE that's worth anything. PLEASE don't tell me you tossed the long box from Sgt Pepper! I'm still kicking myself for tossing mine out just a few months after it's 1987 release. Who knew?

Oh, and if you want to feel old, consider this : That CD is now older than the original LP was when the CD came out. Yikes! -eek-