The end of CD's ????

I saw this article in the New York Times today... What do you guys think?
Honestly CD's have never come down in price to the extent I remember being told when they first appeared... They were $18-$20 20 years ago...
vinyl was $9-12.... anyway.... the quality of the cd is still superior to digital download... imo.... they won't totally go away, but when Tower Records goes belly up and Wherehouse Music barely exists out here anymore...

There's just something about going to a Music store that you can't get at Best Buy y'know.... Another local indie bought many of the old Tower stores.... but I just wonder... old fashioned I am I guess...



Plunge in CD Sales Shakes Up Big Labels


By JEFF LEEDS
Published: May 28, 2007

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the Beatles album often cited as the greatest pop recording in music history, received a thoroughly modern 40th-anniversary salute last week when singers on “American Idol” belted out their own versions of its songs live on the show’s season finale.
But off stage, in a sign of the recording industry’s declining fortunes, shareholders of EMI, the music conglomerate that markets “Sgt. Pepper” and a vast trove of other recordings, were weighing a plan to sell the company as its financial performance was weakening.

It’s a maddening juxtaposition for more than one top record-label executive. Music may still be a big force in pop culture — from “Idol” to the iPod — but the music business’s own comeback attempt is falling flat.
Even pop’s pioneers are rethinking their approach. As it happens, one of the performers on “Sgt. Pepper,” Paul McCartney, is releasing a new album on June 5. But Mr. McCartney is not betting on the traditional record-label methods: He elected to sidestep EMI, his longtime home, and release the album through a new arrangement with Starbucks.

It’s too soon to tell if Starbucks’ new label (a partnership with the established Concord label) will have much success in marketing CDs. But not many other players are.

Despite costly efforts to build buzz around new talent and thwart piracy, CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year, far outweighing any gains made by digital sales at iTunes and similar services. Aram Sinnreich, a media industry consultant at Radar Research in Los Angeles, said the CD format, introduced in the United States 24 years ago, is in its death throes. “Everyone in the industry thinks of this Christmas as the last big holiday season for CD sales,” Mr. Sinnreich said, “and then everything goes kaput.”

It’s been four years since the last big shuffle in ownership of the major record labels. But now, with the sales plunge dimming hopes for a recovery any time soon, there is a new game of corporate musical chairs afoot that could shake up the industry hierarchy.

Under the deal that awaits shareholder approval, London-based EMI agreed last week to be purchased for more than $4.7 billion by a private equity investor, Terra Firma Capital Partners, whose diverse holdings include a European waste-conversion business. Rival bids could yet surface — though the higher the ultimate price, the more pressure the owners will face to make dramatic cuts or sell the company in pieces in order to recoup their investment.

For the companies that choose to plow ahead, the question is how to weather the worsening storm. One answer: diversify into businesses that do not rely directly on CD sales or downloads. The biggest one is music publishing, which represents songwriters (who may or may not also be performers) and earns money when their songs are used in TV commercials, video games or other media. Universal Music Group, already the biggest label, became the world’s biggest music publisher on Friday after closing its purchase of BMG Music, publisher of songs by artists like Keane, for more than $2 billion.

Now both Universal and Warner Music Group are said to be kicking the tires of Sanctuary, an independent British music and artist management company whose roster includes Iron Maiden and Elton John. The owners of all four of the major record companies also recently have chewed over deals to diversify into merchandise sales, concert tickets, advertising and other fields that are not part of their traditional business.

Even as the industry tries to branch out, though, there is no promise of an answer to a potentially more profound predicament: a creative drought and a corresponding lack of artists who ignite consumers’ interest in buying music. Sales of rap, which had provided the industry with a lifeboat in recent years, fell far more than the overall market last year with a drop of almost 21 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan. (And the marquee star 50 Cent just delayed his forthcoming album, “Curtis.”)

In other genres the picture is not much brighter. Fans do still turn out (at least initially) for artists that have managed to build loyal followings. The biggest debut of the year came just last week from the rock band Linkin Park, whose third studio album, “Minutes to Midnight,” sold an estimated 623,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan data.

But very few albums have gained traction. And that is compounded by the industry’s core structural problem: Its main product is widely available free. More than half of all music acquired by fans last year came from unpaid sources including Internet file sharing and CD burning, according to the market research company NPD Group. The “social” ripping and burning of CDs among friends — which takes place offline and almost entirely out of reach of industry policing efforts — accounted for 37 percent of all music consumption, more than file-sharing, NPD said.

The industry had long pinned its hopes on making up some of the business lost to piracy with licensed digital sales. But those prospects have dimmed as the rapid CD decline has overshadowed the rise in sales at services like Apple’s iTunes. Even as music executives fret that iTunes has not generated enough sales, though, they gripe that it unfairly dominates the sale of digital music.

Partly out of frustration with Apple, some of the music companies have been slowly retreating from their longtime insistence on selling music online with digital locks that prevent unlimited copying. Their aim is to sell more music that can be played on Apple’s wildly popular iPod device, which is not compatible with the protection software used by most other digital music services. EMI led the reversal, striking a deal with Apple to offer its music catalog in the unrestricted MP3 format.

Some music executives say that dropping copy-restriction software, also known as digital-rights management, would stoke business at iTunes’ competitors and generate a surge in sales. Others predict it would have little impact, though they add that the labels squandered years on failed attempts to restrict digital music instead of converting more fans into paying consumers.

“They were so slow to react, and let things get totally out of hand,” said Russ Crupnick, a senior entertainment industry analyst at NPD, the research company. “They just missed the boat.”
Perhaps there is little to lose, then, in experimentation. Mr. McCartney, for example, may not have made it to the “American Idol” finale, but he too is employing thoroughly modern techniques to reach his audience.

Starbucks will be selling his album “Memory Almost Full” through regular music retail shops but will also be playing it repeatedly in thousands of its coffee shops in more than two dozen countries on the day of release. And the first music video from the new album had it premiere on YouTube. Mr. McCartney, in announcing his deal with Starbucks, described his rationale simply: “It’s a new world.”

I think the music industry is changing. That's all. People still want something tangible. I think eventually we'll probably see the end of CDs as the main release format. It'll be nostalgic, like vinyl releases are today. But that time is a long way out.

The big music corporations are going to be shifting gears soon, and bands are going to start taking control of their own releases. This is a great read if you want to get a little insight into what bands are doing for themselves these days:

http://www.stuckmojomedia.com

It makes sense, in a sad, sad way.

If they want to get rid of cds that's fine, just drop all the prices to like $1-2's and I will buy everything that I wanted to when it was still $20.

i doubt cds will disappear in my lifetime. after that, i could give a crap.

Eyesore wrote:

I think the music industry is changing. That's all. People still want something tangible. I think eventually we'll probably see the end of CDs as the main release format. It'll be nostalgic, like vinyl releases are today. But that time is a long way out.

The big music corporations are going to be shifting gears soon, and bands are going to start taking control of their own releases. This is a great read if you want to get a little insight into what bands are doing for themselves these days:

http://www.stuckmojomedia.com

It makes sense, in a sad, sad way.

You're totally right... My friend Rick (guitarist for Walk the Sky, Regime and Soldier) i really believe has given up on the 'majors' as it were. He released 'walk the sky' about a year ago or so and has sold about 1000 copies world wide, through online reviews and online distributors. One area that most bands I think aren't aware of is publishing.... that's where most acts make their money, if they make any...

I'm of the mindset that if you want your band to survive do it yourself. You keep control of your material, it does cost more, but the days it seems of you finding a Rod Smallwood who knows what he's doing and being honest about it are ..... ah...... long gone.... I'm sure Ult has many experiences he could share. Rick has shared with me many a story of "Christian" labels who forget they have a responsibility to the 'aritiste'....

8)

I can tell ya one thing for sure - I go pawn shopping all over the US
and Canada, and most pawn shops no longer buy cds and are liquidating
all old inventory. Which sucks for a dumpster-diver like myself,
who loves turning up second hand gems.

SAXON1500 wrote:

I can tell ya one thing for sure - I go pawn shopping all over the US
and Canada, and most pawn shops no longer buy cds and are liquidating
all old inventory. Which sucks for a dumpster-diver like myself,
who loves turning up second hand gems.

I'm diving with you...

In 1990, Ani Difranco self-released her first full-length on Righteous Babe Records. To this day she's never aligned with a major label, and she's easily a multi-millionaire. This is just one woman, and she's been able to release all this:

Quote :

Difranco, Ani - Angry Anymore (CD Single)
Difranco, Ani - Ani Difranco (w/Bonus Track)
Difranco, Ani - Dilate
Difranco, Ani - Educated Guess
Difranco, Ani - Evolve
Difranco, Ani - Fellow Workers (w/Utah Phillips)
Difranco, Ani - Fierce Flawless (CD Single)
Difranco, Ani - Imperfectly
Difranco, Ani - Knuckle Down
Difranco, Ani - Like I Said (Songs 1990-1991)
Difranco, Ani - Little Plastic Castle
Difranco, Ani - Living In Clip (2CD)
Difranco, Ani - More Joy, Less Shame (EP)
Difranco, Ani - Not A Pretty Girl
Difranco, Ani - Not So Soft (w/Bonus Track)
Difranco, Ani - Official Bootleg #1: Atlanta 10.9.03
Difranco, Ani - Official Bootleg #2: Sacramento 10.25.03
Difranco, Ani - Official Bootleg #3: Portland 4.7.04 (2CD)
Difranco, Ani - Official Bootleg #4: Boston 11.16.03
Difranco, Ani - Official Bootleg #5: Chicago 1.17.04
Difranco, Ani - Official Bootleg #6: Madison 1.25.04
Difranco, Ani - Official Bootleg #7: Rome, Italy 11.15.04 (2CD)
Difranco, Ani - Official Bootleg #8: Carnegie Hall 4.6.02
Difranco, Ani - Out Of Range
Difranco, Ani - Puddle Dive
Difranco, Ani - Reckoning/Revelling (2CD)
Difranco, Ani - Render: Spanning Time With Ani Difranco (DVD)
Difranco, Ani - Reprieve
Difranco, Ani - So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter (2CD)
Difranco, Ani - Swing Set (EP)
Difranco, Ani - The Past Didn't Go Anywhere (w/Utah Phillips)
Difranco, Ani - To The Teeth
Difranco, Ani - Trust (DVD)
Difranco, Ani - Up Up Up Up Up Up

And there's more that I don't own. Obviously not an easy thing to achieve, but I always bring her up when a topic like this comes up. She does what she wants, when she wants, and the profit is directly hers, for the most part.

How do you know she's a multi-millionaire?

There is no money to be made in music anymore IMHO, especially metal.

SAXON1500 wrote:

I can tell ya one thing for sure - I go pawn shopping all over the US
and Canada, and most pawn shops no longer buy cds and are liquidating
all old inventory. Which sucks for a dumpster-diver like myself,
who loves turning up second hand gems.

Im with ya there. Where I live the pawn shops still take cd's by the hundreds and I still find killer cd's for a buck or 2.
at this point, if I never buy another cd ever in my life ever again, I'll still have plenty of music to go on, so this world can do whatever it wants to with their new technology.

Eyesore wrote:

In 1990, Ani Difranco self-released her first full-length on Righteous Babe Records. To this day she's never aligned with a major label, and she's easily a multi-millionaire.

I doubt that they're multi-millionaires but the punk band Fugazi (are they even still around) operateds the same way. They released their own records on their own label, booked all their own tours, printed/distributed their own merch, etc., etc. without any major label or management interference.

I think modern music fans are missing out on an experience. There was nothing like hanging out at you local record/CD store, going through bins of records/CDs while the store was crankin' some tunes. There was an atmosphere and a vibe at the local record store that was very cool. I've always enjoyed doing that.

I've also always enjoyed digging through all those CDs or records and finding that one gem I'd been searching out for months. Ebay makes it a bit too easy to obtain those gems and it's just not as fun. It takes away the hunt.

Also, I've always been one who enjoys albums, as opposed to singles. I seem to latch onto certain bands and just really dig their sound. I don't care as much for the 'hit single' as I do about a solid album of material. The cover art is part of the package and I think the MP3 generation is missing out on that. There is something wrong with downloading that one song you heard on the radio and thought was cool, yet you never hear anything else the artist did. What great music I would have missed out on all these years if all I ever did was purchase a single. Shoot, at least with a single you have a b-side. You don't even have that with an MP3.

I think at least int he underground their will be always cd´s released in the future, like today they are still releasing vinyls and tapes but it could be possible that maybe in 10 years mainstream music will only be released on the net or telephone for people to download it for some money. But most of the metal bands hopefully will keep releasing cds.

I don't even own an iPod or any sort of digital music player, and don't plan on getting one anytime soon. They can take my CDs when they pry them from my cold dead fingers!!

So, I can relate to the easy-ness of the MP3's. If people don't need the artwork, fine for them. What I don't get is how they so easily get used to the sub par quality of the muisc! A compresse mp3-file will never sound as good as a CD, and CD's will never sound as good as a vinyl. That is a fact! I just don't see how people who create music for a living would compromise the quality of their art my letting companies sell it in a much lower quality!

kmorg wrote:

and CD's will never sound as good as a vinyl. That is a fact!

really? cuz i ain't hearing it.

mc666 wrote:

kmorg wrote:

and CD's will never sound as good as a vinyl. That is a fact!

really? cuz i ain't hearing it.

If you digitalize anything, you will have to compromise quality. It's the same as with photos. A digital camera will never be as good as "the good old ones". They come close, and the more pixels you have, the better the quality, but it will still not be the same, it is still just zeros and ones.

Temple of Blood wrote:

How do you know she's a multi-millionaire?

Because it's impossible for her not to be.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

In 1990, Ani Difranco self-released her first full-length on Righteous Babe Records. To this day she's never aligned with a major label, and she's easily a multi-millionaire.

I doubt that they're multi-millionaires but the punk band Fugazi (are they even still around) operateds the same way. They released their own records on their own label, booked all their own tours, printed/distributed their own merch, etc., etc. without any major label or management interference.

True. Unfortunately they just couldn't muster a big enough fan base. They released some killer music, though. And they're no more, sadly. Actually, the official word is "hiatus", but I wouldn't expect a new album any time soon, if ever.

I for one woyld hate to see cds disappear. I love cds for the liner notes, covers and all the bonus stuff it adds to the nostalgia!

It's like it was in the 80's and cds came around they said vinyl would be the thing of the past, you know what vinyl is still here.

I highly doubt cds will disappear. DL are just not the same!

Wargod48

ultmetal wrote:

I think modern music fans are missing out on an experience. There was nothing like hanging out at you local record/CD store, going through bins of records/CDs while the store was crankin' some tunes. There was an atmosphere and a vibe at the local record store that was very cool. I've always enjoyed doing that.

I've also always enjoyed digging through all those CDs or records and finding that one gem I'd been searching out for months. Ebay makes it a bit too easy to obtain those gems and it's just not as fun. It takes away the hunt.

Also, I've always been one who enjoys albums, as opposed to singles. I seem to latch onto certain bands and just really dig their sound. I don't care as much for the 'hit single' as I do about a solid album of material. The cover art is part of the package and I think the MP3 generation is missing out on that. There is something wrong with downloading that one song you heard on the radio and thought was cool, yet you never hear anything else the artist did. What great music I would have missed out on all these years if all I ever did was purchase a single. Shoot, at least with a single you have a b-side. You don't even have that with an MP3.

I'm so with you on this Ult, My friends and I would have what we'd call 'The Tower Tour' (tower records... rip ) Say it's 9 p.m. on Sunday night and we're all looking at each other and suddenly one of us would say
'Tower Tour'... We'd drive across the San Mateo Bridge to hit Tower San Mateo...(a little small but who knows what you'll find) then we'd drive down to Tower Mountain View... aahh... Much bigger, more selection especially the import section... but finally we'd drive to Tower Campbell... This is where it's at. They had the best selection of imports and rareities, of course it's the farthest drive... but man it's so worth it..... Who knows what treasures you'll find.. It was a 75 mile drive total but who cares !?!?

Plus the tunes you'd hear... First time I heard the Rods, Motorhead, Exciter.....

Heck should I forget 'Warped Records' (san lorenzo first heard 'The Eagle has Landed Live' in what 1983 or 84 on vinyl), 'The Record Vault S.F.'... I found the first Martyr demo their 'Death is Dead'... 'Record Exchange' in Concord(first saw The Soundhouse Tapes $100 in '85)... You not gonna find that on itunes....

what is Tower? we dont have that here we have mtv and virgin.

i think downloading music is actually boring. it gives you no info and no artwork or nothing tangible for the money or not if it was illegal

TheGooch wrote:

what is Tower? we dont have that here we have mtv and virgin.

i think downloading music is actually boring. it gives you no info and no artwork or nothing tangible for the money or not if it was illegal

Tower Records was a huge record chain.

ultmetal wrote:

TheGooch wrote:

what is Tower? we dont have that here we have mtv and virgin.

i think downloading music is actually boring. it gives you no info and no artwork or nothing tangible for the money or not if it was illegal

Tower Records was a huge record chain.

I miss Tower Records like you wouldn't believe. I was in college when they opened one in my home town (Paramus, NJ) and since I was already familiar with them from regular visits to the giant store in NYC (66th and B'way), having one right in town was like giving a five year old the keys to Toys R Us. I practically LIVED in that store for many years. I could'nt tell you how many tapes and CDs I bought from that place. I shed many a tear when the chain went under...