Album Sales Continue to Plummet

In related news, Apple discontinues the iPod classic. Downloading music files to carry around with you is SO 2006....

S.D. wrote:

In related news, Apple discontinues the iPod classic.  Downloading music files to carry around with you is SO 2006....

Well F*ck...... I guess I better buy a couple now to have on hand if my current one breaks....

S.D. wrote:

In related news, Apple discontinues the iPod classic.  Downloading music files to carry around with you is SO 2006....

Oh, WTF, Apple?  Those pricks...  

Time to drain the account buying spares...

You know the bit that torques me off about this? Storage has NEVER been so cheap and yet the storage capacities of these devices keeps shrinking even as the prices goes up. What a load of bollocks...

The iPod classic hasn't had an update in 7 years, it was a legacy product that Apple kept years longer than I expected, they were already discussing dumping it back in 2009.  People don't want to carry around a separate device just for music, not when you can stream millions of tracks on your phone.

All of the iPod Classics have been removed from Apple's website, including from the refurbished section.

Ugh.. That's a sad day.

This is a distinct case of, "It ain't broke, so they broke it."

You know, I'd love to pay double the price for a quarter of the storage space but the means to run APPS....

These companies are going to be peeing in the breeze when streaming turns out to be the shell game satellite radio became of companies repeatedly failing to turn a profit, going out of business and being bought out and rebuilt from the ground up by someone else. That's a lot harder to build a hardware model around than just having a player that can play what you load onto it.

Ah well, at least it means I can look forward to a point in a few years when someone knocks Apple off the portable audio perch with a player of both high density storage AND the means to play ANY format, so I can stop converting my FLAC files to ALAC.

That portable audio perch that a small percentage of the population will give a shit about, seriously, do you really think a decent percentage of people under the age of 30 gives a shit if the iPod Classic goes away? Highly doubtful. Oldsters like myself are the ones constantly whining, while the young adapt.

I don't use any streaming service, but I do use cloud storage and stream my ripped CDs from cloud storage to my phone. I have about 15,000 songs stored there now. Doing this makes my ipods obsolete. Why bother to store everything on an iPod when I can just stream it to a device? I also have these songs saved on two hard drives and I still have the cds, so I am not that worried about the cloud crashing. If it does, I'm not out anything.

STOP MAKING ME EVOLVE WITH THE TIMES! IT WAS FINE THE WAY IT WAS BEFORE!

...get off my lawn.

Witchfinder wrote:

I don't use any streaming service, but I do use cloud storage and stream my ripped CDs from cloud storage to my phone.  I have about 15,000 songs stored there now.  Doing this makes my ipods obsolete.  Why bother to store everything on an iPod when I can just stream it to a device?  I also have these songs saved on two hard drives and I still have the cds, so I am not that worried about the cloud crashing.  If it does, I'm not out anything.

The other thing that's great about using cloud storage is you don't have to worry about fitting everything on to your ipod. Generally you're not going to run out of space. Amazon offers are service that allows you to store 250,000 mp3s for $25 a year. I doubt most people will get close to that amount.

One correction on the U2 album, the band didn't release it for free, Apple paid a blanket royalty payment (undisclosed) to allow them to offer it for free to 500 million iTunes users. The album shows up as "already purchased" in the iTunes store.

Witchfinder wrote:

Witchfinder wrote:

I don't use any streaming service, but I do use cloud storage and stream my ripped CDs from cloud storage to my phone.  I have about 15,000 songs stored there now.  Doing this makes my ipods obsolete.  Why bother to store everything on an iPod when I can just stream it to a device?  I also have these songs saved on two hard drives and I still have the cds, so I am not that worried about the cloud crashing.  If it does, I'm not out anything.

The other thing that's great about using cloud storage is you don't have to worry about fitting everything on to your ipod.  Generally you're not going to run out of space.  Amazon offers are service that allows you to store 250,000 mp3s for $25 a year.  I doubt most people will get close to that amount.

The two main issues I have are connectivity (I'm on Sprint and my phone likes to "forget" that it's connected) and files since I use FLAC or ALAC for all of my personal rips. I don't think the cloud is quite there for high quality rips.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted by the possibility of being freed from hard drive storage constraints, but I think I'm going to have to cling to my antiquated ways for at least a little while longer.

In truth, I'd probably be faster to get a proper DAC for my phone and a few memory cards to expand what it is capable of holding before I'd invest in cloud storage.

All I worry about is running out of tubes for my tuner and cartridges for my turntable.

We have a cloud outside as I type, it's actually snowing here (already)

I never thought I'd find myself hoping that Pono takes off. I might have to go for the goofy little thing in a few years if the iPod no longer exists as meaningful competition.

Sony just announced their own hi-res standalone music player, it's the relaunch of the Walkman.

http://bgr.com/2014/09/03/sony-walkman-hi-res-audio/

I was really hopeful, but the 64gb internal storage is a drag. Another page from the Pono book.

Is it really so hard to have high density portable storage? Hell, the thing even costs more than an iPod Classic did.

Now, if they wanted to market a MicroSD card driven portable player around $199.99, I'd be on board, but once you add the cost of the cards to $299.99 as MSRP.. Yeah, that's a bit salty.

Witchfinder wrote:

Witchfinder wrote:

I don't use any streaming service, but I do use cloud storage and stream my ripped CDs from cloud storage to my phone.  I have about 15,000 songs stored there now.  Doing this makes my ipods obsolete.  Why bother to store everything on an iPod when I can just stream it to a device?  I also have these songs saved on two hard drives and I still have the cds, so I am not that worried about the cloud crashing.  If it does, I'm not out anything.

The other thing that's great about using cloud storage is you don't have to worry about fitting everything on to your ipod. Generally you're not going to run out of space. Amazon offers are service that allows you to store 250,000 mp3s for $25 a year. I doubt most people will get close to that amount.

That's fine provided you live somewhere with cheap, high speed Internet. If you don't then cloud storage and streaming aren't feasible alternatives.

Citanul wrote:

Witchfinder wrote:

Witchfinder wrote:

I don't use any streaming service, but I do use cloud storage and stream my ripped CDs from cloud storage to my phone.  I have about 15,000 songs stored there now.  Doing this makes my ipods obsolete.  Why bother to store everything on an iPod when I can just stream it to a device?  I also have these songs saved on two hard drives and I still have the cds, so I am not that worried about the cloud crashing.  If it does, I'm not out anything.

The other thing that's great about using cloud storage is you don't have to worry about fitting everything on to your ipod.  Generally you're not going to run out of space.  Amazon offers are service that allows you to store 250,000 mp3s for $25 a year.  I doubt most people will get close to that amount.

That's fine provided you live somewhere with cheap, high speed Internet.  If you don't then cloud storage and streaming aren't feasible alternatives.

Indeed. However, I am able to download the songs onto my phone and listen to them from my phone when I don't have access to the internet. I can then delete them from the phone when I do get to a place with internet access. It's easy and efficient. I haven't used either of my ipods since moving to this system.

S.D. wrote:

Sony just announced their own hi-res standalone music player, it's the relaunch of the Walkman.  

http://bgr.com/2014/09/03/sony-walkman-hi-res-audio/

Wake me when the 4TB version goes on sale.....

This is for the real music lovers:

http://www.gizmag.com/crosley-revolution-portable-record-player/16447/

thejokeriv wrote:

S.D. wrote:

Sony just announced their own hi-res standalone music player, it's the relaunch of the Walkman.  

http://bgr.com/2014/09/03/sony-walkman-hi-res-audio/

Wake me when the 4TB version goes on sale.....

THIS! They need to make it and then they need to shut up and take my money!

3/4 of the way through 2014 and not a single album has sold 1 million copies.

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/retail/6281506/soundscans-third-quarter-numbers-in-one-word-bleak

You know, there are times I really don't think it's about the music anymore. I can't think of many people around my age who are engaged with ANYTHING. This even includes some parents. They just get up, fall in a more or less forward direction, take care of the bare minimum and don't seem to derive any real joy from anything. I mean ANYTHING.

Sure, they'll get ANGRY if someone questions a habit, a sports team, a religion, a political belief, but if you asked them to explain their stance, justify a viewpoint or talk about something they delight in, you'll get a blank stare.

I think the drop off in music is symptomatic of a larger cultural change and it's not a positive one.

Just my take.

I also don't think it helps, that CD's for years for overpriced, that stores no longer carry a huge inventory, rock radio has sucked for decades, and music industry has no foresight, intelligence or imagination to move forward

The music industry has survived off teenagers since the 1950s, that is the primary driving force behind album sales. However, teenagers and people in their early 20s really don't care about "albums" any more, they don't care about having a physical, tangible item in their hand. They just want access to music, they want portability, they want everything to fit on their phone. Spotify and Youtube are the most common destinations for music for the young now. CDs are viewed as a laughable relic their parents cared about, it has no impact on their lives.

You can hardly find standalone CD players anymore, most brick & mortar stores are gone unless you live in a major metropolitan area, big box retailers might still carry a few items but the selection is so tiny it doesn't entice people to browse through them.

So that leaves shopping online. You can buy a single new release CD for about $10 on Amazon, which will get you somewhere between 50 to 70 minutes of music and you'll get it a couple days after you order it...or you can pay $9 a month for a Spotify premium subscription and get instant access to millions of songs. You can listen at home, on your phone, in your car, etc. Which seems like the better deal?

Quote :

CDs are viewed as a laughable relic their parents cared about

My kids (ages 7 and almost 12) like looking at the covers on my CDs (When they go "Ewww! Gross!" I know they've found a good one, haha), which is better than nothing.

Quote :

However, teenagers and people in their early 20s really don't care about "albums" any more, they don't care about having a physical, tangible item in their hand. They just want access to music

This is true. We got both of my sons (ages 7 and almost-12) little cheap tablet computers for Xmas last year and my oldest uses it to pull up playlists of various bands/songs on YouTube all day long. He'll also occasionally ask me for MP3s of stuff from my collection to put in his tablet. Just last week I spent about an hour ripping a bunch of stuff by AC/DC, the Ramones and Prong (!) for him (the kid loves "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck"...).