Death of CD, sooner rather than later?

There might be something wrong with that link. Twice it crashed my PC, and apart from Skype video, that is a first.

ATB from George

Strange works fine from mine, using firefox, here it is.

Recent figures from Neilsen Soundscan published in Variety has revealed that in the States music sales are down 21% this Christmas.

Stats that cover the music sales from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve show that in 2007, 83.9 million albums were sold, down 21.4 million from last year.

A 20% drop from one year to the next is a huge drop, and much more than can be explained away as a blip.

The death of the CD has been much covered by all kinds of press, not just tech sources, with the increased popularity of sites like iTunes, and in the States, Amazon MP3 and eMusic that is the reason.

Of course the big attraction of some of the music now available to download in the States is that it's DRM-free, with three of the big four labels offering such tunes via Amazon's service.

And, with the RIAA recently describing backup MP3 tracks ripped from CDs as "unauthorized copies", you can see the attraction.

like they said that vinyl is dead !!
just purchased my 90th LP in just over a year.
scotty

quote:

The death of the CD has been much covered by all kinds of press, not just tech sources, with the increased popularity of sites like iTunes, and in the States, Amazon MP3 and eMusic that is the reason.

You forget that CDs are very cheap to produce. The only limitation on making your own is the usually crap download rate.

There was a much stronger case for the "death" of vinyl back in the 80s, as it was much more expensive to produce LPs.

As Scotty infers, no sign of that. Neither format will disappear anytime soon, irrespective of downloads. Whether new releases will start ignoring CD is doubtful, why limit sales when the manufacturing cost of the discs is pence?

Steve

very good point steve

Downloads are still stupidly expensive though (for what they are). They aer nearly the full cost of the cd but you get no physical medium with artwork, or case. They need to be significantly reduced in price, and also increase the quality to be considered a serious audiophile solution.

One of the main reasons for vinyl enduring imho is being able to be tactile with the medium. To be ble to read and see the artwork (some of which is stunning)without the aid of a magnifying glass. Cd is a convenience medium as is mp3 et al. It does not have the other factors that make it romantic and an enduring medium imho.

Ryan

yes good point Steve. now, about CD sales drop... people writing such articles and predicting the end of all things for yesterday should take a few minutes and think a bit. consoles hardware and software (wii anyone?) sold trillions of units during that same period of time. what about laptops? flat pannel tvs? what about the growth of the home video market? are people richer nowadays? nope. so they buy less here and more there. DVD's instead of CD's. laptops instead of desktops. and so on.

I think I can resist the pressure to buy my collection all over again on another format because the death of CD is imminent – yeah right. Just like vinyl huh? The record industry only seem to regard a medium as viable if it generates enough cream to make them choke and vomit. With dynamically compressed, maxed out rubbish being commonly sold at premium prices, is it any wonder that a generation of CD owners with good collections refuse to bend over just because they think we should?

Cheers

Sure more people are going to buy their music on down load - that's fine. Further, we will also see the development of better bit-rate hi-res Sites which will allow streaming in higher quality. But CD has one thing going for it over vinyl in that the size has become de facto a universal carrier for music, DVD, etc etc. It is instantly copied and doesn't degenerate. Further many the CDs that came my way at Xmas came with some pretty good packaging so alongside vinyl I can see it carrying on albeit on a smaller scale.

Regards,

Fender (Strat)

quote:

Originally posted by scottyhammer:
like they said that vinyl is dead !!
just purchased my 90th LP in just over a year.
scotty

I wish I could say I only purchased 90....my wife thinks so. More like 900 - ouch!

CD sales are dropping but they are nowhere near the sales they were in the early 90's as {OdS} says people are just buying the latest in thing. Have a look at the figures in this RIAA report compare bought CD Albums and D/L Albums. Also I think you have to be affiliated to the RIAA to have you sales count and many people buy off the internet from smaller sellers that might not belong to the RIAA. I used the American as a guide because the BPI does not make its figures public for free, typical, the RIAA does. Also for me CD sales slide just at the point DVD becomes popular, Hmmm!


Compare D/L albums too physical sales
RIAA


Compare trends of music genres
RIAA 10 year sales trends


Compare the rise of CD in the 90's amazing at its peak nearly a billion units shipped in one year.
RIAA sales 1990/99



Dean...

If CD is dying it might just be enough to tempt me to buy one!

Only one though, mind!