CD Sales & Music Trends

For all the vinyl revival talk ...it's still just a drop in the ocean

It's only the much higher price of a record that makes the market of any significance at all...IMO

Cd sales will drop away like vinyl over time ...with second hand sales climbing further and second hand prices rising (as they are already) 

Before another "revival" starts again ...and cd players start to sell again...

Pay to play well established The industry must be doing cartwheels.  Why sell people things when you can take their money for the same thing for ever? Still, if that's what people want....

I read this report this morning too and I'm lovin' it. I've got a perfectly good CDX2 and LP12 and I'm using them now more than ever. The cost of CDs is ridiculously low secondhand, I buy them for home and to play in my car. On Amazon they can be bought for as little as 1p secondhand plus postage and in my local Sally Army shop they have a huge collection of CDs and DVDs, 10 for £1. Wow.

I can't see the point in paying full retail price to stream something I still need to store on my laptop or a NAS drive or record onto CD. My daughters use Spotify exclusively and cannot see the point in buying music they'll grow bored with in 3 months' time. With this sort of "throwaway" culture, how long will the paid for music format actually last I wonder?

In the meantime I'll add to my growing CD and vinyl collection at rockbottom prices.

Choice is good. It's the possibility of being herded into one pen which is not good. People can and do please themselves. Which is also good. I just think that the streaming model is the Emperor's New Clothes. For the cost of, say three years subscriptions, you could have an eclectic, medium sized physical collection which does not vanish when you stop paying. and will go wherever you go. Cancel your sub and you've got nothing.

I suppose that many of us use a bit of everything. I will not pay the industry to install a Juke Box in my house. Now more old than middle aged, having avidly collected music all my adult life, I'm set fair to enjoy my collection and technically, don't need to buy any more music. Although I will. I don't need access to all the music in the world. I've heard a lot of music in the world and most of it is rubbish. But like the Internet, the small percentage of talent and originality that defines creativity (as opposed to just being the biz) is huge in of itself, because there is so music music out there.

There seems to be 2 threads running on this issue, perhaps Richard can merge them?

Anyway, I love streaming, coupled with Roon,  it has heralded the biggest change in my listening enjoyment and habits in years. 

What I feel is that some posters see it very black or white, stream or own. The third path is radio. I’m just listening to Boogie Wonderland by Earth Wind and Fire. I have no desire to own this song on the Hits album it is from, but I’m listening to it on the Naim full monty as if I owned it. Just like years ago I enjoyed radio, enjoyed listening to and singing along to songs I had no desire to buy on a single or LP. 

There is a DJ who lives close to us who I dealt with and we had many chats about music over the years. I used to lust after his huge collection and could only have dreamt about having accesss to such a library. I would have been in heaven had he let me listen for a day a month. Now I have full access to a much bigger collection in full CD or hi-res in practically every room in the house. I’m (relatively) well off but would still find it a strain to buy the full 70’s Stevie Wonder back catalogue in hi-res but I’ve just overdosed with it in December -for €20.

I still purchase (mainly box sets and compilations) but the ever increasing pile of unripped CDs tells its own story about my listening habits. 

I have a supercharged radio station and a library ticket to the best music library on the planet, what’s not to like?

.sjb