Is the Compact Disc dead?

[Zcustom]

I have never been able to completely convert over to the MP3/ipod format.  There's something unique and almost intimate about buying a CD from your favorite band.  The way the packaging smells, the hidden gems of text or pictures etc...

 

Lately I have been arguing with my 25 year old bandmate about this subject, and I've now been labeled an "old timer" at the ripe old age of 32.

 

CD stores are mostly extinct, FYE used to be the place to get them but even it is gone now.  Sure the big box stores carry newer releases but you won't find a random copy of an album from before 2005 anywhere.  I miss Media Play.

 

Anybody else out there still buy CD's in addition to using streaming services/ipod/MP3's?

 

Or is the CD dying a slow death?

[Inimicus]

I think its safe to say that if its not dead yet its laying iin a hospice bed waiting on the end.

I used to buy 6 or 7 a week and I havent bought one now in 5 years.

[Guest]

Manifest is now all used CDs I think. You really dated yourself, calling them "albums" :-) I used to think the same about LPs... Much better buying experience than a CD.

[j2sgam]

I still buy them. Sure its easy to just download it to my ipod, but I second your motion on the experience, smell & such. Its especially nice if you know the new album is coming out, the walk to the truck on that particular Tuesday is a great feeling....

[Kramerica]

I got the urge to download or Spotify stream some Tool the other day, and came to realize that they refuse to make their music available on iTunes or Spotify because they want to encourage listeners to buy the physical release (for the artwork and other stuff). So some are still holding out, but I haven't bought a CD in years.

 

Speaking with a salesperson at the Apple store recently, the next generation of Macbook Pro computers will not contain a CD/DVD drive. It's likely just becoming a waste of space.

[Darth Biscuit]

The last couple of albums I've purchased have been Amazon MP3s.

No real use for CDs any more..

[Cat]

I've never noticed the smell of the packaging. I've bought one CD in the last 8ish years. Deadmau5 4x4x=12 it's on my android now and the cd is in storage.

[C47]

I buy CD's every now and then.  I think the last one I bought was a Skrillex album.  I probably won't but another till the new Tool album comes out in early 14.  I will definitely buy that one for the artwork alone...

[-13 Amp-]

when i buy a cd now, i automatically rip it into mp3s and put it on the mp3 player...but i still support music i like, and i still like lookin through the booklet and whatnot

[Inimicus]

Id say in another 5 years no new acts will be releasing albums of material and will instead just stream out singles when they get them ready.  No need to burn a months worth of studio time to get 3 money making songs and 8 to 10 filler songs when you can be in and out of the studio in a week with 2  radio/iTunes ready songs.

 

There will always be some groups that use the album format but they will become increasingly rare.

 

I think it will take a decade or more before the majority of acts are only publishing singles but the trend will start in the next few years.

 

 

And that will be the true death knell of the compact disc.

[Anybodyhome]

Wanna hear one of those, "You young whipper-snappers won't ever know what it's like..." stories?

 

As a teenager in the late 60's and early 70's Tower Records was a huge chain of stores and included locations on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood as well as prime locations very close to where the music scene was in those days. If there was an arena that held concerts in the city, odds were a Tower Records was close by. Those places would be packed before and after shows, bands would do their pre-concert pressers in the parking lots of a Tower Records store, bands would show up at a Tower Records store on an album release date.

 

We'd spend hours in Tower Records stores looking for the hidden, obscure gems and just reading liner notes and album covers. We could go to the Whiskey or the Troubador in LA and listen to Neil Young or Van Halen do a set and afterwards hang out at the Tower store learning more about our favorite artists.

 

Albums back then had a meaning behind them. There were the "concept albums" like any Emerson, Lake and Palmer album or "Dark Side of the Moon." There's absolutely no sense in it now because nobody buys the entire CD or package anymore. They simply download the songs they like and forget the rest of the release.

 

I download now, but I still record everything to CD, it feels like I have something in my hand...

 

That being said, I was at an artist friend's house yesterday and one wall in his painting studio was full of CDs and he still has the amplifiers with the old school huge wooden speakers, a cassette player (yes, I even saw some cassette tapes) and a turntable! A turntable! For those of you who have no idea what those are- they play records... Anyway, the sound was great, it was clean and it sounded real, not like the digitally mastered, almost sterile music quality we have today.

[Zaximus]

Yes, CD is basically dead.  Very few bands are holding out on putting their music on streaming sites, even Pink Floyd and Metallica are now on Spotify.  Tool is one of the few, as is AC/DC and some of the bigger ones (although AC/DC may be on itunes now).   They did it to themselves though, charging 15-20 bucks for a new CD when only a few songs were good.  I agree that singles are the new big thing especially with mainstream, but rock bands and whatnot will still put out an album.  

 

However, I do believe vinyl is on the increase, as people are noticing the quality is much better than anything else.

[Guest]

We used to use double LP album covers to clean our weed.

[Doyle]

I got the urge to download or Spotify stream some Tool the other day, and came to realize that they refuse to make their music available on iTunes or Spotify because they want to encourage listeners to buy the physical release (for the artwork and other stuff). So some are still holding out, but I haven't bought a CD in years.

 

Speaking with a salesperson at the Apple store recently, the next generation of Macbook Pro computers will not contain a CD/DVD drive. It's likely just becoming a waste of space.

 

The last laptop I bought didn't have a DVD drive.  I didn't even realize it till I got home and went to download my antivirus software.  I panicked at first until I figured it out that you don't even need one.