61 replies to this topic

[David Meadows]

I'm not sure what to make of this. As far as I can tell this is a legit news site, but it's the only one reporting this as far as I know:

http://www.side-line...d=46980_0_2_0_C

The major labels plan to abandon the CD-format by the end of 2012 (or even earlier) and replace it with download/stream only releases via iTunes and related music services. The only CD-formats that will be left over will be the limited edition ones, which will of course not be available for every artist. The distribution model for these remaining CD releases would be primarily Amazon which is already the biggest CD retailer worldwide anyhow.

3 weeks ago we heard it for the first time and since then we have tried getting some feedback from EMI, Universal and Sony. All declined to comment.


Update: We were approached by several people working with major labels, who indeed re-confirm that plans do exist to give up the CD. We keep on trying to get an official confirmation, but it seems that the matter is very controversial, especially after Side-Line brought out the story.

It doesn't seem very believeable to be honest.

[Steve Sensible]

It doesn't seem very believeable to be honest.

They'd pretty much kill a lot of large retailers overnight, and I can't see them doing that while there's still life in the CD format. There are still plenty of people who prefer CDs to downloads, or who simply don't own anything like an iPod.

Sounds like bollocks to me - you can breathe easy for now I think, David.

[The Lorcan Nagle]

CDs are on the way out, but not this year.

[Ogul]

It does seem a bit early, but who knows, they might have reached the tipping point beyond which they just aren't selling enough of most CDs to justify the expense of putting them together and shipping them out. I'm sure if they are intending to do this that they consulted with retail partners, and perhaps they were fine with this. Many devoted CD stores have shut down or evolved away from CDs already, and maybe the larger retailers that carry CDs just aren't that interested, given that they take up a lot of space for perhaps small reward.

And really, anyone who doesn't have an MP3 device (at least within the industrialized world) is just too far behind the times to coddle about it, like people in the late-80s that only had 8-track. I'm not even a phonophile, and yet I have about a dozen different MP3 players (a Creative Zen, a PSP, a Kindle, an NDS, A Netbook, my PC, my PS3, my Xbox 360, my fairly minimal cell phone, probably more). I only have less than half as many CD players (three of the above). People might like to get the CD format for sentimental/collector reasons, and it sounds like those will still exist for albums that people are likely to care about collecting, but for practical purposes they aren't really necessary anymore.

[Robert B]

I stopped buying cds a while ago (or even receiving them through my job) but I know people who still swear by the format.

And a lot of people don't own anything to play MP3s on. People like us forget how poor and how technophobic a large percentage of our population is. I mean, lots of people still don't own DVD players.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they stopped printing cds for some smaller albums.

And I shouldn't come down on people for not getting mps3, when I regularly buy vinyl and have tons of cassette players.

[Jim Ohara]

Last story I could find:

CD Sales Continue Free Fall in 2009


Another year, another collapse in CD sales.
For the eighth time in nine years, U.S. album sales declined. That’s according to data compiled by Nielsen SoundScan.
Album sales fell to fell to 373.9 million units, a 12.7% decline from 2008. Total sales fell a whopping 52% since 2000. CDs still account for almost 80 percent of all album purchases.
Paid online song downloads continued to grow, but at a pace that was too slow to make up for lost CD sales.
1.16 billion individual songs were purchased digitally, an increase of 89 million units, or 8.3%, from 2008. That represents a significant slowdown in digital-sales growth. In 2008, sales of digital songs increased by 226 million, or 27% over the previous year. Digital downloads now account for 40% of music purchases.

I doubt this is true. There's still a huge amount of revenue tied to CD's, even though the music industry is a shadow of its former self.

[lj cunningham]

I stopped buying cds a while ago (or even receiving them through my job) but I know people who still swear by the format.

And a lot of people don't own anything to play MP3s on. People like us forget how poor and how technophobic a large percentage of our population is. I mean, lots of people still don't own DVD players.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they stopped printing cds for some smaller albums.

And I shouldn't come down on people for not getting mps3, when I regularly buy vinyl and have tons of cassette players.

As much as I love my Ipod, until mp3 downloads (or a new standard format across the market) have the sound quality equivalent of CDs or vinyl, those more stable formats (CDs, vinyl) will continue to exist and will still be a significant part of the market. I still buy a ton of CDs and have all of my vinyl (1500 LPs, 400-500 7" singles) because the quality of the tracks is so superior. Space is always an issue, but I hate paying for an inferior product even if it is more convenient. And I say that even though I've had an e-music account for 6 or 7 years. I use that account to experiment or buy albums by newer bands, to test them out. Something I end up liking, I'll then get on CD.

While I know I'm not the typical music perveyor, there will always be a market for quality. The death of CDs is coming. It's inevitable. But not for some time yet. Hell, vinyl has never gone away and is now coming back (temporarily) in popularity.

[Ogul]

CDs still account for almost 80 percent of all album purchases.

This makes sense to me, as digital purchasers have much less incentive to buy the entire album than those that buy CDs, so CDs should obviously make an above-average amount of the album-buying portion of the music-buying public.

I doubt this is true. There's still a huge amount of revenue tied to CD's, even though the music industry is a shadow of its former self.

True enough, but how many of those customers would fail to go digital if digital was the only option? I mean, the buy-in for a basement level MP3 player is like $10, I think I've even seen them giving them away for free with $19.99 infomercial products before. If people like music enough that they'd still, in 2012, buying little plastic discs full of the stuff, I imagine they'd be willing to switch over to digital purchases. The industry doesn't have to wait until the very last person buys an MP3 player to give up on the CD format, they only have to reach the point at which they don't believe it's worth their time to keep trying.

While I know I'm not the typical music perveyor, there will always be a market for quality. The death of CDs is coming. It's inevitable. But not for some time yet. Hell, vinyl has never gone away and is now coming back (temporarily) in popularity.

I agree on that, but that doesn't save the CD. CDs don't have any higher quality to them than MP3s, or at least high quality MP3s. They might release more high-quality MP3s than they currently tend to, but there's no reason there to keep CDs around. Vinyl will probably long outlast the CD as a boutique format, if any format will stick around that would be it, and maybe they would continue to make custom burnings of CDs available to customers at a high price (like maybe double or more current CD prices), but I don't see the point of that.

[HowardAshton]

As somebody who exclusively buys CD and vinyl I'd be very upset to see this, but even if CDs were to go out of mainstream production the record shops I buy 80% of my music from would remain largely unchanged, most of the music in there is 20 years old anyhow. Mostly I'd miss the practice of lending and borrowing CDs with friends in the long run, lending somebody a CD they've never heard of is more likely to get them to listen to it than trying to convince them to buy it off ITunes.

[David Meadows]

This makes sense to me, as digital purchasers have much less incentive to buy the entire album than those that buy CDs, so CDs should obviously make an above-average amount of the album-buying portion of the music-buying public.

I don't have any sense of how much music is bought as albums and how much as singles, but I would assume albums dominate. (Anecdotally, nobody I know buys singles.) You say digital buyers don't have the incentive to download an entire album -- but what not? I don't buy CDs begrudgingly because it's the only way to get one favourite song, I buy them because it's the best way to get everything the band has recorded. If you like a band, isn't it true that you will like most (if not all) of what they do? And if you don't like a band, why are you buying anything at all?


I think it would be a great loss if a move to digital only resulted in the the death of the idea of an album as a coherent set of songs, and bands only recorded occasional singles because that's all that they could sell.

[Steve Sensible]

I think it would be a great loss if a move to digital only resulted in the the death of the idea of an album as a coherent set of songs, and bands only recorded occasional singles because that's all that they could sell.

The majority of albums aren't a "coherent set of songs" these days though. The tracks on an album will often be written by multiple song-writing teams, have different producers, and be performed by different musicians.

[Henry Blanco]

There are still plenty of people who prefer CDs to downloads, or who simply don't own anything like an iPod.

Or a computer, or decent internet access.

[Robert B]

As much as I love my Ipod, until mp3 downloads (or a new standard format across the market) have the sound quality equivalent of CDs or vinyl, those more stable formats (CDs, vinyl) will continue to exist and will still be a significant part of the market. I still buy a ton of CDs and have all of my vinyl (1500 LPs, 400-500 7" singles) because the quality of the tracks is so superior. Space is always an issue, but I hate paying for an inferior product even if it is more convenient. And I say that even though I've had an e-music account for 6 or 7 years. I use that account to experiment or buy albums by newer bands, to test them out. Something I end up liking, I'll then get on CD.

While I know I'm not the typical music perveyor, there will always be a market for quality. The death of CDs is coming. It's inevitable. But not for some time yet. Hell, vinyl has never gone away and is now coming back (temporarily) in popularity.

You can get digital music with extraordinary sound quality, but the files are very large and most people who own digital music players own ones with relatively small hard drives.

[David Meadows]

The vast majority of albums aren't a "coherent set of songs" these days though. The tracks on an album will often be written by multiple song-writing teams, have different producers, and be performed by different musicians.

Well, that explains the decline in album sales!

[Arjan Dirkse]

I am not sure if we've progressed in any way since vynil records...I was at my friend's place a while ago and we started browsing through his record collection, and playing them on the record player, it was wonderful. Is it just nostalgia or do they have some quality that you just don't have with Cds or mp3s?

[Ogul]

I don't have any sense of how much music is bought as albums and how much as singles, but I would assume albums dominate. (Anecdotally, nobody I know buys singles.) You say digital buyers don't have the incentive to download an entire album -- but what not?

I've listened to a lot of albums over the years, and only half or less of them were 100% great songs. A lot of them were like 1-2 great songs, the ones that interested me enough to check out the album, with the rest being filler songs that never would have interested me on their own. Now granted, my taste in music is not what one could call "refined", I tend to prefer "catchy" to "artistic," but it does loosely conform to the industry as a whole these days.

With CDs, they release them such that on day one you get the first single, then soon after the full album, and then maybe a handful of other singles over the next few months or year, and if the whole album is truly great then it's much cheaper that way then getting all the singles, and most of the songs will never be singles anyways, while if you only like 1-2 songs off the album then that would be cheaper, although you might have to wait for the second or third single to drop. With Digital, you can listen to each song individually and buy only the ones that interest you, usually for cheaper than singles CDs. Unless you like the vast majority of the album, singles would be a better deal. Mylo Xyloto, for example, is listed at $8 for the album, 14 tracks at $1 a piece. If you like EVERY song on there, you'd save $6 on the album. If you only like seven of the songs, you'd save $1 buying the singles. If you only like two of the songs, you'd save $5.

If you do like the album, buying the digital album is still much cheaper than the physical CD, $7-7.99 being the highest price category for albums on Amazon, and you get the same songs you'd get on the CD. Many of them, good albums too, are $5 or less.

I think it would be a great loss if a move to digital only resulted in the the death of the idea of an album as a coherent set of songs, and bands only recorded occasional singles because that's all that they could sell.

I don't think that's likely, I think that people who are happy with CD albums today, if digital becomes the only way to go, will likely continue to buy albums, my only point was that If people today are buying albums, there's a higher chance it's in CD format than digital, given how much more convenient digital is for "piecemealing" it.

I am not sure if we've progressed in any way since vynil records...I was at my friend's place a while ago and we started browsing through his record collection, and playing them on the record player, it was wonderful. Is it just nostalgia or do they have some quality that you just don't have with Cds or mp3s?

They do, they just aren't nearly as convenient. They take up a lot more space, have much bigger and less portable players, etc. Nobody questions that they have an artistic advantage to them though.

[Arjan Dirkse]

I wonder how people with lots of mp3s do it? Do you just keep them on your hard drive, or do you make a back up on an external drive, and would you be happy to keep mp3s you purchased in "the cloud" ? I admit I am a bit paranoid about that, I know Apple is not going to go out of business anytime soon, but what would happen if you had thousands of files in iCloud and the whole thing broke down or something...would you lose all that music?

[Robert B]

I wonder how people with lots of mp3s do it? Do you just keep them on your hard drive, or do you make a back up on an external drive, and would you be happy to keep mp3s you purchased in "the cloud" ? I admit I am a bit paranoid about that, I know Apple is not going to go out of business anytime soon, but what would happen if you had thousands of files in iCloud and the whole thing broke down or something...would you lose all that music?

I have about 22,000 songs on my ipod. I have a backup hard drive, and an old ipod with a lot of this music backed up on it. And have them backed up on DVDs.

It's going to take quite a while before I trust any cloud service, if ever.

[David Meadows]

22,000??? How big is your iPod? I have an 8GB mp3 player and filled it with just over one thousand songs. At that rate, 22,000 songs would be bigger than my entire computer hard drive.

[Stephen G]

I see this doing a serious hit to places like Best Buy as well. Even though they have plenty of other products they sell - there are still plenty of people, at least that I know, that still utilize Best Buy for many of their music desires. I could see it harming far more than just smaller places.