This is pretty significant for those of us who enjoy a disc and a sleeve. CDs coming through the letterbox will be like buying vinyl was in the early 90’s CD age. Mind you, I did that, too.
Digital music sales now match physical ones
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I’m pretty sure CDs are physical products, too.
Time to stock up on your format of choice and make sure that you have more than the one facility on which to play it in future!
For me, that’s honing in on the 50 or so rare and deleted CDs that I missed out on first time round while they’re still cheap and unloved.
Last example: ‘The Who – Rarities 1966-72’ although, truth be told, I only need the first 15 tracks.
Careful with those “Back 2 Back” twofers. I had an Orange Juice one which went bronze.
It’s not discoloured and plays perfectly (so far).
What do you do if it goes…..erm…..funny?
If it plays now, rip it to Flac or a CDR copy right now!
I’m always a bit baffled by the language used in this sort of report although it was possibly written by the same lazy journalist that lied about the vinyl charts the other day. I’ve checked the specs (red book, orange book etc) and, as far as I can make out, CDs hold music digitally. I fail to see how getting my ones and naughts from a physical CD is any different (apart from any compression used) from getting them from a far off server (or more likely, my memory card.
I increasingly feel like a dinosaur when I buy a CD. In my local indie shop the CDs have been shunted to the back of the shop – and Vinyl to the front – so I’m out of the way and not killing the Vinyl vibe!
To be honest I like the instant hit of download, but sometimes I want to browse in a record shop and buy CDs, and sometimes I want to sift through second hand Vinyl. These are all enjoyable activities and each yield different results – I still find a Record Shop joins certain mental dots when browsing for music that I can’t find anywhere else – a sleeve artwork grabs you, or you see something in a bargain bin- I’d like to keep those options open.
This strange transitional phase we’re in between physical, download and streaming has been going on for years – it’s going to carry on this gradual path not least because it’s not like other things that are vanishing (milk deliveries, DVD Rentals etc) it’s got all the emotional investment behind it that go beyond ecomomics and market forces.
I can absolutely envisage that for the mass market that listens to Ed Sheeran or Tailor Swift going to HMV to buy a CD and even buying tracks on iTunes is definitely on the wane and they’ll just dial stuff up on their phones or iPads.
Buying music will become the preserve of the music nerd – which I guess is OK and there are probably enough of us to sustain the network of indie and second hand Record Shops and perhaps a stripped down more specialist chain store – interesting times – I wouldn’t panic buy CDs just yet though…they will probably get a revivial in 10 years time just in time for CD Store Day
Whilst at the same time I’m sure I heard on 6 Music that an official vinyl chart has just been launched. You can have any flavour you like, it appears.
As an aside, I just bought the new Calexico album on vinyl. It isn’t a double, it’s three sided: A whole side of vinyl with nothing on it. It’s also VERY blue! The kind of blue that you only see at a French ice cream parlour (what flavour is that anyway?)
I guess not everyone has always stuck to the conventional format length. Way back before CDs, Elvis squeezed about an hour onto a single LP and Graham Parker seemingly only had three sides worth for his “double” album so the fourth side is a 12″ single format of “Hey Lord…”
Somewhere I have the twelve inch single of Nick Lowe’s Half a Boy and Half a Man. The disc is blank on one side, and a sticker on the sleeve says, ‘Half a Boy, Half a Man, Half a Record!’