CD's

[torgospizza]

My biggest concern with downloading as opposed to buying albums is that so many great songs will never get heard. My niece, f.ex., only downloads, and by doing so has to be just picking out songs she knows. Almost invariably, my favorite songs by a band are not the hits. Look at Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" or "Atomic Punk" (which is a great username, BTW)--songs like that would likely go unheard if music went totally a la carte. If this was around in '80, people would know Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight", but a good deal less people would have heard "Metal Gods." That's too bad, because it deserves to be heard as much as the hits.

[Mikey]

My biggest concern with downloading as opposed to buying albums is that so many great songs will never get heard. My niece, f.ex., only downloads, and by doing so has to be just picking out songs she knows. Almost invariably, my favorite songs by a band are not the hits. Look at Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" or "Atomic Punk" (which is a great username, BTW)--songs like that would likely go unheard if music went totally a la carte. If this was around in '80, people would know Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight", but a good deal less people would have heard "Metal Gods." That's too bad, because it deserves to be heard as much as the hits.

Like I said, it's the 1950's again when people only cared about hit singles

[torgospizza]

Like I said, it's the 1950's again when people only cared about hit singles

Darn it, I didn't catch that earlier, Mikey! Good point--I agree completely, and don't like it at all. Think of classics like Elvis Costello's "Armed Forces"--all the songs that would be lost, only because people only cared about "Oliver's Army." They're cheating themselves by buying only hits.

[Mikey]

Darn it, I didn't catch that earlier, Mikey! Good point--I agree completely, and don't like it at all. Think of classics like Elvis Costello's "Armed Forces"--all the songs that would be lost, only because people only cared about "Oliver's Army." They're cheating themselves by buying only hits.

The thing is, SOMEBODY has to make songs a hit.

The old fashoned way was is listening to it, liking it, telling your friends about it - and so on.

Today, the hits are pre-fab

The record companies tell you which songs you like.

[Spawn67]

A lot of smaller labels still press vinyl so there is NO WAY they will stop pressing CD's, unless every pressing planet on earth happens to shut down.

I agree. However It will be more expensive to print them than it is now.

[Brazoo]

iPods rule - I have 2 classic iPods and I nearly have my entire music catalog on those. I haven't touched a CD in years. I just have the iPod hooked up to my stereo system and can select any song I want anytime.

The only physical format I've purchased for the last 4 years is records. I still love having a physical object - but CDs aren't that exciting anyway. Smaller artwork - less notes - crappy plastic cases. Good riddance.

The music industry was backwards in every way. Instead of innovating they fought to keep things the same - and that's just not how the world works. Industries change.

They should have created an online infrastructure well before Apple did, and offering better pricing or better quality for physical formats.

The industry should have thought long term - recording and production costs went down - the digital age brought more variety than ever before - but what the bigger companies kept conglomerating together making less companies - offering and promoting less variety and spending all their promo budgets on manufactured hit machine type talent.

Instead of developing ways to work with the growing trends they spent millions trying to go in reverse - they sank money into copy protection encryption (some tactics were illegal), legal battles with sharing sites and peer-to-peer sharing users, trying to add taxes to mp3 players (in Canada) and overcharging retailers: When Lower Prices Equal Higher Profits - Forbes.com

To this day the perception that illegal downloading killed the record industry is widely disputed by most outside analysis - but the record industry continues to believe it as fact.

Forbes did an extensive report a few years ago, and found the CD market was artificially inflated for just over 10 years. Why? Because people were replacing their LPs with CDs. Once people had bought their favorite Beatles albums (or whatever) and the industry became dependent on new music for sales the DVD market and the Video Game market came in and whooped them. People only have a finite amount of cash for entertainment, and with these new growing markets of DVDs and Video Games - CDs couldn't compete - and the record industry didn't change their strategy.

They see every downloaded album as a lost sale - and they base that on faulty logic and continue to perpetuate it as well: Are downloads really killing the music industry? Or is it something else? | Technology | guardian.co.uk

[thunderbolt]

My biggest concern with downloading as opposed to buying albums is that so many great songs will never get heard. My niece, f.ex., only downloads, and by doing so has to be just picking out songs she knows. Almost invariably, my favorite songs by a band are not the hits. Look at Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" or "Atomic Punk" (which is a great username, BTW)--songs like that would likely go unheard if music went totally a la carte. If this was around in '80, people would know Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight", but a good deal less people would have heard "Metal Gods." That's too bad, because it deserves to be heard as much as the hits.

THe download ala carte trend is probably going to kill albums altogether eventually, 5 to 10 years I bet full albums will be a thing of the past. Maybe carried on by older artists like U2 until they hang it up. the lack of places to browse thru CD's will kill any spontanious sort of purchases either.

[Brazoo]

My biggest concern with downloading as opposed to buying albums is that so many great songs will never get heard. My niece, f.ex., only downloads, and by doing so has to be just picking out songs she knows. Almost invariably, my favorite songs by a band are not the hits. Look at Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" or "Atomic Punk" (which is a great username, BTW)--songs like that would likely go unheard if music went totally a la carte. If this was around in '80, people would know Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight", but a good deal less people would have heard "Metal Gods." That's too bad, because it deserves to be heard as much as the hits.

I'd argue that to a large extent the fixation on singles never fully went away for most people. Singles are the focus of most radio (and videos, when videos were popular) and the biggest selling CDs were mostly compilations of hits.

People in our age bracket - people who collect stuff (like us) - have a slightly different mentality from the regular folks. Maybe I'm generalizing too much, but it's what I've observed.

[DocDrako]

My oldest as far as my first is the soundtrack to Star Wars. The original soundtrack, not the later expanded version. As far as old historically, I guess it's one of my old gospel CDs. George Jones I think.

Never thought CDs would go away, but then I thought the same about cassettes.

[Bruce Banner]

That all sickens me. I like having a physical product. I like having a lyric booklet that I can sit and read, and cover artwork that I can look at and appreciate.
I don't want everything to be download only. It reduces the art to just an impersonal file stuck on a harddrive with often incorrect metadata and no aesthetic merit.


But anyway... the first CDs I ever bought were the original CD releases of the Star Wars soundtracks, to go with my vinyl and cassette versions.

[ctc]

>The record companies tell you which songs you like.

Just like the 50's!

*sigh*

Don C.

[kingdom warrior]

Bye Bye Cd's always hated them......once they scratch they are useless unlike a Vinyl LP that will still play....

Totally love downloading music picking the songs i want.

sorry but although there are great albums out there NOT every artist whole album is that good.

Albums are most of the time filled with filler songs, so I can bypass the crappy songs i don't want and get all the ones that I can preview and if i like I buy.......

[Mikey]

The problem with downloading music, especially older songs --- is you never know what you're getting until you listen to it.

Example ... there's like 10,000 versions and remasters Beatles songs

[ctc]

>once they scratch they are useless

You can buff a lot of scratches out of a cd. (Brasso works really well.... especially the opaque stuff.)

>you never know what you're getting until you listen to it

Yeah.... that can be a problem. I also prefer to have a hard copy so's I know what I've already got, and don't have to worry about reedited, reissued or reimagined versions of things being the only versions available.

>NOT every artist whole album is that good

The 9 Most Unnecessary Greatest Hits Albums of All Time | Cracked.com

Go ninja! Go ninja! Go ninja!

Don C.

[toys2cool]

man I haven't bought a cd in about 5 years now, and i don't plan to unless it's at a thrift shop or flea market...the Ipod and downloading is just so much easier