Rolling Stone magazine has reported that CD sales increased last year for the first time since 2005.
Not just single sales, either.
Box-sets are big again.
Why’s that?
Fans can get them signed.
Read here.
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And they make for a great birthday or Christmas/Holiday gift.
Always a large part of physical sales was as a present for others.
Digital doesn‘t do that for us.
Because its value is surer than cryptocurrency or shares of Twitter … or the British pound? ; )
I remember listening to Mahler symphonies on vinyl discs. Really, I don’t miss that.
There are times when I listen to a work, say Ein Heldenleben or Rite of Spring, where I think, “Now is the point when you have to get up and flip the lp over.”
Let’s hope this trend keeps up! At least in the classical arena I see CDs hanging around for a long time. I don’t see BBC Music magazine abandoning them. Many orchestras – the LSO, Berlin, London Philharmonic, Chicago – present their own series. I just hope that the big outfits, like Sony, are paying attention and re-release some of those massive boxed sets some of us missed the first time around.
My hunch was always that the resurgence of interest in LPs of a few years ago was largely a sort of false nostalgia for a past the kids did not really know — and modest proof was the brief interest in manual typewriters that came about at the same time. Once their new LP suffered its first bad scratch or skipping groove they would realize why the market was ready for a successor to the LP.
The chance to get a CD signed by the artist seems a weak reason for this CD revival. Perhaps some vulnerability to the media that replaced it is also a contributing factor.
One thing the 78 rpm “album,” the LP, and the CD had in common was liner notes and a considerable amount of what I know about some music, composers, and performers came from those notes. Based on the pleas for more information that I see in posted comments to YouTube videos, I think liner notes are missed more than the media they came wrapped with.
I love CDs!
Especially when one listens to a long work such as an opera, the 80 min. maximum playing time of a CD just makes listening much easier and much less of a hassle than changing LP sides every 20-to-25 minutes. And CDs don’t start to audibly wear after a number of playings.
As to the old (non-) issue of CD vs. vinyl LP sound quality, I have thousands of each and a good sound system and I can tell you: there are good-sounding and bad-sounding CDs and good-sounding and bad-sounding vinyl LPs. It’s always been that way.
Plus, one can cheaply buy them used online with confidence that if they play at all, they’ll sound as if they were new.
I love CDs!
There is a good market in second hand CDs too.
The bumper box sets can be good value. However I put the first CD of the big DG Boulez box into onoe of my CD players and then found I couldn’t eject it. Fortunately the machine relented later. I will probably need to get another player.
It would have been a pain to have a large set like that compromised.
For what it’s worth, I thought the Boulez/Patrice Chereau ring, which is provided both in Blu-Ray and CD formats, fine as an audio experience, but visually I thought the production was not all it was cracked out to be.
Boulez ring: any Ring recording has its merits. Yet the Boulez ring is easy to eliminate in any shortlist. Visually? Let’s say there are worse ones…
There is no ideal Ring recording. All have pros and cons. The Chereau Ring (Boulez conducting) has its deserved merits, particularly visually, mis-en-scene conceptually. I believe it would be on Wagner’s shortlist, looking at all Ring productions of the last century.
Signed with ink?
Why not?
Book signing events are big deals for authors.
I have never stopped buying CDs. I’m among the generations that grew up with vynil. CDs were a great improvement in many ways. There is no reason to go backwards.
Have you seen the price of LPs!?
Over the past two years, I’ve never not stopped buying Cds. My collection is over 1000 – you can’t show that in digital format.
I’d sooner have something that’s real not just a download.
Like vinyl, long live Cds.
I’m hoping it’s connected with the huge (and often unknown) cost of streaming to the planet…
Given what they’re charging for new vinyl pressings, it’s hardly surprising that the vinyl surge is waning – especially when you consider what they’re now charging to eat out, or fill your gas tank. Many new and used CD purchases are a bargain (some aren’t, of course).