No more CDs?

[Sgt Floyd]

My friend was saying that she heard that by the end of this year, all the cd companies will be out of buisness because everyone is downloading things and not buying cds. I dont want this to happen! I love cds. As a matter of fact, I HATE MP3 players. HATE HATE HATE HATE MP3 players. Gimme a cd player and I'll be happy. Anyway, is this true?

If that happened so many stores would also go out of buisness. Its bad enough they are forcing us to buy all new tvs. And you know what? I bet more than half of those downloads are illegal.

And really, its cheaper to just buy cds. if a download on Itunes costs about 99 cents, and a cd costs about 10 dollars, its cheaper to buy a cd. I got a kiss cd for 7 dollars new and it has I think 11 songs on it. If I wanted to download all the songs on that cd it would cost about 11 dollars.

But on the other hand, I bought a Bon Jovi Cd for 13 dollars (when it was just released) and I think it has about 8 or 10 songs on it, so in theory if I downloaded those songs, it would be cheaper.

Back to my point. Its just easier to buy a cd, stick it in a player than to go, download song after song, which will take time, then put it in your mp3 player which also takes time. I know on my mp3 player it takes about 10 minutes just to put 2 songs on it. and thats installing the songs on the computer and putting them on to it.

The moral of this rant is that I dont want them to stop celling cds. I hate the way we are becoming so dependant on downloading EVERYTHING.

If what my friend was saying is true, what is your opinion?

 

[Baby Gonzo]

I have an iPod, and there are advantages in buying individual songs. Sometimes, I really LOVE one song, but I don't want to buy the whole CD!

That being said, I love cds too. It's the same with comics in a way... Webcomics are wonderful, but there is something to be said about being able to hold a comic in your hands and flip through the pages.

I hope this isn't the end of CDs, though I haven't heard anything about CD companies going out of business.

 

[D'Snowth]

To tell you the truth, I heard this was supposed to happen sooner... MUCH sooner (like 2006 or so), and because, like you mentioned, a lot of these songs you can simply download.

Not to mention there's all kinds of MP3 trading threads on different forums, so yeah.

Personally, I don't mind too much: as long as they still make blank, recordable CDs, and I can find the songs I'm looking for, I'm a happy camper. Heck, I made two CDs (one full of my top twenty favorite oldies, while the other features my top twenty-five Christmas classics) that I like more than any other CD I've bought.

The one thing I'm NOT looking forward to, however, is the end of just regular DVDs... I mean, heck, it took me a few years just to finally give in and make the transition from VHS to DVD, and now here I am in DVD mode, and now I'm being forced to make a transition from them to all these new-fangled, "spectacular" forms of entertainment like HD-DVD (which I heard is being put to rest for) and Blu-Ray.

Where does it end? Why can't we all just settle with one form of entertainment (CDs for music, and DVDs for watching) and just be happy?

 

[SSLFan]

The one thing I'm NOT looking forward to, however, is the end of just regular DVDs... I mean, heck, it took me a few years just to finally give in and make the transition from VHS to DVD, and now here I am in DVD mode, and now I'm being forced to make a transition from them to all these new-fangled, "spectacular" forms of entertainment like HD-DVD (which I heard is being put to rest for) and Blu-Ray.

What is Blu-Ray anyway? Whatever it is, Disney has seemed to take a liking to it.

 

[D'Snowth]

What is Blu-Ray anyway? Whatever it is, Disney has seemed to take a liking to it.

It's supposed to be some kind of special DVD that apparently can hold more "information" than a regular DVD, and is also supposed to give off an even better quality picture thant regular DVD (as if DVD quality isn't good enough for us).

 

[Luke]

I don't think they will stop making cd's for a while, probably not until video and music on demand is truly available and used by everyone as people without a computer need access to stuff. As for blu-ray, its not as big a transistion as regular dvds are backwards compatible - if they weren't it'd be a bigger deal.

 

[sesameguy]

As a music collector, I think this is an important issue. There are, for example, many old record albums that still aren't officially on CD. (Like those old great Sesame Street albums!) If we switch to a totally new format, it could mean having to "re-record" them all over again. That takes time and money. I would hate to think that we would be unable to listen to what we wanted to just because we didn't have the right "machines" to do it. (Anybody here collect old 78 rpm albums? I don't, but I can imagine what a hassle it must be to try to "keep up to date" and transfer that stuff to another format.) It's important to me that we be allowed to treasure our old recordings just as we'd treasure old home movies or photographs. Whatever new formats eventually come along, I would hope we could still enjoy the old stuff as well.

======================

I've been keeping an eye on our vanishing music stores. You can read about it in this blog post:

http://heroshaven.blogspot.com/2008/01/fyi-on-fye.html

 

[Drtooth]

I don't think they will stop making cd's for a while, probably not until video and music on demand is truly available and used by everyone as people without a computer need access to stuff. As for blu-ray, its not as big a transistion as regular dvds are backwards compatible - if they weren't it'd be a bigger deal.

Indeed. I give it a couple more years before the real change over. While CD's aren't making the money they used to, they still sell. Had I had money, I'd buy much, much more of them. The only Mp3 files I care about are rare openings to Cartoon shows, as well as Japanese cartoon theme songs not available in the US (like anyone is clamoring to listen to Kinnikuman GO Fight! besides me). I have a vast collection of cartoon theme DVD's.

That said if I get a quality MP3 player I would use it. i got one for Christmas, and had it for a week, and the music was impossible to load on it. it was a cheap one, and I returned it. I did not like it at all. I'd rather save up and get an Ipod, myself.

 

[Sgt Floyd]

Ok, I was reading my dad's old november issue of rolling stone magazine and it had an article about how cds are supposed to phase out this year and how walmart and best buy reduced their cd stock. Walmart, yes, I see it, but I went to best buy a few weeks ago and they had their normal about of cds. The entire back wall was box sets and there was the usual 20 BIG racks of cds or so. A bit unorganized, but just as musvh as they always had.

The article also said that certain music stores have closed because of the lack of cd sales.

 

[sesameguy]

That said if I get a quality MP3 player I would use it.

Me too- I'm not so much "against" Mp3 players & the like as I just want to make sure I'm able to play the music I want to hear. And there's some stuff that I like that isn't readily available for Mp3 download from the "big" music sites.