When things are new, and people are making a name for themselves by making bold assertions that sound futuristic, doom-laden or revolutionary, sometimes they fall into the trap of talking nonsense.
“CDs are dead!” is one example of this phenomenon.
Think about it. Does it really look like the CD is dead? Or even particularly struggling? Sales of mass-produced, commercially released popular music CDs are declining (though hardly dwindling to zero as some self-professed prophets of the digital age are trying to make us think), but the CD itself is alive and well. Thriving, actually.
I’ll explain.
When we talk about the CD, we’re usually talking about CDs for sale in high street shops. When I say ‘we’, I mean ‘the mainstream media’, and when I say ‘the mainstream media’, I generally mean ‘articles that have largely been cut and paste from press releases issued by the major record labels’.
But a step back reveals a much richer and more diverse picture – in which the CD is not only alive and well, but is making a concerted attempt at taking over my house, and probably yours too.
The Compact Disc hierarchy
In my view, there are different categories of CD. Think of it as a hierarchy. There are probably about ten layers to this hierarchy, and mass-produced, commercially released, mainstream pop CDs are about third-to-top of this hierarchy.
At the top, I put collectors editions. You know – those box sets: beautifully packaged, comprehensively annotated special releases. Next down, I’d put those nicely packaged one-off CDs that are just so gorgeous and so lovingly put together you just have to own them – or giftwrap them.
Then there are ones that generally come out on major label release with an expensive printed booklet, but it’s pretty much just a jewel case and a disc.
On to the independent release with a single or folded card in it — and so on down to the hand-scrawled, unpackaged CD-R that you use to save a part-finished song onto, so you can listen to it in the car on the way home from the studio.
And through the spectrum are those discs that get handed out as samplers or audio flyers, covermount discs on magazines, the compilation gift for a friend.
Right across the board, for many uses, the CD is dominant and looks likely to remain so for some time. Except perhaps in those one or two territories near the top end, where it has to make room for other things.
At the extreme top end – the connoisseur series – it looks like vinyl is the main challenger. Record collectors like to collect records – but retailers tell me that in fact, that’s a growing sector of the CD market.
Likewise those comprehensively put together compilations of musical history and geographic interest – for instance, this excellent compilation of 70s psychedelic funk music from Benin and Togo… which is just a lovely thing to behold and own. Increasingly, people seem to want to buy these things.
The mp3 seems to challenge the next couple of layers down – in the popular music territory – but even so, there’s a degree to which the decline of CD sales by popular artists can be attributed to the fact that we’ve all pretty much finally replaced our back catalogue. It’s been a 25-year project, but it’s more or less done now.
People still buy new release CDs, but it’s fair to say that this is one sector of the market that is not making as much money as it used to. And there are many reasons for that, most having nothing to do with the proposition that owning computers turns people into criminals.
But everywhere else, the CD is not only surviving, but actually experiencing what seems to be exponential growth.
Where CDs rule
When we talk about cassettes today, mostly we’re not talking about commercially released tapes that you could buy alongside records in stores. We’re talking about blank tapes that you could copy music onto and share with your friends. In large part, this is the function that the CD has taken on — and in many ways, it does a far better job of it.
The blank disc is now mass produced in such massive quantities, and there is such demand for them, that it’s actually something of an environmental hazard. But this does not mean the threat to music that some critics claim, any more than the mass availability of paper damages the publishing industry, or the widespread uptake of knitting needles and yarn damages the fashion industry.
The tools with which to record and release a CD have become so widely available now that artists who would never have considered going into a recording studio twenty years ago are now releasing handmade CDs of their work. I don’t know how many CDs are currently available for sale in the world, but my guess is that it’s several orders of magnitude more than were available even five years ago.
And I don’t know about you, but I can hardly move in the house for tripping over the damn things. And I’ve thrown out a good few thousand in the past few years.
My guess is that one of the biggest problems that major record labels have selling albums is not that people are stealing music, but that those labels are no longer producing such a dominant proportion of the overall mass of discs that can be bought.
Where CDs do okay
Here’s the interesting thing though: in the one area you might expect the hardest hits to have been taken – the independent artist – CDs seem to be doing okay. CD Baby keeps on reporting growth of sales of physical products by its member artists. And they sell the downloadable stuff too.
Amazon’s doing okay out of CD sales. And there’s an enormous second hand market both on eBay and offline.
So no. CDs aren’t dead, and nor should we wish them to be. They may have horrible, badly designed plastic cases that invariably break, not enough artwork or liner notes, and a tendency to become scratched just through the passage of time, but they have their uses.
And if you come round to my house with a trailer and your chequebook, I can prove it to you.
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27 Comments
I don’t think that CDs are dead either, far from it, but I do see them take on a different role. CDs are now more like t-shirts… merchandise for the die-hard fans.
Well, there certainly not dead, just like vinyl isn’t dead yet.
I wouldn’t be surprised though to see them replaced by memory cards or usb sticks.
I still buy cd’s but only at concerts directly from the bands, and mostly to support the band: I rip them once, so I can listen to them where-ever I want. I only use cd’s in my car radio, and newer car stereo’s have either USB or memory card possibilities.
I liked the post about format and the nr of units shipped on Music Think Tank recently:
http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/music-industry-trends-have-a-lesson-for-radio.html
Great article. There seems to be a great deal of panic about CD sales but as you point out, most of it is at the top end of the scale. Digital downloads are making inroads for sure but I still think the humble CD will be around for a while yet.
I also agree with your crack about the chequebook and trailer. The same would apply at my house and the pile seems to keep growing!
Regarding the popular music sales issue, I think that audio quality will play an increasing role in the longevity of the CD format.
It is easy to be seduced by the ease and instant gratification of purchasing an online download, but even at bit-rates above 160 the sound quality is not great. AAC is a bit better but it is not such a portable format. The problem is that many who have invested in building a music library through downloads may find that they have a collection that doesn’t sound so good played through a better system than their computer speakers or ipod earbuds. With CDs you can always reconvert as new encoding methods come on stream.
It wasn’t so long ago that folks were bemoaning the drop in audio quality from vinyl to CD. Now we’re way below that and no-one seems to mind.
hmmmm. Cds still break when I drop them on the floor.The cases are annoynig and the artwork is pointless. And they still take up too much shelf space. They are dying, but not dead. Blu-ray audio discs anyone?
The company I work for creates box sets that tell a story of the era. Malt Shop, Flower Power, Grand Ole Opry series – the consumers still enjoy box sets because of the extensive liner notes, beautiful packaging, and the good music.
I gotta say, I completely disagree with this article. Every product in life evolves in terms of convenience. Take money, which moved from barter, to gold, to coins, to paper, to plastic. Now I admit that music is not money, and there are a few examples where this perhaps doesn’t apply (though everything is getting smaller), but the death of CDs is really just a matter of time.
The only large* group of people that don’t seem to accept it yet, are those that do not (want to) understand how to use IT or transfer music to an mp3-player, but even that is becoming increasingly a more (don’t think about it, get an) iPod-like process.
(*: there are other groups, as you point out, collectors, but those are definitely niche)
May I come round with a trailer and chequebook, rent all your CD’s for a ripping weekend? I promise you’ll get every single one of them back by next week (you can deduct the scratched and broken off the deposit…)
Hi Andrew, in my recent blog post “is the CD finally dead” I threw up a few ideas based around using digital codes to download music and a few labels selling them with t-shirts. I also wanted my readers to really think about who their market is and how they can think creatively to reach them.
Is the CD dead, obviously not, and it does depend on your genre and target market, I collect vinyl and buy digital downloads, I haven’t bought a CD for a few years, do I have a pile of CD’s sitting around the studio, yes and I’ll be glad when I can finally clear them out.
Is the CD going to be the primary means of delivering music in 5 years time if your a nu-jazz producer??
I recently started working with a 20 year old front man for a hardcore punk band called the tentacles of destruction, they recently toured the US and France for 3 months, funded by gigs and merch sales in New Zealand. They took cassettes to sell at gigs and will be releasing a 7″ single in a couple of months. They released a self made CDR 2 years ago because it was the only delivery system available to them within their budget but just are not interested in CD’s at all anymore. “Why should I give our money to a distributor when we can just sell them direct to our fans?” This from a 20 year old who knows his market and how to reach it!
I fully agree that CD’s have their uses and I know many indie artists who still see them as viable but for how long?
I think it will be a very, very long time before the physical format, be it vinyl or CD, is a dead medium. It’s human nature to covet & collect and there will always be a sizeable portion of the music loving population that wants something tangible, tactile, physical to own.
When you buy a download, what do you actually own? Nothing that you can sell on, nothing that may increase in value, nothing that you can trade at your local car boot sale or record fair when you need to raise some extra cash.
Change will happen, of course, and downloads/MPs are now a superbly convenient way to take your music with you, but there will always be those for whom the real library needs to contains the real, physical formats. Perhaps, in future, it will be the records & CDs that are the back-ups of the content on your iPod?
I too disagree with this article. Oh sure for audiophiles and some of us “older” people cds are still alive and kicking but for those of us who have kids, you’ll see that the landscape is totally different.
In my house digital rules. My 12 year old daughters has a 3rd generation iPod Nano, my 8 year old daughter has a Disney mp3 player… even my wife has a 2nd generation ipod Nano and iPod. The only time she really even uses cds in her car.
But all of my daughters friends have mp3 players. Take a ride on the subway in NYC. Can you even find 1 person with a portable cd player anymore?
Let’s not kid ourselves here… cds are pretty much dead for the generations coming up now…
@Vincent
If you think that people who buy CDs are people who don’t buy into the whole digital music age, you are sorely mistaken.
The majority of sales that are generated via online music sites like iLike, Mog, MyStrands and Last.fm are for physical items, not for download, and many people prefer to have the advantage of a physical entity.
MP3s might be convenient, and any CD I buy i convert to MP3 to take on any portable device I own, but at the same time I prefer a physical backup and something of value. I don’t see CDs as a cumbersome and space-filling device, any more than a 50GB library of partially corrupted MP3s is an inconvenience.
CD sales might be falling, sic the CD dieing, but in reality a bucket load of money is still being made and I don’t see high street stores like Zavvi, HMV, Fopp and everyone else chucking out physical products wholesale in favor of a cornerstone with a few airport check-in style workstation with USB 2.0 ports.
If anything, the music industry is busy trying to oversell us on albums, offers, box sets and everything else.
My belief is that CDs are not dead yet and it is possible to sell them, even to diehard downloaders, if you make it an experience they couldn’t possibly get anywhere else.
I offer a custom CD where fans can choose the songs (from any of my 4 releases) and title the album themselves. The sleeve is hand painted, signed and numbered. Each one is unique. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJuqEm6gGOU
My first release (The Broken EP) was also designed and manufactured by hand and continues to sell. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF0wGd2kn0k
The major benefit of hand made products is that it builds strong bonds with fans who are likely to stay for life.
I AM JEN
As someone who is working on their own CD this article is good news for me! I myself spent over $700 on CD’s last year (mainly by independent musicians), so I would say the CD is not dead. I do however have a storage issue and was considering selling off some of my collection, but I keep thinking that I would miss any of them if I sell them.
This year was my first year buying any digital downloads and the instant delivery was cool, but I miss being able to read the liner notes (producer, mastering, guests, etc.) I actually listen to most of my music while driving in the car or working on the computer, so I don’t notice the slight compromise in quality. I purchased a few Buckethead downloads and they included the full artwork. If all downloads included complete artwork I could see myself focusing more on buying digital downloads instead of CD’s (with the exception of collector’s editions as mentioned in the article).
Maybe I just need to buy a larger house?
I wonder how this same post would fare on a site geared towards teens. There’s where you would see the difference.
@VINCENT (sounds like I’m talking to myself)
I think CDs are here because that decision is made by suppliers, not by consumers. I agree that there’s definitely tangible value to CDs, like the covers, but there was much more value to record-disk’s covers, and still those have been displaced by the mainstream.
Music is increasingly becoming social now. You have a last.fm account, I have one, and that is incredibly valuable to future-music decisions. If I want tangible proof of my fandom, I go to a concert/buy a poster/print out something/blog about it, but disks areâ€â€to many peopleâ€â€just dead weight, as soon as they discover the digital arena.
And record-labels still have to catch up.
Good article. I don’t think the CDs are dead and it will survive the coming years no doubt about it. Talking about selling CDs it’s a different story in my opinion.
I played in some underground bands and sold a reasonable amount of CDs. What i see: The distribution channels are changing so much that it’s hard to get a good distribution deal when you’re running a smaller label. In that case there’s no issue the CD is dead but to get a good distribution makes it hard to get more sales.
In Europe there are many mainstream distributors who give up the indie-labels because of its marketing budget or total sales of the roster . Even when you come up with special packages it doesn’t any matter anymore. On the other hand the online sales are increasing not only for CD but also merchandise. I think also smaller labels need to change their way of selling and distribution their CDs.
But still when the (indie) labels or artists are not seeing or taking these opportunities they will always say “CDs are dead”.
@Vincent -
It is true that CDs exist because vendors and suppliers choose to provide access, but at what point do you decide they are dead?
People still trade and sell cassettes, believe it or not. Does this mean the cassette is dead or alive? Is the mainstream all that counts? I suppose thats a topic of discussion outside the scope of this article.
As the article points out, the CD format will never truly die based on its convenience factorand the high-volume of production of CD-R(W)s. That being said, what’s the current uptake on Stereo 8 (8-Track), DAT and BETAMAX. I suppose the moral of the story is, that if it has moving parts … wave it good bye!
You will be glad to know I am re-ripping music from CDs I bought 15 years ago, because the MP3s I ripped 5 years ago didn’t last. Thanks be to god I didnt flog my space-consuming plastic friends. Reliability is key me thinks.
Long live the CD!
Vincent
@ Universal Indie Records
True, the notion of value to teens is a little different and probably half the reason why Dubbers – if I may call you that :) please pardon the familiarity – waxes lyrical in his FREE music marketing ebook about the notion of being able to give stuff away for FREE and still make a boat load of cash on it.
I wholeheartedly agree!
I’m moving from Australia to live in Europe. I’m taking all of my music with me on a small external hard drive (actually two – I don’t trust externals!). If I hadn’t taken the step to go all digital a while ago this would just not be possible.
I love the tactile nature of vinyl and cds but figured I shouldn’t fight the future…embrace it.
When I moved from my home country Israel to London for more than a year, I took ALL of my CD’s with me in cardboard boxes… But that was only two years ago but today this whole collection is biting the dust under my bed in Israel, listening with me to digital media.
The issue is not if some people like, use and buy CDs. There are people who earn a living as blacksmiths. There are people who buy horseshoes and iron fences and fireplace pokers. But there are not as many blacksmiths in 2008 as there were in 1809 or 1908. The question is: can the CD format sell enough to support stores, labels and distributors ?
CD’s may not be dead (yet) but certainly Terribly ill and dying!
(at least store bought music CD’s that is).
Up here In Toronto Canada at least 2 larger music store chains “Sam The Record Man” and “Music World” closed their doors and went out of business in 2007 and 2008 and as a result some of my friends who happened to be either sales people or retail managers are now laid off due to stores closing because of poor sales.
I certainly would not be brave enough to write their families and try to convince them how CD’s are not dead.
For those CD stores that do survive this year or the next, you will see the CD sections shrinking and the DVD sections growing with games etc. Don’t believe me? Go visit. Until even that format dies as well within several years. (sorry, just making a prediction even though it may sound “futuristic, doom-laden or revolutionary” :)
Regarding blank CD’s how long will they survive when it is almost becoming cheaper to buy an external hard drive or memory card that holds GIG’s of stuff as opposed to a few hundred megabytes on a big round disk.
Also, do you still see many people outside walking around with those players that spin the big round disks? Well at least not where I live. Maybe a Grandma or Grandpa or two, but certainly not the majority of music listeners. They now use mp3 players or their multimedia cellphones.
Ok, so the CD is not dying, just as Vinyl did not really die either.
But then again, the 8-track cartridge (1960s to the early 1980s) did not really technically “die” either as long as they still can be found at Grandmas house and played.
But that’s really no argument for me trying to convince the world that they still have a purpose today.
Another great post. My collection is increasingly full of rare and hard to find music now that no one holds stock – or it never ever got to vinyl. I’m a fan who is a collector and what I’m after now is the dub versions or a way to remix individual tracks and album just for me and friends.
Its is already happening and its going on CD and DVD so no CD’s have just morphed and now more valuable than ever.
Arnold,
There is one thing you probably failed to take into consideration: People still like getting autographs from their favorite musicians and anyone with a bit of a brain would know that artists WON’T sign iPods or other computer drive-type devices (despite owning one themselves) so they still buy the merchandise whether CD or their T-shirts, DVDs, etc. That in itself will still ensure the CD life long after its supposed “death”…
CDs are a dead business model. The digital revolution has moved on. There is much more rare, long out-of-print, music available for download now than was ever the cas with CDs. I can hold my entire collection of over 35,000 songs in the palm of my hand on a device that also allows me to download more music, record audio or shoot video at a concert, email my friends, and telephone my mother. CDs are pointless. Record/CD stores even more so. The technology is fast becoming obsolete and the business model is almost dead.
@Andrew Potterton: whats the point of blu-ray audio discs? its still a disc with audio on it, the only difference would be you could maybe put audio on them higher than the red book standard of 16bit and 44.1kHz. however, blu-ray discs as im sure you know can not be played in just any device, you would have to invest in a complete different system, most computers wont even play back a blu-ray dvd at this point in time! so really, i don’t see a blu-ray audio release happing. whats more probable to catch on is audio mixed in surround.