Steve Jobs Kills the Compact Disc

Setun

Watched an amusing youtube video this morning about the death of the cd, killed off by Mr Jobs himself. Obviously the animation's priority is to be humorous, but got me thinking - how many people will actually miss cds? Do you need to own the physical artifact to augment your listening pleasure, or is an iTunes mp3 perfectly satisfiable - or is streaming from a cloud a la last.fm or spotify good too? With another great indy music shop (City Discs in templebar) in Dublin closing down, does anybody feel the need to support these stores, or does convenience win over? I was shocked to walk into HMV in dundrum last Christmas to find that their cd section was very small, poorly stocked, and pushed right to the back of the store - dvds occupying a good 3/4s of the shop floor. As cds are slowly being phased out from the mainstream, I was just wondering will many people actually be bothered?

For me, I actually enjoy the way cds are packaged when it's done right, the cover art can be an important secondary aspect to the actual music in my opinion. When using Spotify I find I don't give as much attention to the music I'm listening to, probably because I have an almost-unlimited supply of it, and I'm able to stream it for free, therefore no sense of value and ownership.

Here's the youtube clip (might be slightly NSFW):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlm1G8x6eGE

ergo

can't watch that clip as sound not working on this computer

personally I still only buy physical CD's

I haven't yet downloaded an album, part of that may be due to suspicion about itunes and the whole DRM thing and the format issues there - also i haven't yet gone down the iphone/ipad road but it's a hard one to resist at this stage I have to say

I do have an old Creative mp3 player so can drag and drop whatever format I want on to that

since HMV relegated CD's to such a tiny portion of their shops I have been supporting Tower records mostly (not many indy record stores left in Leinster)

also the Golden Discs in Dun Laoghaire was pretty good last time I was in it (December)

for me one of the most enjoyable aspects of shopping in town is browsing in music shops, we need to support them or they will all close. I will buy online rarely and only for rare things that aren't in store locally

Setun

I feel the same - I actually enjoy the act of browsing, in particular the chance discovery of some unexpected record, and excitedly rushing home to give it a spin.

I use spotify occasionally - don't know if it's still not available in Ireland - and while I find it convenient and practical to not have to store so much music on a hard drive and still have access to a massive library, the thrill of discovering new music is kind of gone. But I'd imagine I'm totally in the minority in feeling this way, but for some reason it has been programmed into my mind to want to experience music on a tactile, or at least material, medium. I like the idea of "the collection" as a physical manifestation rather than a few thousand folders on a hard drive.

kippy

Steve Jobs?
MP3's and other audio digital formats were popular long before itunes....


On topic, I havent bought a CD in years and dont miss them either.


Also, isnt it mad how time repeats itself.
It wasnt long ago that people were asked to they prefer their vinyl or tapes to their CD's.

lordgoat

People actually like the horrible plastic cases that CD's come in? Bizzarre.

Truly one of the ugliest things in music is the cd case.

icanplaydrums

I love digital music whether it be searching songs on Youtube or iTunes or some things not so legal... But for me, I love collecting CDs and if I am going to pay for music, I would like it physically. As said above I'd love a cluttered shelf of CDs rather than loads of music being nothing more than space on a computer

r3nu4l

Well back in the day before CD's I used to buy vinyl LPs and tapes

I used to love the artwork on these things. Iron Maiden always had some really interesting artwork on their albums and I'd spend ages looking at it for the hidden symbols and 'in-jokes'.

I do miss that aspect of digital downloads and feel that all albums downloaded should always come with high-res JPEGs of the original artwork. Do I miss the CD though? No, not at all. Even though MP3 is not lossless, I much prefer it to the CD for sheer portability. I stopped buying CDs years ago.

Setun

lordgoat wrote: »

People actually like the horrible plastic cases that CD's come in? Bizzarre.

Truly one of the ugliest things in music is the cd case.

Not all cd cases are the regular plastic jewel cases, which are absolutely crap. I've got some really nice discs with very well-considered packaging and fantastic cover art.

I kind of thought that when cds really took off from vinyl, cover art became less important. Think back to classic albums released in the 60s/70s/early 80s with gatefold sleeves etc - unbelievable stuff! I think with digital downloads cover art is reduced to a thumbnail, or an avatar, of the music rather than an actual record "cover".

stimpson

ergo wrote: »

I haven't yet downloaded an album, part of that may be due to suspicion about itunes and the whole DRM thing and the format issues there

iTunes has been drm free since 2009 (for music anyway)

I have no special love for CDs. I used to buy vinyl back in the day for sleeve artwork but not so much for a CD booklet. the CD is just obsolete tech nowadays. If I can get it for less online I will. At the end of the day the quaility of the music is more important than a physical piece of plastic.

mike65

The CD has no intrinsic aesthetic value so it would be hard to miss, LPs on the other hand you can even sniff

quarryman

lordgoat wrote: »

Truly one of the ugliest things in music is the cd case.

I'll see your CD case and raise you this.

lordgoat

Daddio wrote: »

Not all cd cases are the regular plastic jewel cases, which are absolutely crap. I've got some really nice discs with very well-considered packaging and fantastic cover art.

I kind of thought that when cds really took off from vinyl, cover art became less important. Think back to classic albums released in the 60s/70s/early 80s with gatefold sleeves etc - unbelievable stuff! I think with digital downloads cover art is reduced to a thumbnail, or an avatar, of the music rather than an actual record "cover".

Don't get me wrong i love vinyl. But i've never seen a cd with gatefold sleeve.

Cd's are horrible little things, even the cassette had more character to them.

I'll continue to buy records and download the rest, til i can but it on record.

Cd's - glad to see the back of them.


Close call quarryman. !

mikemac

Why pay for a cd when you can get your music from itunes in minutes? I ask myself that and so haven't bought a CD in years

Setun

I can think of a few cds that come in delicious packaging without even trying - John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (Impulse Deluxe Edition), Brian Eno's Small Craft on a Milk Sea (WARP), Autechre Oversteps (also on WARP), Ali Farka Touré Red and Green, any Supersilent release (or indeed any Rune Grammofon release) etc etc If I bothered I could list many more but I'm sure you get the point There are some labels who genuinely try to put together an interesting package to house the disc, generally it's the music industry labels that spit out plastic jewel cases because I assume they're much cheaper.

cnocbui

Nothing to do with Steve Jobs.

CD sales were in freefall long before iTunes. Whether due to illegal downloads or just crap being produced and thus demand not being there, I'll leave up to the historians, probably a bit of both.

Jobs actually did the music industry a big favour, he twisted their arms and got them to agree to $0.99 a track downloads through iTunes and that made it cheap enough to put a big dent in the illegal downlaods and actually brought some revenue back to the industry by legitimising online content distribution.

Setun

The thread title is slightly misleading - maybe I should edit it actually as it really only refers to the youtube video.

But yes, I agree with what has been said above. The CD was on the way out by the end of the 90s with the Napster generation disrupting predicted spending patterns. I remember in the early 00s, programmes like TOTPs and Ireland's Top 30 Hits became antiquated as the idea of a "cd single" had much less importance. Nobody cared who was number one in the charts anymore.

iTunes and other music download sites simply transferred the dying materiality of music to a novel and convenient method of consumption. For me though, I miss the physical aspect of music listening - even the ugly plastic of a compact disc Although as I said there are some record companies who put a lot of thought and money into developing nice packaging.

Dyr

I hated CD's, mostly because of their crap packaging. Was'nt a great format either

Earthhorse

lordgoat wrote: »

People actually like the horrible plastic cases that CD's come in? Bizzarre.

Not the case itself, but the liner and the artwork on the back of the case were all part of the experience for me.

I would like to use a service like iTunes but won't if the format is MP3.

cnocbui

iTunes uses AAC

lordgoat

Earthhorse wrote: »

Not the case itself, but the liner and the artwork on the back of the case were all part of the experience for me.

I would like to use a service like iTunes but won't if the format is MP3.

Give me a record any day over a CD.

there are very very few cd's that look impressive and even fewer that don't have a surperior vinyl version.

Earthhorse

lordgoat wrote: »

Give me a record any day over a CD.

there are very very few cd's that look impressive and even fewer that don't have a surperior vinyl version.

So you prefer vinyl to CD and I prefer CD to downloads.

There are plenty of CDs in my collection that have great artwork to go with them and I love poring over the notes and finding info about tracks and the band. There are many albums that get a very limited vinyl run and many more that get none at all, though that trend has reversed in the last few years.

Yakult

Rather mp3's anyway. They cant get scratched.

cnocbui

I prefer not to scratch mine, they work better that way.

Setun

Yakult wrote: »

Rather mp3's anyway. They cant get scratched.

Heh, you can say that again the next time your hard drive crashes :P

gflood

MP3's especially those from iTunes are not as good as original CD track due to reduced bitrate. This is true regardless of what you are told. You need flac in order to get no signal loss. Also you wont browse music as you would a record store. HMV etc will be gone in a few years but you will see an explosion in niche CD/Vinyl shops as customers will always want to consume music that way.

AhSureTisGrand

I for one like CDs, but then again I've never held a vinyl record

Scubadevils

For me its definitely vinyl first, then CD and digital last. I like digital for the convenience in terms of portable players etc but I would never and have never paid for a digital download, I always buy a physical format and then convert, mostly to a lossless format such as FLAC.

Even though I prefer vinyl, I do buy more CDs these days, purely because its easier to pop them into the computer and convert... plus I have CD players in pretty much every room. For me it is such a pleasure to browse through a physical collection to decide what I want to listen to - just not the same to look them up in iTunes etc. I have a network hard drive with a vast amount of music on it that I can access on two other systems in the house and pretty much never do, I still prefer to decide by way of looking through my CDs as to what I want to listen to. Its also a collection for me and I have a real addiction to hunting down rare older albums from over the years, to simply download them would never give the same pleasure as finding some person selling a rare album I've wanted for years, ordering it and when it finally drops through the letterbox - can't beat it!

I've seen some labels such as Warp including the option to download in FLAC etc when you buy from them on vinyl or CD - it would be great to see more labels doing this, especially for vinyl... that way you've got the best quality in terms of sound quality from the vinyl along with the artwork and overall physical element, plus you have a perfect digital version for portable players or to burn to disc.

I dread the day when I can't walk into a record store in Dublin, which seems all the more possible as times goes by.

cnocbui

Some music is only available for download. I bought one 'album' as a download because that was the only way to obtain it.

Bowers & Wilkins Society of Sound recordings are only available as downloads - flac 24 bit and Apple lossless 16 bit.

So sometimes you don't have a choice, and that trend is going to increase. I like CD's I don't care about artwork when it's music I am after. If I want artwork, I buy an oil painting and hang it on my wall.