Death of CDs?

[Claude]

Costello skips CD format on next album

By Jonathan Cohen2 hours, 45 minutes ago

Elvis Costello's next solo studio album, curiously dubbed "Momofuku," will arrive April 22, and plans are for the set to be released only on vinyl, with a digital download code included in the package.

No other details are available about the Lost Highway release, which follows 2004's "The Delivery Man," Costello's debut on the label with his band the Imposters.

Other sources of information say the LP+download package will be released first, but a CD and seperate downloads will follow 2 weeks later.

It would indeed be irrational for an artist to ignore the format which still sells the most. And even if the CD was dead, why oblige iPod users to buy an LP they cannot play if they only need the download coupon?

If Costello's new album was only to be found in LP bins and the vinyl section of online stores, it would become a massive flop.

Edited March 21, 2008 by Claude

[Claude]

I use my Kirby (home vacuum cleaner) as air compressor twice a week.

These cover-less turntables are indeed a pain in the ass when it comes to dust.

I bought I custom-made plexiglass cover (60x40x20 cm) for my Scheu turntable, from a company that makes display cases. It works fine and is much less expensive than covers offered by the turntable manufacturers themselves (70 Euro instead of 300 and more)

http://www.sora.de/p/Massvitrinen.php

Edited March 21, 2008 by Claude

[poetrylover3]

FWIW-I believe CD still represent the best use of my time and money-as long as my brick and mortar used CD/Lp store stays in business. Until MP3 files or another digital download format come to rival the CD 's sound quality, I won't buy digital downloads. This is partly because Jazz and Classical don't have "hits" that I want to cherrypick-albums often grow with me over time and my tastes are enriched thereby. The Coltrane and Monk I couldn't dig at first or second listen eventually became treasured works. In a very real sense improvising musicians/interpreters are "re-composers" and it's the performance I listen for as long as the musicians involved are dedicated to making my active listening worth my while. Rarely do I find filler or manufactured on demand tracks aka selling out in my genres of choice. So what if we're a niche market? And yes, I too appreciate photos, cover art, and liner notes-the latter contributed mightily to my musical listening education.

Peace,

Blue Trane

[connoisseur series500]

right now it's the best medium we have right now.

Prose worthy of Sammy Hagar.

"Only time will tell if we stand the test of time"

It took you three weeks to get that?

I'm slow.

Edited March 21, 2008 by connoisseur series500

[A Lark Ascending]

FWIW-I believe CD still represent the best use of my time and money-as long as my brick and mortar used CD/Lp store stays in business. Until MP3 files or another digital download format come to rival the CD 's sound quality, I won't buy digital downloads. This is partly because Jazz and Classical don't have "hits" that I want to cherrypick-albums often grow with me over time and my tastes are enriched thereby. The Coltrane and Monk I couldn't dig at first or second listen eventually became treasured works. In a very real sense improvising musicians/interpreters are "re-composers" and it's the performance I listen for as long as the musicians involved are dedicated to making my active listening worth my while. Rarely do I find filler or manufactured on demand tracks aka selling out in my genres of choice. So what if we're a niche market? And yes, I too appreciate photos, cover art, and liner notes-the latter contributed mightily to my musical listening education.

Peace,

Blue Trane

Some of the smaller classical companies are already well ahead of this - Gimell and Chandos are offering downloads in three forms from MP3 to higher quality with price differentials. Gimell in particular offer superb album art in addition to brilliant recordings. Although they offer the choice of 'cherry-picking', everything is offered in a conventional album format - in fact pricing encourages you to buy that way as individual tracks work out far more expensive.

If anything, a creative development of download presentation should be able to offer a far more imaginative range of ways of presenting music, no longer stuck to the amound of time available on a particular format.

I just wish more companies would explore the possibilities with the integrity of those labels. I think CD will naturally wither away as a result (with, I'd imagine, 'audiophile' pressings of some releases by dedicated companies for those who find it hard to accept the changing technology).

They just need to get on with it - the record store as we know it is dying rapidly. It makes little sense to go to all the trouble of making, packaging and then distributing CDs to an Amazon warehouse where it will then be ordered online - why not cut out all those stages and just download from source?

The crux is, of course, the sound quality. My experience of the labels mentioned above is that we are already at a stage where downloads are of a quality that the vast majority of people (myself included) can tell no difference.

It's time to shift over wholesale. It makes no sense to be hanging around with older technologies because a small group of niche listeners have convinced themelves that the new technology can never be as good as the old.

[Chalupa]

Costello skips CD format on next album

By Jonathan Cohen2 hours, 45 minutes ago

Elvis Costello's next solo studio album, curiously dubbed "Momofuku," will arrive April 22, and plans are for the set to be released only on vinyl, with a digital download code included in the package.

No other details are available about the Lost Highway release, which follows 2004's "The Delivery Man," Costello's debut on the label with his band the Imposters.

Other sources of information say the LP+download package will be released first, but a CD and seperate downloads will follow 2 weeks later.

It would indeed be irrational for an artist to ignore the format which still sells the most. And even if the CD was dead, why oblige iPod users to buy an LP they cannot play if they only need the download coupon?

If Costello's new album was only to be found in LP bins and the vinyl section of online stores, it would become a massive flop.

Yeah, you're right - it would be suicide to release it just in a LP/download package. I wonder if Reuters will print a correction?

[gmonahan]

I'm bumping this one. I'm in Paris right now (love this town), and after only about a year plus absence I'm struck by the extent and speed with which cds are disappearing. The big Virgin Megastore on the Champs-Elysees used to have a small room dedicated to jazz cds. Now it's barely a bay. Even FNAC's collections are shrinking. If France, which has always seemed to me to hold onto a format longer than other places, is starting to abandon it, then those of us who like hard media (with cool things like liner notes and personnels in our hands), are running out of time even quicker than I thought.

gregmo

[Big Beat Steve]

@Greg M:

Are JOSEPH GIBERT and their CD section as well as Paris Jazz Corner and other stores like this still alive and kicking?

Otherwise, FWIW I've noticed a rapidly dwindling selection of jazz or other non-mainstream/chart items in chain outlets that handle CDs for quite a few years now (including in France) so I am not all that surprised. But if the specialist stores/sections finally start disappearing ...

[Stefan Wood]

You just can't walk into a retail store, especially a chain store, and expect to see a wide selection like it was 5 or even 10 years ago. Only specialty store will do that, and they are hanging on by their fingernails. It's online, and that's it.

[gmonahan]

@Greg M:

Are JOSEPH GIBERT and their CD section as well as Paris Jazz Corner and other stores like this still alive and kicking?

Otherwise, FWIW I've noticed a rapidly dwindling selection of jazz or other non-mainstream/chart items in chain outlets that handle CDs for quite a few years now (including in France) so I am not all that surprised. But if the specialist stores/sections finally start disappearing ...

Hi Steve--Gibert doesn't have much. Paris Jazz Corner is exactly the same as always, and that's a comfort (I was there today!). But the big retail stores here used to stock more as little as a year ago, and I was struck by the change. That's why I posted. In the US, I get all my cds on-line, with the exception of an occasional visit to a used cd store. 'Course, I don't live close enough to go to Jack's!

gregmo

[crisp]

The death of the CD would be OK if lossless downloads were widely available, but for most music the only way you can avoid compression is to buy a CD and rip it yourself. Of course, the answer to that might be, if you are an audiophile, buy vinyl, but some of us prefer the sound of CDs.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

@Greg M:

Are JOSEPH GIBERT and their CD section as well as Paris Jazz Corner and other stores like this still alive and kicking?

Otherwise, FWIW I've noticed a rapidly dwindling selection of jazz or other non-mainstream/chart items in chain outlets that handle CDs for quite a few years now (including in France) so I am not all that surprised. But if the specialist stores/sections finally start disappearing ...

Hi Steve--Gibert doesn't have much. Paris Jazz Corner is exactly the same as always, and that's a comfort (I was there today!). But the big retail stores here used to stock more as little as a year ago, and I was struck by the change. That's why I posted. In the US, I get all my cds on-line, with the exception of an occasional visit to a used cd store. 'Course, I don't live close enough to go to Jack's!

gregmo

I'm afraid I was in Paris when Paris Jazz Corner were in the Ardennes or wherever they go for their hols

That was good in one way, because I could spend more in the Goutte d'Or. CDs have taken off there quite well in the last few years. Although there are still plenty of K7s around, there are now a good many more CDs than K7s which aren't available on CD. I got 30 CDs and only got 1 K7 and that one wasn't available on CD. And, of course, in the Goutte d'Or, they're cheap. A couple of shops had sales, but the recommended price for a new CD was 10 Euro. But you make them an offer, and you can get them cheaper. Try doing that in Virgin

Five years ago, in Paris, I bought 33 African albums - 15 on CD and 18 on K7. The contrast last month was quite noticeable.

Africans are buying more and more CDs. Of course, the major companies don't notice this because they hardly do any business in Africa because their business is selling western style popular music to well-heeled westerners; only one of the 30 CDs I bought was on a major label (Lusafrica, part of Sony/BMG).

Looks like the CD and K7 will only die when every African is connected to the internet - no sooner than the 22nd Century, at an optimistic guess.

MG

[Face of the Bass]

As long as personnel remains difficult to track down, digital formats are a rip-off as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure MP3s are great for people who listen to shallow pop singers, but for the rest of us it's definitely a step backwards.

[Pete C]

What's a K7?

[paul secor]

What's a K7?

Cassette = French (k sept)

Edited September 12, 2012 by paul secor

[romualdo]

What's a K7?

Cassette = French (k sept)

learn something new everyday

[Neal Pomea]

48% of teenagers bought no CDs at all in 2007, up from 38% in 2006.

That's a most interesting thing.

It's not CDs that suck, it's albums. And if you mainly want individual songs, no point in buying CDs.

This is a bit of a paradigm shift.

MG

well, i guess you could also call it the return of the "single" ...

It's cheap, because even singles had two songs, side A and side B

[David Ayers]

48% of teenagers bought no CDs at all in 2007, up from 38% in 2006.

That's a most interesting thing.

It's not CDs that suck, it's albums. And if you mainly want individual songs, no point in buying CDs.

This is a bit of a paradigm shift.

MG

well, i guess you could also call it the return of the "single" ...

It's cheap, because even singles had two songs, side A and side B

By the way in case you hadn't noticed many jazz albums contain a lot of filler just like pop albums and on cd often come in under 40 minutes. A lot of albums we revere were thrown off pretty quickly and in truth only have one good track (if that).

The anti-"pop" thing on this board misses the mark. Pop in general has created more that is absolutely memorable than jazz by miles,and much more that speaks to people's lives and feelings.

Edited September 12, 2012 by David Ayers

[Shawn]

The anti-"pop" thing on this board misses the mark. Pop in general has created more that is absolutely memorable than jazz by miles,and much more that speaks to people's lives and feelings.

Damn straight. The whole jazz snobbery thing is just so damn predictable...and diehard jazz fans wonder why outsiders see them as elitist pricks.

[JohnJ]

The anti-"pop" thing on this board misses the mark. Pop in general has created more that is absolutely memorable than jazz by miles,and much more that speaks to people's lives and feelings.

Damn straight. The whole jazz snobbery thing is just so damn predictable...and diehard jazz fans wonder why outsiders see them as elitist pricks.

Well, to be fair, it is a jazz board!

On the subject of CD's, I am glad to report that the used stores in Tokyo are thriving and as busy as ever. I spend many a Saturday or Sunday in the various Disk Union's around town.

[gmonahan]

Yes, used cd stores are doing ok, but without new cds, they'll become increasingly antiquarian. I guess I could live with lossless downloads if there were more of them AND if one could always get personnels and liner notes, but the whole point of shifting to downloads is to make the process cheaper, and the accompanying materials cost money. Grrrrrrrr.

gregmo

[JohnJ]

Yes, used cd stores are doing ok, but without new cds, they'll become increasingly antiquarian. I guess I could live with lossless downloads if there were more of them AND if one could always get personnels and liner notes, but the whole point of shifting to downloads is to make the process cheaper, and the accompanying materials cost money. Grrrrrrrr.

gregmo

The Disk Union stores are about 1/3 new CD's.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The anti-"pop" thing on this board misses the mark. Pop in general has created more that is absolutely memorable than jazz by miles,and much more that speaks to people's lives and feelings.

Damn straight. The whole jazz snobbery thing is just so damn predictable...and diehard jazz fans wonder why outsiders see them as elitist pricks.

Well, to be fair, it is a jazz board!

Surely, John, you're not arguing that the fact that this is a jazz board is a half decent reason to be contemptuous of others who like other kinds of music?

I don't imagine there are many people on this board for whom jazz is their sole musical diet.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Yes, used cd stores are doing ok, but without new cds, they'll become increasingly antiquarian. I guess I could live with lossless downloads if there were more of them AND if one could always get personnels and liner notes, but the whole point of shifting to downloads is to make the process cheaper, and the accompanying materials cost money. Grrrrrrrr.

gregmo

So, what you're saying is that, were FLACs to become a regular alternative medium available by consumer choice from firms like iTunes or Amazon or whoever (I've recently seen a Spanish download firm with very interesting material, but only available to people on Spanish ISPs) there'd be an economic opportunity for someone to open up a business alongside iTunes & Amazon, flogging discographical info and the like to people purchasing downloads from the DL companies.

Over to Mike Fitzgerald

MG

[RayB]

I recently bought the Jutta Hipp album with Zoot Sims from Amazon UK as a download and a part of the download was a pdf file containing all the sleeve art and notes. Why can't everyone do it.