CDs

[48thStreetCustom]

"According to Billboard, CD sales (remember those?) actually increased in sales for the first time since everyone you knew got their first iPod."


CD Sales Increased for the First Time Since 2004

 

[Oddly]

Interesting.
I still buy an occasional cd, direct from band websites if possible, even though I've now finally succumbed to adding Spotify on my phone (a 3-month free trial anyway).
In fact I bought myself a new radio for our kitchen recently (this one... Sony 20W 2Ch Hi-Fi Micro System - Black | DID.ie - DID Electrical )and one of the deciding factors in choice was the fact that I could still play cds on it.

 

[StevieMac]

I still buy them.

 

[Jeff Scott]

Good news, indeed!

 

[Ostie]

I haven’t bought one in years, but I haven’t gotten rid of my collection either.

 

[P. Aaron]

"According to Billboard, CD sales (remember those?) actually increased in sales for the first time since everyone you knew got their first iPod."


CD Sales Increased for the First Time Since 2004

I'm bummed my new PC (old one just g o t r e a l l y s l o w) doesn't have a disc player with it. Fewer & fewer of the new ones do.

 

[jerry]

I still buy them but have really noticed a lot of albums no longer being available on that format.

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

It's only logical for the format to make a comeback. Still waiting on the cassette hype to die down. I was there the first time around. Clearly, the hipsters weren't.

 

[JimK]

I hated cassettes. 8-tracks & Reel-to-Reel, too.
At the time, cassettes were OK for the car.

 

[JimK]

I'm bummed my new PC (old one just g o t r e a l l y s l o w) doesn't have a disc player with it. Fewer & fewer of the new ones do.

My next laptop will most likely not come with a disc drive. I will be buying a SSD...and a plug-in USB disc-drive. I bought a spinner laptop last year. Slow-ski, I can't take it anymore!

 

[Polfuste]

Still buy them.

 

[jerry]

My next laptop will most likely not come with a disc drive. I will be buying a SSD...and a plug-in USB disc-drive. I bought a spinner laptop last year. Slow-ski, I can't take it anymore!

I bought a USB disc-drive for my home computer that had the disc drive die, cheap and seems to work ok.

 

[J_Bass]

I buy them all the time.

99.9% of the times, it's Jazz genre, plenty of them available and great prices, most of the time.

 

[silky smoove]

None of the computers in my home have an optical drive. My new truck doesn’t have one. The only places I could play one would be on my PlayStation or in my wife’s car which is getting pretty long in the tooth. Good riddance as far as I’m concerned. It’s never been easier to hear new music and to support artists directly for their music if you choose to do so.

 

[Killing Floor]

Trying to remember the last one I bought. Can't.

I still have maybe 20, the rest I took to Goodwill years ago.
For me, my opinion as a player and a lifetime fan of live music, CDs, especially DDD CDs sound nothing like musicians in a room because all the ambiance is edited out. I never liked them but they were way better in a car than other formats. If it's going to be full digital I'd rather stream and/or store the file than deal with the medium and the containers. If I'm going Luddite mode it's got to be vinyl for me.

 

[MrLenny1]

Still have & use my Sony CD Walkman.

 

[Bob_Ross]

None of the computers in my home have an optical drive. My new truck doesn’t have one. The only places I could play one would be on my PlayStation ...[snip]... It’s never been easier to hear new music

Slight digression...and I do not mean for this to be an attack on you @silky smoove I'm just quoting your post because it so succinctly gave rise to the question that popped into my mind:

Perhaps it's not supposed to be "easy" to listen to music?

The thing I love about CDs -- and LPs before that -- is that you have to make the effort to listen to them. You have to consciously think "I want to listen to this artist now" and pop that disc into whatever spinning disc player you do have available. I don't want to avoid that agency.

Without that conscious and directed intent, it becomes all too easy to think of music as a utility, like the gas or water or electricity that comes to our homes. It becomes all too easy to forget who or what you're listening to if you just turned on the faucet [sic] to hear something new.

 

[silky smoove]

The thing I love about CDs -- and LPs before that -- is that you have to make the effort to listen to them. You have to consciously think "I want to listen to this artist now" and pop that disc into whatever spinning disc player you do have available. I don't want to avoid that agency.

How is it effectively any different to think "I want to listen to this artist now" and access that art via a different medium than a physical disc?

 

[Bob_Ross]

How is it effectively any different to think "I want to listen to this artist now" and access that art via a different medium than a physical disc?

Admittedly this is probably more a personal thing -- i.e., the way *I* approach streaming services, versus anything inherent in streaming music per se -- but when I go to youtube et al and type in (just for example) Chick Corea's Now He Sings, Now He Sobs I am way more likely to then go and do something else while it's playing...cook dinner, surf the internet, balance my checkbook, etc. Whereas when I go to the shelves where the CDs are stored and pull out Now He Sings, Now He Sobs and put it in the CD player and press Play, I am far more likely to sit down in front of the speakers and listen. It's because the physical medium (CD or LP) is a token or talisman of the listening ritual.

 

[jerry]

When streaming comes with liner notes I might change my mind.