Recently I've felt a bit shortchanged and underwhelmed by my cd purchases. Cheap, flimsy card sleeves and sometimes even playback defects. It's put me off buying the format in fact. Have you noticed a similar decline in quality (packaging or otherwise)? I wondered if this was a deliberate push by some industries to phase out the format systematically. For example, cd players have been designed out of vehicles which I don't believe is purely down to lack of demand from the consumer. Personally, I could have continued playing cds in the car but was forced to switch to usbs and bluetooth (that's progress!) I'm a music fan who likes various formats: vinyl, cd, downloads, streaming. However, I feel I'm being pushed to choose vinyl as a 'physical' format and streaming as the digital choice. Most new LPs don't even come with a download code any more. This is no issue for me as I can easily digitize them or even just stream them but it is for my father-in- law who is in his seventies and liked the 'free' digital version. I realise other threads have discussed the decline of the cd but I'm asking specifically whether this is by design; a trend driven by corporate decision making rather than a true reflection of consumer demand.
I still buy CDs but I think they are being pushed out as they aren’t as big a money maker as they were.
I should add that a case in point is the Dylan Bootleg series. Wonderful, soft-cover packaging for many years until the recent 'Travellin' Thru' edition which has cheapo packaging. Perhaps it's just more environmentally friendly?? I'd like to keep buying this kind or release on cd rather than vinyl (to save space!) but the quality has put me off.
That is certainly what happened to vinyl in the late '80s. CDs don't seem to be a priority for standard album releases anymore, but I do think the industry still relies on them a good bit for box sets and deluxe releases. On those items, the vinyl price point works against them.
I think it's a standard case of industry folks choosing to deprioritize something that they know isn't making them as much money as it used to. A similar thing happened with vinyl in its mainstream twilight and dormancy, as Musical Chairs pointed out, so I'm not surprised it's happening to CDs too. Regarding packaging specifically, environmental friendliness is most definitely a factor, given how it's always been surprisingly common for people to throw out the cases for things after they buy them, not just for CDs but for other media too (to the point where something like a GameCube game in its original keep case is highly coveted compared to the greater multitude of "disc only" offers online), so worries about piles of discarded cases are most likely a PR concern regardless of declining sales numbers. As for things like lower manufacturing quality overall (I've noticed newer CDs feeling distinctly lighter than old ones, for instance) and lack of CD players on new cars, all of that again is down to marketers taking note of declining sales and deprioritizing the format. At the very least it means that used CDs tend to be ridiculously cheap if they're not something as coveted as, say, the Bowie RCA discs, so that's one point of consolation for me.
I don't know, but I've noticed that certain labels are moving further and further away from CD releases. One big example for me is Drag City, one of my favorite labels going back nearly 25+ years. Over the last few years I've encountered a handful of new releases that were digital/LP only, skipping the CD option, but this year it seems to have dramatically flipped to where the majority of their new releases are digital/LP only and only a handful that actually are seeing a CD release as well. I mean, I get it. That's where we are. I'm not surprised when the big majors get out of the CD business, but when the smaller, more niche labels start abandoning it, that's where I worry.
The only time Cd’s seem to come in anything but basic, cheap paper packaging is when they sell them to you as part of a boxed set that you would’ve preferred on vinyl anyway. I’ve seen it over the past few years where a label will sell you a box set with one LP and several Cd’s of the other material. Then over time resell you the same recordings separately on vinyl in multiple sets. They are also bundling shirts and merch to make you spend even more. Just give us the vinyl box sets and stop being so greedy. It’s what put the music business on life support in the first place.
I've been thinking the same thing....quality is really taking a huge nose dive. And so many albums now just come in a thin piece of cardboard and no booklet or anything extra to where it makes it seem like they are trying to just make you want to go digital because a lot of albums aren't offering anything extra or exciting as far as pictures, big booklets or anything anymore.... Just hope that the vinyl fad dies down again and cd's make a comeback just like vinyl has. Cd is still my much preferred way of purchasing music. Digital/streaming is just flat out silly and i wish that never happened, but vinyl is being OVER hyped big time. People need to appreciate the great cd more again.
Cds are a very very very tiny part of the pollution problem. It always cracks me up when they play the environmentally friendly card when it comes to packaging.
The packaging changes are mostly because artists and labels are insisting on cardboard sleeves, minimal packaging, and the like based on the idea (which may or may not be true) that they are being more environmentally friendly by doing so. Cardboard sleeves are also lighter and thus cheaper to transport in quantity. The razor-thin margins of the CD selling business make this a major perk. I don't think any label or manufacturer is deliberately making their CD products worse to drive their obsolescence. There are still more CDs sold than any other music format. It is much easier for a company to just stop selling CDs, or switch to CD-Rs/manufacturing on demand, than to nefariously make the product worse. That being said, there are fewer and fewer CD pressing plants in the world and they are working by slimmer and slimmer margins. Still, I have not noticed any more defects in the discs themselves in the last few years than at any point in the past.
Yeah, I believe they are intentionally being phased out, and yes I've noticed they crummy packaging too. I know the few times I've been to an actual music store like Coconuts, I've found the CD selection to be rather poor. At this point I think I've got just a good of a chance of finding an album that I want at Walmart then I do at a regular record store. Pretty sad. I've got a cassette player in my truck, and one of the reasons that I don't replace it with a CD player is that I can't walk into a store anywhere and find the specific albums that I want on CD. If I've got to get online and order everything, I don't see any reason to upgrade.
Yes, the 'eco' argument is definitely compelling and understandable. The parallel with the decline of vinyl is interesting too. I can't see CDs making a comeback but I'm prepared to eat my words!
I will say, as hinted at above, this is an EXCELLENT time to find used CDs, so there's a little bit of a silver lining. Not necessarily anything super valuable, but I've been able to fill in quite a few long time holes in my collection for relative peanuts in recent years.
I don't know. As a fan of niche artists like the Strawbs and Michael Chapman, on small labels like Cherry Red and Secret Records, I see just the opposite. Perhaps they didn't jump on the vinyl train. Yet.
Spent $6 yesterday on a dozen releases, no complaints here. It’s just wading through the tons of used Sting and Dave Matthew’s Band discs to find the good stuff!
No. Most of the labels I like, Bear Family, Omnivore, Ace, Cherry Red, BGO, Real Gone, etc etc are providing the same high quality releases.
Is it at all possible that a phase out isn't intentional? If you can't make money on a product, you don't pour all your money into making them. But I agree with the sentiment that it's a great time to buy up those CDs that you passed up over the years. I did this with vinyl in the '90s. I'm not at all suggesting that CDs will make a comeback like vinyl did. I'm simply stating that I the '90s had huge inventories of used media that was cheap. You had both wide selection and inexpensive prices.
hasn't been long enough yet, we need another 25 years of little then no cd's, then people will miss them and we can bring them back
When CDs came on the market in the 80s, they were marketed primarily to classical music buyers, many of whom were affluent audiophiles who would pay any price for players and discs that would forever end pops and clicks in the middle of a Beethoven piano sonata. When CDs overtook vinyl in sales and mass production costs came way down, the music companies kept prices high, making obscene profits. Now that vinyl has made a comeback, the same thing has happened. LP records were expensive to make, and were priced accordingly. Record production costs have come down, but prices at retail have stayed high, because people pay that price. Music companies have no more use for CDs. They’re just fine with the profits they’re making on streaming and vinyl. Only those classical buyers are still loyal to the format.
I've said it before, once I saw that cassettes were making a comeback (of course, very muted compared to the vinyl resurgence), I realized it as a fool's errand to predict anything about what might happen with fetishizing formats in years to come. The main reason I'm sad about CDs going away is that it means I'm going to be able to buy far fewer new releases. I'm not much of a guy to pay for digital releases and with the average new LP costing 2-3x more than what a CD costs, simple math tells me I'm going to have to be way more selective.
I think one of the telling things is the fact that you can't get a new car with a CD player any longer, or a computer with a disc drive.
