Continuing with CDs?

Haha yeah thats the nature of the Amazon pricing. We don't have a 5 for 3 bin anymore, but there is always a cheapo bin with all kinds of gems. If anything is mainly selling for below $1.99 on Amazon we cheapo them. Its my favorite part of the store.

I don't know if there's a more recent thread than this one on this topic but I couldn't find one if there is.

I'm currently experiencing something of a dilemma regarding physical CDs; I virtually ceased buying them a few years ago in favour of lossless downloads but am starting to have second thoughts about moving away from physical media entirely (and, before we go down that road, I think the "vinyl resurgence" is mystifying and kind of awful).

I'm even contemplating re-purchasing certain things on CD that I've already bought FLAC downloads of, just so I have some kind of permanent, tangible copy of that music that will stick around even in the event of catastrophic data loss or some other calamity.

What say you, ILM? Anyone else feeling torn about such things?

i don't really understand why you'd want to buy a CD.

I guess at one point I found CDs an attractive format - kind of shiny and futuristic-looking and I liked how you could skip tracks etc but that was a long time ago. There's nothing attractive or useful about the big pile of decaying jewel cases gathering dust behind the sofa in our living room. I can't quite bear to part with them though - I might want to go through all those Beach Boys twofers and read the inlays again one day.

I'm with you. I sold almost all of my CD collection when I moved to the UK in 2008 because I simply couldn't take them all with me. Now I wish I had the physical things and have started buying them again (which is actually OK in one sense because many of the albums I used to own have since been remastered and re-released...).

i am in a fortunate position where i have room to hide the cds away, as given my experience with technology, i would never ever want to trust a totally digital solution.
i know re backups/archives etc, but it's always when you really need to revert to a backup when you find out its been failing for the last 6 months, but you never realised.
and yeah, with a lot of the reissues/boxsets etc, once i have ripped etc, i will on a quiet afternoon sit down and read the liner notes.

People who went the full digital route are missing out on their kids grabbing CDs from the shelf and throwing them around.

I wonder if a lot of digital only people will just "grow out" of music (obviously not talking about ilxors but punters in general) and wont have any cds/lps to get nostalgic for nor have the impulse to follow artists new releases to "complete collection" that lots do, albeit in many cases just a few artists.

I can't quite bear to part with them though - I might want to go through all those Beach Boys twofers and read the inlays again one day.

haha this precise reasoning runs through my head too, those are like the gold standard of cd reissue liner notes imo

i like CDs

Me too.

i can't give up on physical media altogether, though i try to keep my collection to albums i know i love and do most of my investigating through streaming. i'd love to have vinyl copies of everything but used cds are pretty cheap these days

I think the "vinyl resurgence" is mystifying and kind of awful

OK, I'll take the bait, why? I love buying vinyl these days, can't imagine why I'd buy a CD for the life of me.

CDs are so cheap right now, a great deal most of the time. I found two of the Galaxie 500 remasters with bonus tracks for $2 each the other day.

Then again, like mark e, I have the room for all this stuff

When someone says the vinyl resurgence is "awful" I feel all they're really saying is that they can't imagine why they would ever participate. Just my theory, since I can't think of what would annoy someone otherwise, unless it's an environmental concern or something.

Well, the pricing of vinyl is LOL outrageous for one thing. And the sound quality of vinyl manufactured during the "resurgence" is questionable. Anecdotally there are a lot of skips and jumps on brand-new records. The covers, inserts etc are of high quality but then again the prices are fucking stupid.

And of course the music is largely available for free or very little so then the question of how much is fueled by conspicuous consumption/personal branding/lifestyle and all that.

i buy a little bit of new vinyl these days, but i always find it hard to justify sometimes paying twice the $$$ as the CD version. i got into vinyl when i was a kid because it was cheap.

Yeah screw these prices, I feel like 5 years ago or so you could still buy brand new 2xLPs by high profile indie bands (whatever that means) at decent prices (around $15) now everything is $25 and it's probably sourced from the CD anyway.

The local HMV here is hilarious. The main part of the store is filled with Sons of Anarchy dogbowls, Reservoir Dogs blankets and the like, then the back of the store is CDs and DVDs either priced really high or marked down to next-to-nothing. Then there's a single rack of vinyl where you can get 180gram copies of things like the Stones "Some Girls" or the latest Arcade Fire for $45+, bundled with a special frame to put it in for an extra $20.

The pricing of vinyl is pretty much the same as inflation, really.

LPs sold For £5 in 1980 or thereabouts, £10 in 1995, between £17 and £25 nowadays.

compare that to the cost of.a pint of milk. Or beer, maybe...

And of course the music is largely available for free or very little so then the question of how much is fueled by conspicuous consumption/personal branding/lifestyle and all that.

― everything,

so because you can get music free or stream from spotify you shouldnt reward the artist by buying it on the format you like? Some people do buy music on a particular format because that is how they like it.

everyone should listen to music in the way that they enjoy it the most. i listen to vinyl, digital, CDs, etc.

OK that's true there are plenty of questionable pressings. It's up to the collector to be savvy.

while on a utilitarian level spotify is more than enough music to last me til the end of time, there are still gaps and the economy of streaming is still extremely shaky and dubious. I never did the CD-for-MP3 purge because I didn't like the idea of potential of losing my stuff when a server i own craps out or becomes outmoded - I'm not going to do the the CD-for-streaming purge because this time I don't even OWN the server, or decide what stays on it. So I keep albums I know I like, though mostly cheap used copies. If I ever go up a tax bracket i might start buying nice clean new vinyl for a better stereo system, but it's not really cost-effective.

there's definitely a sense that my cd collection is going to be an antiquated relic even sooner than my lp collection - at the moment i rarely if ever play one. but i got room for it, it's cheap to add to, so why toss it

i like buying both and will do so. if i have an artists albums on CD i'll keep buying cds and same with lps. I also find download coads with lps very handy and I subscribe to spotify premium. Horses for courses imo and see no point in limiting myself to streaming only (esp as albums can disappear anytime) plus I like the fact the artists gets my money, esp when i order direct from them.

used cds are a crazy good deal rn

one time i was a little buzzed at amoeba and was like "i already own every berry-era REM CD but maybe I should buy them all again for under 30 bucks just cuz i can"

yeah, ive been hoovering up cheap ones on discogs lately to complete gaps in collections
xp

I've been enjoying how cheap some of the CD packaging has become. I picked up 12 Horace Silver albums on 6 CDs for $20; also got 15 Donald Byrd albums on 8 CDs for $25.

funnily enough that included a couple of galaxie 500 remasters

thats a great score nicky

I wish cd's were as cheap here in the UK

Here's the Horace Silver on UKebay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HORACE-SILVER-12-CLASSIC-ALBUMS-1953-1962-NEW-CD-/351371586390?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item51cf60eb56

I think I'm ok with keeping up what I started with CDs as long as I'm savvier about it now, rather than buying £15 for a new album in 1998 or whatever

I personally need to keep it up, I don't trust my listening attitudes and habits without physical product.

not bad but shipping could be a killer

sorry about that. I posted the wrong one. This one ships from UK

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Horace-Silver-12-Classic-Albums-1953-1962-NEW-CD-BOX-SET/351338959459?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140122125356%26meid%3D26144e5c1ef14acab5bb119acd4cb34f%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D351371586390&rt=nc

ok that is a good deal

Since artwork is rarely mentioned, do most downloads include all the sleeve art? For certain genres the art is a big appeal.

I still haven't got an mp3 player so I've never bought many digital downloads. I'm scared of all this stuff about "loss" files, don't understand it.
I've got a kindle and use it constantly but never read books on it (also worried about drm shit), so I'm doubting I'll buy mp3s much unless I have no other choice or it's way way cheaper.

Do albums disappear from a server often?

I've been piling up boxes like the Horace Silver one mentioned upthread (have that, and another one like it gathering 12 Bill Evans albums on 6 CDs) and the 5CD "Original Album Series"/"Original Album Classics" sets (5 albums for like $20), and even the slightly more deluxe sets like the one with all six Van Halen albums (there are only six), the first 10 ZZ Top albums, etc., etc. This is a fucking golden age for budget CD reissues, especially if you're into 70s rock like I am. And I still buy new albums on CD from time to time. Going to Target on Friday, planning to pick up the new Dwight Yoakam (the Target version has 3 bonus tracks).

Will you bother trying now to sell off your existing CDs?
Will you leave them as a record of 80s/90s to early 00s buying?
Will you continuing buying CDs selectively alongside downloading, for reasons of completing certain artists or genres?

1) No.
2) I keep them and play them often.
3) I buy CDs new and used all the time.

the vinyl resurgence is so awesome: cds cost like 50c now.

I don't think the vinyl resurgence and the drop in used CD prices are related

"resurgence" should be in scare-quotes anyway, we're talking about a tiny fraction of the music sales market (still)

No, CD price drop is correlated to the rise of digital.

Vinyl resurgence is compensation for the need for a tangible/own-able product after digital dominated the convenience side.

^^^

CDs sound bad and suck to carry around but I've no intention of uploading my entire collection to hard drive when those fuckers crash all the time (otoh I'm less attached to things these days, the art of losing isn't hard to master and all that; if I lose music it's no big deal). Still buy new ones too. Still burn CD-Rs with that season's killer singles and album tracks.

the college radio station I advise still receives 95 percent of its material on CD too, I suppose because there's no way upload watermarked copies to Megaseg.

That aspect of the vinyl market that is comprised of $45 prestige box editions of single-disc albums, etc., is totally gross conspicuous-consumption noise as described upthread. The aspect that just keeps putting out "reasonably" priced editions of everything is pretty great, even though I also agree that there's less guarantee of a quality sound on a new record than there was 10-15 years ago, when if you were putting out a vinyl release you probably gave a shit.

What's annoying is that the price of a "basic" record has drifted up in that period quite a bit, though I can't really put a bead on how much of that is just inflation. I feel like in 2000/2001 when I first really started collecting, a straightforward single LP from Kill Rock Stars (say) would be like, $10-12 bucks. Inflation calculator says that should now be $13.25-$15.90, and if you go to their website, they do in fact sell tons of records right at $15, with download included, and some at $12 - though perhaps some of those are things that have literally been in stock the entire time. But I see a lot more stuff in stores in the like $18-23 range which just doesn't feel like what a record costs, even if I try to remember to include the inflation facts in my head.

The only circumstance in which I could imagine buying a CD at this point would be at a show if that's all they have. I never really had much affection for the format, and I bindered what was left of my collection years ago, risking scratches and stuff in order to no longer have a billion godawful jewel cases taking up space. CD really feels just about as disposable and forgettable as streaming, like even if I see a stack at a garage sale for cheap it just feels like, why bother; sure I can get thirty albums for a couple bucks but I could also just stream them if I cared. Whereas with a record I've never shaken the notion (however misbegotten) that I'm getting something I want, in addition to the music, for my money. God damn they take up space though.