From Rolling Stone:
If you visited Austin’s Waterloo Records recently, you might have noticed a construction project that was unthinkable not so long ago: The 36-year-old Austin music staple was replacing 24 feet of CD racks with space for more vinyl. “After 30 years of CDs, a lot of people are moving on from that format,” says Waterloo owner John Kunz. “Whether they’re going back to vinyl, or streaming, people are selling off those CDs.”
As streaming gives the music industry its biggest profits in a decade, the CD business continues to plunge. CD sales have fallen 80 percent in the past decade, from roughly 450 million to 89 million. Since Tesla began manufacturing cars without CD players, other companies like Ford and Toyota have recently followed. Downloads – once seen as the CD’s replacement – have plummeted 58 percent since peaking in 2012, their profits now even smaller than physical sales.
. . . .
Jack White, arguably the most visible vinyl advocate in recent years, agrees: “I definitely believe the next decade is going to be streaming plus vinyl – streaming in the car and kitchen, vinyl in the living room and the den. Those will be the two formats. And I feel really good about that.”
Who’s still buying CDs? “The Walmart customer,” says Glass, adding that sales are still strong in “country, greatest-hits, soundtracks and baby records.” In the country world, Chris Stapleton’s second LP sold an impressive 373,000 physical releases last year. CDs are also doing fine in some international markets – in Japan, where streaming has been slow to take off, 72 percent of last year’s music sales were physical.
Introduced in the early Eighties, the CD prompted massive record-business expansion over 20 years—and was surprisingly resilient even after Napster and online piracy, then the iTunes Store, threatened to destroy the format. As for modern-day CD enthusiasts, Glass points to older listeners who still prefer loading CD carousels rather than configuring Spotify or Pandora on car stereos or home-theater systems.
. . . .
Still, artists, labels and record stores have been preparing for years for the CD’s inevitable death. Sony closed a key CD plant in 2011 and laid off 380 workers from another, in Terre Haute, Indiana, earlier this year; meanwhile, as vinyl sales have increased from less than a million in 2007 to more than 14 million last year, new LP plants have popped up all over the place.
Link to the rest at Rolling Stone
PG wonders if books will be any different.
We just tossed about two hundred vinyl LPs and a similar number of cassette tapes as we get set to move. And we gave two record players to our hairstylist, who freelances as a DeeJay, and she was thrilled. I am astounded they are moving back to vinyl. Pop, hiss,kskkssskkksrrrr….no “repeat.” I still have hundreds of cds, and I stream music, too…I really wish some of my more obscure faves would move to streaming or cd….
It’s the Millennials who are buying vinyl ($30 a pop at B&N!).
We older Baby Boomers know how badly analog vinyl compares to digital CD’s. 🙁
That’s not to say we don’t have our old 33-1/3 platters. I still have EVERY LP I’ve ever bought, starting with The Ventures’ Telstar, purchased back when I was in 5th grade. 🙂
Another baby boomer here: how right you are.
I cynically assume that these vinyl buyers don’t actually play them and have missed out on all the fun of dirt and physical degradation.
Nearly all my old LPs are long gone as they basically wore out. This doesn’t seem to happen to my digital files.
Gosh, and after 25 years of playing cassette tapes in my ’93 Honda, I just installed a CD player (which also handles flash drives & a streaming service, which I don’t use). Glad I got that put in before CD players are discontinued.
Yet another reason not to buy a new car. Also my dentist’s bill.
Heh, back in ’97-8 they didn’t have streaming, but I added a car stereo with the rest of those toys for $100 plus a dash kit. Now you can pick them up for under $25 (I’m hoping a CD of wolves howling will drive away the raccoons tearing up my garden! 😉 )
“PG wonders if books will be any different.”
It dépends if you compare books to vinyls or CDs…
“As for modern-day CD enthusiasts, Glass points to older listeners who still prefer loading CD carousels rather than configuring Spotify or Pandora on car stereos or home-theater systems.”
And most of us are listening to older music, from before it all started to sound the same. So I’m buying used CDs and are under the ‘Rolling Stones’ radar. Though I still have a system set up to convert CDs to MP3s, the better to just plug a USB stick into the car. 😉
I’m re-ripping my CDs, this time to lossless FLAC. When I’m done I’ll move on to my LPs. I already digitized about a hundred some years back.
Lately I’ve been doing a deep dive into 50’s/60’s music on Prime Music. Fallout mods got me back into rockability. 🙂
Not all that interested in what passes for rock these days.
Must be gettin’ old.
I do some FLAC, but I have several older MP3 players that don’t do anything else.
(Currently playing Meat Loaf’s ‘Everything louder that everything else’. 😉 )
Look for a cheap, small, unlocked android cellphone. Amazon surfaces some in the $30 range from time to time.
https://www.amazon.com/BLU-Advance-Unlocked-Smartphone-Black/dp/B072N6BD9V/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1529630048&sr=8-1&keywords=android+cell+phone+unlocked
Put Kodi on it. Best media player you’ll find. Plays everything.
Will also do audiobooks and ebooks.
Even video with a decent SDcard.
To look into, thank you. 😉
You’re welcome.
I have Kodi everywhere: PC, phone, XBOX, FIRE TV stick.