Are CDs Going The Way Of The 8-Track?

(CBS)  The song is over at Virgin Music Megastores.

The shuttering this weekend of Virgin's last two stores - in Manhattan and Hollywood - marks the death of a once booming chain - and another nail in the coffin of the music CD, reports CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason.

CD sales nationwide are down by half since 2000. So Virgin's parent company closed its 25 Megastores and is leasing the space to other businesses.

"Everything on these racks, though I don't like to say it, is available on iTunes, is available on Amazon," said Simon Wright, the CEO of Virgin Entertainment Group.

And that's where music sales have shifted. Apple's iTunes is now the nation's largest music seller - with 20 percent of the market. Amazon has about 8 percent. And some studies show most music is now downloaded for free illegally.

"The only reason people are coming here is because they like the buzz of it," Wright said. "They like the sound, they like the feeling, they like that they can hang put, pick things up and look at it."

Which leaves music lovers longing for that special browsing experience.

"CDs now are catering to fans who like the object, who like high sound quality of a CD, but then they also want the pictures and the booklet, and they want to look at the liner notes and the lyrics and the photos," said Michael Endelman, a senior editor at Rolling Stone.

Two years after the lights went out at the once mighty Tower Records chain, Virgin was the last giant standing. The void affects music fans, and artists.

"The death of the CD and the sort of shrinking of record labels makes it a lot harder for small acts and even for mid-level acts to get their music out," Endelman said.

And the big acts simply aren't selling albums like they used to. Back in 2000, when 'N Sync's album "No Strings Attached" debuted at number one on the charts - the album sold 2.6 million CDs in its first week.

This year, Green Day needed to sell only 600,000 copies of its "21st Century Breakdown" to hit number one.

"There's a huge generation gap in music," said Russ Crupnick, a vice president of NPD Group, a marketing research firm. "If you take a look at teens, for many teens the CD is to what an 8-track might be to me - it's an antique, it's an artifact."

An artifact, that's getting increasingly harder to find.

[cajundweeb]

At least there's Barnes and Noble and Borders- they sell music along with books

[cattlekate1]

CBS' new format is going the to the way of tabloid SKY news. Hate it. Let's just have a list or articles, and not so much photos, as well as fluff about nonsense.

[number1GI]

Well of course they will. Just as soon as something better is invented and marketed.
Why I remember when reel to reel tape recorders came out and one of the guys in the dorm bought one and set it up in his room. We all (those of us who could not afford one) went down to his room all starry eyed and breathless to hear the dulcide tones eminiating from the woofers and tweeters It was a sight to behold and a thing of beauty Yes I am being faceitious
Point being everytime you go out and spend beaucoup bucks for a system it's ancient history a short while later
I still have cassette tapes that belong in a museum. And CD's get all scratched up why chase windmills
Besides nI preffer live performances anyway Just have to keep fresh batteries in my hearing aides

[linuxglobe]

Purchase a usb vinyl turntable and find some good vinyl to rip into itunes plus format, it sounds so wonderful on your trusty ipod touch or shuffle! :D I sometimes still buy CDs so I can re-rip if I have to. Vinyl will be around a lot longer than CDs, however, so find some good albums to rip and then store them somewhere safe! :D

Markus McLaughlin
@linuxglobe at twitter.com
http://linuxglobe.net
Hudson, MA, USA

[mwg0735-2009]

I love CDs but the problem is that I usually only like one or two songs on the CD. So why pay for the full cost of the CD when I can get 2 songs for $2.00. If everyone is using MP3s then improve the audio.

But I am thinking that CDs are history.

[PsiCop278]

Way back in the 80s, I was an avid music buyer. I bought maybe 150 LPs (i.e. vinyl) and almost as many CDs once they had become the standard. I was a Rolling Stone subscriber with a strong interest in the music business, and a BMG Music Club member, for years.

But then, in the early 90s, I stopped buying music.

Was it because I could get songs online? No way. Although the Internet existed then, trading/selling music online simply was not happening at that time. Nor was it even in the offing. So it wasn't the online music trade (legitimate or not) that stopped me.

It was, instead, the crap.

Honestly, the music business fell to pieces in the space of just a few years. I got tired of spending c. $15-18 per CD to get one, maybe two good songs off it ... and was finding it ever harder to find CDs that had even one good song on them at all.

By 1994 my CD buying was limited mostly to gift-giving, and then only if I knew the person wanted that CD. When I got my iPod a few years ago I started buying music online, but nearly everything I've bought has been songs that had been in my LP library, thus saving me the labor of getting them rendered into computer files. I can count on one hand the number of new releases I've purchased.

It's disingenuous for the music business, now, to complain that iTunes and its alternatives are putting music stores out of business. From where I sit, they were doing that, years ago, all by themselves. By putting out crap instead of music. And they know it.

While I'm sure the business has been dented by piracy, that complaint is overblown. The success of iTunes and its alternatives shows that people are willing to pay for the music they want.

The problem is, the record companies refuse to put out music people want.

[TX-Sunset]

In my opinion, the Music industry, RIAA included, only have themselves to blame. I remember you could by an LP or cassette for 8 bucks. So what does the music industry do? Move to the CD format, charge 2x, 3x, 4x as much for media that is cheaper to make. The consumer is not quite as dumb as they think. And honestly, I think it is easier for new bands to emerge. Anyone can write a song and post it up for the world to hear. Make a video and throw it up on youtube. The internet is the new Record Producer.

[Dgunner]

I record everything through Bose system and transfer to ipod . This still is the cheapeat and clearest way to transfer sound . You gotta get yourself a Bose, All of the cmpressed and doctored music will sound so much better. I have a bose that can clean the hiss out of old lps and rerecord with the highest peak possible . If its not a bose your not rockin.

[ToolMangler1]

Not unless they make burning DVDs more reliable and faster than they now are. DVD might go the way of 8 track if Blu-Ray has its way.

[caligula1--2008]

<Nothing, MP3, CD, or whatever else comes down the track will ever sound as good as a well recorded vinyl recording.>

True ONLY if you have a super high quality turntable and an all tube based amplifier and speaker system. The REALLY good recordings are magnetic tape, but it decays far far faster than vinyl does. On a TYPICAL turntable system of the turntable era, the digital version will sound much MUCH better than the vinyl recording. So, unless you're willing to spend $20k on an analogue stereo system, go with the digital version.