Entertainment For Lively Minds
2009: Let's Not Buy Any CDs!
Posted by DrJ on 17 January 2009 - 8:59am.
Two and a half weeks into the new year and I still haven't bought a CD. I'm wondering if I can go the whole year...
My CD consumption has dropped from the start of the decade where about 10 CDs/month would probably be a low estimate. Apart from the current music biz woes, it is possible that life, age, bills, family have reduced my CD outlay.
However, I still love music, I'm an eMusic subscriber, I'm listening to Spotify while I type, quite happy at £3 MP3 albums on Amazon. So I'm not suggesting spending 2009 avoiding music, just ditching the CD as format. Anyone interested in joining this experiment?
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Afraid not
I just like to have the actual disc. Downloading just isn't the same.
Just what our advertising people wanted
A thread devoted to *not* buying things from our main category. Have a heart.
Hold on now...
I didn't mean to upset the boss, but I'm not saying don't spend money on music, don't spend money on those Motown boxes on the 7digital store and don't go to gigs. I'm just thinking that the time to leave the CD behind as format has come. Also, for the record, I bought more vinyl in 2008 than any other year since 1987, it would now be my preferred format for buying important new releases.
Nope...
downloading doesn't sit well in my brain. I like to have something to look at, something tangible. I would never have stopped buying vinyl had it not been for my hatred of scratches on records... it's the only reason I've always bought CDs over the last 20 years.
Sorry
No can do. This week I bought the remastered Travelling Wilburys "2CDs +1DVD" set from Sainsburys. £4. It would have been foolish not to. Remains unopened mind you because I am still giving this month's Word CD some welly.
Blonde on Blonde
for £2 in Zavvi's 'everything must go' last few days? It would be rude not to.
Sorry cant do this
if i did what would happen to my 2000 cds approx? My wife would have some more space in the house but that is of no concern to me - what's more it would reinforce her view that I have been wasting my money all along.
I am up to about 7 for the new year - mainly cut price but since I know I will be purchasing cd's by Springsteen, M Ward, Beirut and the Dark is the night cd between now and mid February the train is still rolling along.
Surely we have a duty to keep the economy moving? My last purchase from Amazon in the 1st week of January was 4 cd's for the princely sum of £22.00 -it is about half what I was spending on fags per week before I gave up.It is the one strong argument I have with the good lady wife.
What other excuses do we all have?
Blimey, Steve, almost makes me wish I used to smoke, so as to have a justification. During a discussion about money over the w/e it became transparent that virtually the largest part of my personal spend is on music. Much as I would love to say I balance this with savings elsewhere, I find I have no such fall back. This, and a casual estimate of how much I have spent over the years in pursuing this vice, makes me tremble, in times of apparent fiscal meltdown. (At say £10 a pop, LP/CDs alone will be near £30k in current monies, admittedly over 40 years, which is a little alarming)
So how can/could/should I economise? I have started to frequent the library, but I find it frustrating that I can only listen to these, and then that only for the 3 week lending period (;-)). I am also an e-music afficianado. Or should I be simply be satisfied and reassured that the number of outlets available to me to ply my dirty habits are reducing by the day, in the record buying equivalent of governmental strategies to enable smokers to quit?
Serious point...
...make sure they're insured. Keep an inventory and take some photos of them arrayed on their shelves. Rsgister them with your insurers as a collection.
Some years back I suffered a major flood and lost all my vinyl - 10,000 albums - when I claimed off the insurance and backed it up with photos and an inventory the insurers paid up instantly.
They did say that without the documentary evidence, they would have argued the toss but they could see from the photos that there were obviously 'lots' of albums and the detailed inventory clinched it.
I don't see the point other than some abstract
conceptual thing! Also i'm assuming you've never had a hard drive die on you!!
It's not an abstract
It's not an abstract concept. The currency of CDs has gradually dropped in my life and with the advent of digital music, if I am to have a primary hard copy I've reverted to vinyl. Buying a CD, ripping it and then never touching it again stopped making sense.
I also emigrated 5 years ago and put about 2000+ CDs into storage, and have subsequently moved four times, so part of this is fuelled by a personal assessment of what it means to have "stuff". When I got to the end of 2006 and realised that my favourite album of the year was one I didn't physically own it was a bit of a revelation.
Yes I've had hard drives die, no fun at all. Gotta have a backup!
Failed already
Have bought two David Sylvian's, Laughing Stock from Talk Talk and Guns N Roses (my son has a rock ear that I don't possess) this year. Have my eMusic subscription used for January so happy to combine both.
But How Do You Stumble Onto Something Interesting...
...local market today - box of CD's 6 for £5 - picked up Chef Aid cos I remembered the single but there on the tracklisting songs by and performed by Joe Strummer, Devo and produced by Rick Rubin. So many other purchases I've made in my life cos of the info on the cover - just can't get the same impulse with downloading. So many friends send ripped CD's and I just don't engage with them as well as there is no artwork or lyrics.
(others picked up - Doves -Lost Souls, Levellers -Mouth To Mouth,PJ Harvey -Is This Desire,Moloko- Do You Like My Sweater,Bob Mould- Workbook) - and if I don't like them I can sell them on!!!!
Haven't bought a physical CD for about 3 years now...
...everything's been digital since then.
All CDs ripped into iTunes and physical CDs ditched long ago. 75% of my time I have iTunes playing on random whilst I go about my everyday life.
Having music on a physical artefact seems so 20th century :-)
I'm quite surprised - Stimps
- am i right in thinking you're a graphic designer (or illustrator) - how do you feel about the lack of the visual aspect connected with downloads? I'm very similar to you actually, degree in illustration, largely download rather than buy for reasons of cost and immediacy, but can't help feeling the loss of a decent sleeve or booklet.
Graphic/Designer?
Noooooooo... Retired engineer :-)
Sold my company a few years back and settled down to an easy life of listening to music and tinkering in my music room.
oops
my apologies (sounds like a nice life you've got yrself there :-))
In fairness
the sleeve was lost when CD's came in. Can't think of one CD sleeve that has the impact of LPs from my youth. Most CDs I have have rarely had the booklet out.
And the type in the booklets...
...is always too small to read :-)
i can't agree
- well, not completely. I don't believe it's impossible to produce great images at the reduced size of the cd, I have had some nice 7" sleeves, there's plenty of great book covers that aren't much bigger and there's a lot of beautifully designed stamps in the world - yet to those of us who remember the 12" album sleeve the cd cover isn't the same - you're right. I wonder if the cd generation will be discussing great sleeves, booklets or digipaks in the future. The download generation certainly won't, will they - and I think that's sad.
CDs? I can't stop buying them
Just got a Miles Davies triple box set - Sketches of Spain, Kind Of Blue and Porgy and Bess. Cost about 7 quid.
Nice.
With downloading
they're just lending it to you. At $1.69 per track via itunes it's not cheap either. If it's not a con it's close to it.
Just couldn't do it
Thanks to the Amazon sale I'm already on to CD 23 of the year. I bought 22 CD's for £100 in the Amazon .co.uk sale (including P&P) (loads of Joni Mitchell, JJ Cale, Genesis, The Band) and the re-issue of the Now album.
I love the feeling of getting a new physical product and would only download occasionally.
Give in go buy a little Dr J!
Benefit
Just bought "Benefit" by the mighty Tull - because a friend of mine I do the odd gig with wants to do "Witches Promise" - but I wouldn't dream of downloading a crappy compressed MP3 of a band I really love like the Tull - I want the CD! So I bought it for one track and it is brilliant all the way through including the extra tracks. Odd I never had it before, but hey.
Then don't download a 'crappy compressed mp3'
Download an uncompressed FLAC or a decent quality mp3. Or even buy the CD, rip it uncompressed, then ditch the CD.
Surely this debate is not about quality but about *owning* the artefact that is a physical CD
Same thing
I like the artifact. I like having a row of CDs to chose from. I like looking at all the Jethro Tull or Steely Dan or Little Feat or anyone else CDs and deciding which one to listen to, through proper speakers, on my big stereo, loud. It is fantastic. I rip them too onto the iPod, but that is for convenience only. I probably listen to more podcasts than music on my IPod at the moment. Just working my way through the Pandora Musicology ones which are interesting.
No
A pointless experiment.
In An Ideal World... (1)
...All music would come in a 12'' gatefold sleeve,
With lyrics and liner notes, and a beautiful cover
But,
would be on a format that could be uploaded to a computer/hard drive,
with all the convenience and fun that that can bring
But,
would have the sound quality of crackle and pop free Vinyl which was being played through a top end system,
and be affordable too.
Until then...
It's a trade off (aren't most things?)
I still buy cd's and download albums from emusic plus the occasional track from iTunes.
Most of the albums I rate most highly from the last few years have been downloaded from emusic and if I like something enough I will buy it again on cd.
So I wont be joining in your experiment, but I wish you well.
This experiment lacks...
...a proper hypothesis and doesn’t appear to be taking place under laboratory conditions. DrJ, you will not win the Nobel Prize with sloppy work like this.
Your outline seems to have been based on the faulty induction that everybody wants, is able to afford, or has access to a computer with a high speed internet connection, and an mp3 player.
People like myself, who pay for everything in cash and have no easy means of purchasing goods online clearly have no place in the digital utopia that you plan to build on silicon. Do you think that if I force-feed ten pound notes into my PC tower, iTunes will let my download from their site? If not then my only hope is that I can convince Parliament to issue me with a letter of marque, granting me the authority to commit acts of music piracy against Spanish artists.
The most likely outcome of this experiment is that at some point early in 2010 a portal from the future will open in DrJ’s home. Out of it will step a man in a silver jumpsuit, who will inform the doctor that his crusade against the CD resulted in a trio of Radiohead albums, referred to by fans as ‘the happiness trilogy’, being wiped from existence in the great iPod rebellion of 2018.
You have a point...
I regret using the word experiment in my original post, but you're right. I could hypothesise a prospective, qualitative study based on two matched groups, one of whom forgoes CDs for a year. Interviews of all subjects would be analysed before and after the intervention. A quantitative analysis of purchases could also be included. It still wouldn't generate the Nobel Prize, but it might make the letters page of Metro.
And I'm not necessarily going for all things digital. As I mentioned above, I've gone back to vinyl with a local crazy second hand store and all the charity shops inducing more fun in my system than last Saturday's farewell march around Zavvi, which was miserable. Indeed I've just seen this vinyl madness on Amazon which looked fun: The new Franz Ferdinand album on six 7 inch singles, plus a standard CD (boo!), a dub CD and a DVD. Bit too pricey. The regular 12 inch is as cheap as the CD though.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tonight-Ferdinand-Jukebox-Hardback-Booklet/dp/B0...
I guess my glib opening statement could be refined to asking folks if they find themselves not buying as many CDs as they used too, in keeping with the industry downturn and the economic situation. Of note, 2007 saw more vinyl sold in the US than any other year in the SoundScan era, (ie since 1991). The number one selling record on Vinyl was In Rainbows. The number two record was Abbey Road. Go figure...
" The new Franz Ferdinand
" The new Franz Ferdinand album on six 7 inch singles, plus a standard CD (boo!), a dub CD and a DVD"
Now that just smacks of desperation to me! What is the point of six 7-inch singles other than the willy-waving potential of "Well, of course I own the box set of six 7-inch singles" etc etc
One for the artefact-collectors I suppose?
Retail therapy
Spent plenty in Berkeley/SF just before Xmas but mainly on classical/jazz CDs. Would really miss the paper content that usually comes with these.
Also would rather pay the copyright owner to make the first backup copy for me ...;-)
GOODBYE CD!
I haven't bought a CD at all last year (true statement), everything I purchase is now digital MP3 - just got fed up with all the space being consumed in my pad and so had to make a hard decision (but as it turned out the right one) to stop the fetish and just get back to enjoying music, whatever form it was in - and not getting pedantic about owning the limited CD/DVD/book/teatowel/lock of hair editions that come out with every new release now - god it was hard at first though!
Aah well, it now means i'm currently re-distributing my vast hoard of CDs on ebay now, so that i can afford to keep downloading ha! - keeping the old vinyl though, too many good memories to let them go, and they smell good!
Just remember...
...to have an effective, regular backup routine for your hard disk/server.
Ideally one 'real time' backup (i.e. Apple Time Machine) and one periodic off site backup
Do it now... Your hard disk WILL fail...
I only buy CDs if I can't get what I'm looking for on itunes
which still leave me plenty of scope.
Why, only recently did I buy four volumes of Pop A Paris, and I had to do that from Amazon France. You won't find that in HMV. So I'm buying, but online. In Camden where I work all record shops have now gone, more or less, so it's online all the way really.
Nope - sorry
I'm someone who likes having the actual physical CD to look at, hold, file away on my shelves and so on. When I buy CDs I keep them in a small stack next to the stereo until I've listened to them at least once, after which point I put them on the shelves. When I download music I see the progress bar chug along, and then tend to forget all about it. Writing this now reminds me that about a month or so ago I downloaded an Elbow live EP from iTunes and I've not listened to it and forgotten all about it.
Some people talk about insurance for CDs and vinyl that you own. True, but what about insurance for data files stored on your PC or Mac? All it takes is for a few bad sectors on the drive and the whole lot could disappear.
Give me my music on CD, please.
Insurance for digital music
Keep backups. It's as simple as that.
1. A real-time, on-line backup such as Time Machine
2. A periodic incremental backup of the entire music library
3. A periodic full backup kept offsite
In my case, 1 happens automatically, 2 happens automatically overnight, 3 is a manual process once a month or so.
Your hard disk WILL fail...
We're doomed
How do you KNOW my hard disk wi*&^"/*.........(shit)
Yes, I know that...
...which is why I mentioned it, as a lot of people *don't* know it.
It's also another reason why I like to have my "real" CDs rather than virtual ones.
If your real CDs get lost, stolen or flooded out...
...you can't restore them from the last backup.
When your hard disk fails, it's the work of minutes to restore a perfect 100% copy of ones entire music library
Insurance 2 - the sequel
Does downloading tracks and then burning them to old fashioned things called CDs count as insurance?
Not if you keep them in the same room
where the computer shorts and sets the house on fire.......
Thanks for all your uplifting prose, Stimpy.
You NEED an off site backup...
Trust me.
10-ish years back, my house flooded to the ceiling level of the ground floor and I lost a lifetime's collection of vinyl - 10,000 albums.
I could have had a dozen local backups of my digital music (if such a thing existed then) but they would have all been wrecked by the flood.
Technically naive "hi-fi" fan asks...
is the quality of downloads and of the kit available to play them sufficient to give me the same sonic experience as playing original CDs through my Naim CD player into a pair of high quality floor standing speakers(bought when I was single and could afford such extravagances)?
Is the quality of a download burnt to CD as good as an original? I know you can download them at different levels of compression, but is the highest as good as the original?
On another point, most of my music collection is also on my iPod and I sometimes wonder if ease of access makes it too easy to listen to your favourite music and you therefore tire of it more quickly. There's nothing to beat the thrill of hunting down the back of the sofa for a lost CD you are desperate to hear. I've currently lost "The Second Coming" by the Stone Roses (empty CD box) and really want to hear a particular track. And no, I'm not downloading it.