CDs continue to outsell vinyl in the UK
BPI report on UK ‘music consumption’
The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) has published its annual report on UK music consumption and, as usual, it makes for interesting reading.
As has been reported on SDE before – and occasionally elsewhere – the BPI do have a propensity to talk up the ‘vinyl revival’ and marginalise the ongoing success of CDs and this year isn’t much different.
For those who are not aware, the BPI is not an independent organisation, it’s a trade body made up of “music companies” – primarily record labels – including all three major record companies in the UK (Warner Records, Sony Music and Universal Music). So inevitably, the strategies and goals of the record industry at large are reflected in the reporting.
The headline for physical music this year is “Double-digit percentage rise of vinyl sales as CD decline signficantly slowed“. The statistics that support this are that vinyl sales grew 11.8 percent to 6.1m units in 2023 and CD sales dropped 6.9% to 10.8m units (the lowest annual rate of decline since 2015).
So for all those who love to goad with the question: “who buys CDs anymore?”, the fact remains that CDs are the most popular physical format in the UK and continue to outsell vinyl significantly, something they have done for more than 30 consecutive years. How about we celebrate that?
Also, perhaps CDs wouldn’t be declining at all if there was more of a level playing field. The amount of marketing value that the largely vinyl-only Record Store Day benefits from is enormous. Indulge CDs with a similar initiative and I’m sure sales would rise. National Album Day is the same: purportedly a day to celebrate “the album”, it’s actually designed specifically to sell vinyl. It’s so transparent, and I don’t mean the coloured vinyl.
And there’s still plenty of reissues where the labels concerned don’t bother to issue a CD version. Recent examples include Steely Dan albums, Depeche Mode’s ongoing 12-inch box sets, the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense reissue, the Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty 4LP set, and the Bonnie Tyler Faster Than The Speed of Night 40th anniversary. Not wanting to state the obvious, but a CD sale can only be registered if a CD edition is actually released and that is controlled by the record labels who benefit from everyone buying into the idea that no one buys CDs anymore and it’s all about vinyl. Earnings and profit will be higher with the vinyl variants (just look at the differential with the recent ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Beatles reissues which were priced at around £70 on vinyl and £20 on CD).
Of course, the other rapidly developing concept is one of offering multiple vinyl versions of a product to increase sales. There was only one CD single of The Beatles’ ‘Now and Then’ but four different seven-inch vinyl editions. Not only that, Apple and Universal Music held back the announcement of the CD until the last minute, to maximise vinyl sales. Remember what I said about level playing field? Despite this, the one CD single still almost matched those vinyl sales in the UK put together (18,738 CDs vs 19,358 seven-inch singles) to help ‘Now and Then’ get to number one in the UK single charts.
It’s almost routine now for run-of-the-mill album releases to have a standard black vinyl, an artist store coloured vinyl exclusive, maybe an Amazon coloured vinyl exclusive and perhaps a deal with Blood Records to come up with a ‘zoetrope’ picture disc later in the campaign. Oh, and you can also buy a CD in a plastic jewel case that that has been mastered to within an inch of its life. The superfan buys FOUR vinyl editions and just one CD. Of course, that’s marketing; that’s how organisations make money. They influence and direct consumers to the products they want them to buy – I get it. But the BPI report these figures as if we are seeing a natural shift in consumer behaviour and act as if they are impartial observers when its members are responsible for stacking the cards in favour of vinyl. Box sets to one side, the humble CD is arguably being subjected to death by neglect, both in presentation and the quality of the audio. Still it endures! This is the unwritten story.
Here’s an example. Even though streaming dominates “music consumption” in the UK, with a massive 87.7 percent of the market, the BPI point out that “physical continued to dominate the top of the Official Albums Chart”. A key statistic is that out of the 44 albums that debuted at number one in 2023, 86 percent of them had “more than half their chart-eligible sales made up of physical sales”. And in 35 weeks physical was behind more than 70 percent of chart eligible sales. Blur’s The Ballad of Darren (89.6 %) and The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds (89.5%) being great examples. Since CDs outsell vinyl by almost 2:1 in the UK, CDs are a big part of the physical sales that help albums to the higher reaches of the chart.
I’d like to see the UK music industry do more to promote and protect sales of what is still its biggest selling physical format. Apart from a few exceptions, labels show no interest in coming up with special CD products for Record Store Day, or National Album Day, for that matter. There is no ‘CD Day’ and there are no cross-label ventures specifically designed to slow the decline of their biggest selling physical product. With the media annually picking up on the so-called “vinyl boom” it negatively influences stakeholders. Supermarket buyers decide to stop selling CDs, car manufacturers stop supporting the format and the sales decline becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The CD is still an excellent and robust format and can still look good and sound good when it’s given some love by audio engineers, product managers and marketeers within record labels. It’s surely time for the industry to stop being a curious spectator and actively support and celebrate the format that poured so many millions into the coffers in the late 80s and 1990s. With some effort, I’m convinced the “slow decline” of CDs could be turned around by the BPI’s members and within the next fews years CD sales could start to grow again.
What do you think? Leave a comment. You can read the details of the BPI’s report, here.
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Well said! Did you see how quickly all the car manufacturers ditched offering CD players at the same time?
Everything you said is spot on. The music business could’ve taught Stalin a thing or two about planned economies.
Still haven’t downloaded anything…
CDs just sound soooo good.
Can someone please explain the whole thing about CDs limited life span and failing to play after 20/30 years. i still have all my CDs i got in the 80s and they all play perfectly. I’ve never had any CDs info vanish.
Interesting discussion. I read an article in Guardian yesterday which was far more positive about CD sales: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/09/cd-sales-uk-music-sales-2023-taylor-swift-miley-cyrus-weeknd?utm_term=65a15afa5c22371aa3a93239aadcbcba&utm_campaign=SleeveNotes&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=sleevenotes_email
I prefer CD’s myself, mainly because I can easily play them in my car and they require a lot less storage. I also like to maintain my collection and love it when I can collect similar editions, such as the Suede CD books a couple of years ago or the Arthur Baker Dance Masters now. A joy is to play a new CD in my car, and what concerns me is that car manufacturers seem to have abandoned the format. I went to look for a brand new car (Lexus) last week and was really disappointed to not be able to have the option to have a CD player installed. Not even as an option. So I decided to stay with my current car with CD player for a year or two. Hoping there will be some sort of CD comeback in the meantime.
What’s interesting is that whenever I walk into a record shop there is always a group of youngsters in the K-Pop section. That’s very popular and predominantly CD’s in attractive packaging. Average age of 16 I guess. The other people in the CD section are like 50+. Interesting demographic.
I’m not sure if it is the case in the U.K., but here in NZ there are auto electricians who stock car stereo systems, some including CD players, and are more than willing to install an after market one into a newly purchased vehicle. Perhaps that is an option.
Personally stopped buying vinyl about the time cd’s started showing up in record shops…never looked back. Why record companies want to stop making money by not releasing cd’s is a mystery to me. Those companies will just be disappearing that much faster…unless they can get you to buy into the vinyl hype.
My story also. Was positively giddy when CD’s came on the scene and was stunned by the resurgent interest in records.
Silly me, never thought of the financial incentive to push the format.
Great article Paul. I’m a fairly recent returnee to vinyl (2019) but am first and foremost a music lover. I find it sad that people feel they have to be “vinyl” or “CD” fans – the reality is that anyone buying physical music in 2024 should be celebrated, whatever the format. For me the choice comes down to what the actual music is. For pre 1990 albums or shorter new albums I’ll probably go vinyl. But for ambient electronic music or albums designed to be listened to in one go – maybe later Kate Bush etc – I go with CD. It’s time we came together and realised we’re all in the same boat – the one that wants physical music to live on.
Yeah I agree. Sometimes I buy CDs, sometimes vinyl, Blu-ray or DVD surround, even a cassette for fun. Sometimes I buy a download. Not having the option and being forced into stream only or download only is a horrible thought, and the end of the CD is a ridiculous thought to me. He can argue back and forth but it’s the least expensive way to great sound.
I just read an upsetting email from another site I visit. This guy does remasters of albums that most of you would recognize. He specifically mentioned Universal so I’m not sure about other studios. But he wasn’t getting responses to his CD requests and when he asked they said they had basically deleted all previous CD requests back to 2017. They also said they “were primarily focusing on vinyl licenses”. So now he is unsure if he will even continue producing reissues and remasters :(
You didn’t bother to read rubelling comments here then mate,go on scroll down! Take your breaking news elsewhere!
Oh you are right I missed his post! Awesome that he is an SDE fan as well!
Oh no, here we go again, the one thing I really don’t enjoy or want to see on this otherwise excellent site, the ongoing conspiracy theory of ‘vinyl over CD’. Please Paul, the web is rife with conspiracy theories, here is where we go to enjoy good news, good releases, good reviews, not ‘the dark secrets’ of a supposed bias against CD. Which doesn’t exist no matter how its spun, and smacks of paranoia among CD fans.
The reason, the real reason, the BPI plays up the sales of vinyl is nothing to do with ‘gloating over CD’s demise’ or playing down CD sales. It’s all down to demographics. The sales of vinyl across the globe is, according to their data, down to the youth market, and that’s one that’s worth lots of cash. So its playing up one medium, not playing down another, pure and simple. If young people ditched vinyl tomorrow and switched to CD as their physical media of choice, the whole emphasis would swing back to the silver disc.
Lets also (to use a politician’s favourite phrase) be clear about this – there is no liking, at all, for vinyl among the record business. Its expensive to produce, expensive to package, and expensive to transport. The record biz will hold a second major celebration, to match that of the 1990’s, once vinyl dies a second death. So who, in the recording World, does want vinyl? The most unimportant people of all of course, the artists. By a quirk of short term thinking, the record biz, rightly unexpecting a vinyl revival, forgot to bring royalties in line with other media, making vinyl very attractive to the actual musicians.
CD has always been a major money spinner for the record business. It cost next to nothing to make, it has poor royalties compared to vinyl, (although massively better than downloads and streaming) and the packaging is cheap. Ironically, attempts to make that packaging better, have been manfully resisted by – the consumer. As endless complaints about cardboard sleeves, and the more expensive jewel cases showed. The record biz therefore is not ‘anti’ CD, this is just downright daft.
The biz though, is very much pro download and even more so, for streaming. It makes an absolute mint from these formats, with virtually no outlay at all. ‘This’ is why they are really not bothered about spinning (not literally) CD as they did in the past. Remember, ‘Perfect sound for life’, a slogan that was deemed ‘the’ biggest marketing hype of all time, and a bane to both CD manufacturers and hifi salesman alike? I mean what’s the point in having a £1,000 separates system, when a £400 midi system, or these days, a cheap and cheerful dock can produce ‘perfect sound’? Right?
As a hifi salesman on the past I have heard more nonsense spun about CD than any other medium, period. Peoples expectations were raised to ludicrous levels, then came the loudness wars, and slowly but surely, public confidence in CD was drastically reduced, and then came streaming to stick the boot in. Don’t blame another physical medium for CD’s decline in public perception, the record biz and audio biz did for it a long time ago, and its they who are doing it now.
But not because of ‘long live vinyl’.
Unfortunately, we have inside evidence that does point to a conspiracy. We already have seen more than one person who does own a reissue record label, being denied the right to release CDs, but allowed to release Vinyl by the majors.
And we have also heard of CD reissue projects being completed and then stopped from being released commercially and the songs only come out for streaming instead.
And we often read on this very site of reissues we want, but that only come out on Vinyl and not on CD, so there are plenty of examples where there is demand and no risk to the major label and they refuse to go ahead with it. Sounds like some policy made by upper management to discourage catalog CD releases. I can only assume they think we will all switch over to streaming as they want total control of what we can listen to.
The record companies don’t like vinyl ? It’s a pain in the arse to manufacture ect!
So why release a stones album in 40 different colours? Same with macca and the rest, and for £40 a disc I’m pretty sure they are on to a good thing even after artists increased royalty! I couldn’t care less and next to nothing about it all,so your probably right marge! All the best john
Thanks, M, for some ‘sound’ reasoning on this matter. Some people see evil everywhere, pushed along by the media who thrive on bad news, hyperbolized outrage and controversy. At the end of the day the music business, all over history and the world, in all its very diverse forms, has brought immense joy into the world. Collectors, sometimes, are their own worst enemy: they seem to focus on what they don’t get, instead of counting their many blessings. The 2010’s has been a Golden Age of music collecting: maximum abundance, cheap prices, minimal environmental impact and good vibes a-plenty. I started in 1969, and at no time in my life what is so good, interesting and satisfying. Music Is The Best.
I just purchased the Jethro Tull Broadsword and the Beast set so I’m assuming that counts as 6-8 cd’s depending on how they count the DVD’s whereas most of the vinyl I purchase is 1 unit so I can see how numbers can still hold for cd. I purchase both cd and vinyl, mostly live Grateful Dead sets and The Dave’s Pick’s series, all the Dave Matthews Band Live Trax series, the Jethro Tull sets, the XTC sets, etc. so that definitely gets my cd “numbers” up as most of these are 3+ cd’s. I think there is a place where both exist and have their place depending on convenience and amount of content. I don’t need 6cd’s of studio outtakes on 45rpm vinyl. However, my best sounding albums on my system with my set up are vinyl. The UHQR series vinyl of Steely Dan as an example are phenomenal. Glad we still have options!
Hi Jasong, your Jethro Tull example would count as one cd in my charity shop purchases of 8 for £1.55.
How about marketing Audiophile versions of CD’s With proper mastering and charging a slight premium?
seems to work well with Vynil 180G, half speed mastering etc…
As always it’s the music that matters not the format but why issue CD’s with sub par mastering ?
So you would tell the customer that this cd at £10 is OK but we will sell you a better sounding version for £15?
Does this really happen when a new record ( vinyl) is released? Do they not just come as 180g as standard? Do you have a lighter option on the shelves of hmv for a few notes cheaper???
I’ve collected vinyl since I was 13 in 1983. I continued with mostly vinyl as CDs became the main format but also purchased CDs when the LP wasn’t released on vinyl or to get extra tracks on CD singles, I also love in depth CD box sets which just aren’t practical or affordable for me on vinyl. I own 1000+ vinyl records and a similar number of CDs.
My main issue is that I have a number of well cared for CDs from the mid nineties that have become unplayable where as the vinyl from that period is still great (all be it with a little surface noise here and there!)
It does concern me that CDs may have a finite lifespan whereas a well cared for vinyl record will last indefinitely.
I have collected CDs since the late 80’s and have amassed several thousands, however, out of this number I have only had one single CD fail to play. Unfortunately it was one of my most played CDs ‘Talking Book’, played fine one day and then failed to play the next. Tried it on several different CD players and none of them could play it although it looked perfect and free of blemishes. I have heard accounts of CDs having a finite lifespan but I am still playing many discs that I bought nearly 40 years ago.
I’m a long-time CD-only purchaser and can’t add much more to the discussion here, other than 1 way the music industry at large could really help CD fans and perhaps gain new ones is to make good CD packaging again!! Start with better printing & layout, increase font sizes on liner notes and add panels that can fold out to show larger versions of things like the front & back covers. I know this wouldn’t be frame-worthy for people who only buy vinyl to hang on a wall or prop on a countertop, but give people a tactile reason to want to buy CD’s again. I also have to believe that current CD manufacturing uses more recycled materials than vinyl record manufacturing, which could be played up by record labels as more ‘earth-friendly’ (whether it actually is or not). Also CD’s are old enough now as a format that they could be marketed as ‘throwback’ or nostalgia-based items instead of afterthoughts. It just seems like the physical element of the format itself needs to be improved and emphasized for the format to be attractive again, especially to people not accustomed to holding music in their hands other than through their phone.
These are valid points, but not the major issues. CD has been badly tarnished by the loudness wars, and the younger buyer is well aware of this. Thus they either simply shrug and stick to equally bad quality, but cheaper, streaming and downloads, or buy vinyl. On the other hand, the record biz is committed to streaming in the long term. The margins are enormous, and the profits therefore stratospheric compared to physical media. The fact that, post covid, only the biggest artists can afford to do full tours, and streaming doesn’t pay, is putting the whole industry in jeopardy, as ever eludes the fat cats at the top.
I fooled myself. I meant not collecting vinyl anymore…sorry for that!
I completely agree. I am an all CDs guy. Been that for years. Been hearing and collecting music since 1980 and I went from vinyl to CD and had a relapse to vinyl in the late 90ies early 2000s and was so disappointed by the quality of vinyl that I went back to CDs and that is it for me. I only miss the nice covers but with the prices that all of these vinyl releases cost I am happy not collecting CDs anymore. And I have a friend who spends a lot and I mean a lot of money on vinyl records every month but of course when they can make more money out of vinyl they are going to pronounce CDs dead and maybe believe it themselves…
Great to read a positive analysis of something that I think most SDE readers understand: The continuing value of compact discs. And, sure, that varies by how well-mastered they are, and the comparative cost of the vinyl version (and what that pressing is like). But, at least enough of the time, a lot of people think the CD is still the most satisfying way to enjoy music. The music media doesn’t like to say so, and Paul’s article helps make that understandable.
I have a question, though, about CD production and I wonder if it has something to do with box sets that are slow to market.
With all the brouhaha about how vinyl pressers can’t keep up with demand, I’ve yet to read about CD producers not being able to meet orders on time. As I understand it, a lot of CD and DVD plants were quickly shuttered when the iTunes store peaked (and when Wall Street told them their business was dying, even if their sales did not indicate that). More went dark when streaming began to dominate, and the vinyl comeback spelled doom for others. I recall an article about a compact disc plant startup several years ago, and the piece said it was the first new presser in the US in decades, and the writer wasn’t kind about the venture’s future. I presume there are still far less CD manufacturers now than in the 1990s, but it’s hard to see how the demand has truly shrunk equivalently.
Box sets are not the only sustaining item for CDs, as Paul’s article makes clear. But, since they create more pressing demand per title (as a set may have a half-dozen discs included), and assuming the CD production tunnel is narrower, how much effect does that collision have on whether and when a set gets released? When we moan about promised sets by The Police or McCartney never making it to market, how much of that is a matter of how long a label might stand in line for production, especially the smaller reissue-only imprints?
Logic says it must have something to do with it, but maybe I’m doing math with incorrect numbers.
Thanks, as always.
It must have been around 1970 when I started collecting music. My mother loved music and my father liked it enough to allow some money to be spent on it. We would go to Woolworths and they’d have these singles packaged in plastic so you could only see the first one and the last one. I don’t remember exactly, but I think it was like 10 for $1. They’d always put a known song as one you could see and the others you couldn’t see were usually unknowns or popular artists singles who’d failed.
The first album I bought on my own was Elton John’s Greatest Hits. I continued to buy Vinyl and then tried CD around 1985. I bought mostly catalog reissues, but I remember the first current CD I bought was Cheap Trick Standing On The Edge. I liked the songs, but I thought the sound quality of Standing On The Edge was terrible. For some reason, I still replaced a lot of my Vinyl with CD. I continued to buy some Vinyl until the early 90’s when they made it impossible to find in the stores. I remember only 12″ singles were left after a time that you could buy, the 45’s and LPs were just gone.
Fast forward, many years and after much effort, I had gotten my whole vinyl music collection on mp3 (by either buying and ripping CDs or downloading mp3) except for a few stragglers that just didn’t seem to exist to be bought except on Vinyl. So, I took them to a professional studio and paid for them to do needledrops for me. That is when my first huge discovery was made! Up until this time, I just thought that Vinyl sounded better than CD because it had inherently better sound. When comparing my new CDs to an old vinyl the old vinyl won out everytime. But now I compared these needledrops to my old vinyl and they were wonderful, had that punch and warmth that was usually missing on CD. So this proved to me that there is nothing wrong with digital inherently, it was all in the mastering.
Fast forward more years and I have heard some great sounding CDs. And now Blu Rays. As an example, let me tell you I was blown away by the sound on The Hurting. So again, more proof that it is all in the mastering. Digital can sound great.
So after all that, I am full speed ahead on Digital. I buy CDs and rip them and keep the CDs as backups. And I always hope the new CDs I buy will have good sound because I know they can. For the most part, they are just acceptable. They could be better if they were mastered better. But I really only hate them when they are compressed to the point of distortion. Other than that, I can still enjoy them, compression doesn’t seem to bother me as much as some others.
Now, we have reached the same point with CDs here in the US as we were with vinyl in the early 90’s. They are just gone from the stores. So I have to buy all my CDs from Amazon and eBay. But buy them I do, because I can’t trust a streaming service to have the songs I want to hear in the versions I want to hear and even if they have them today, they could be gone tomorrow. That is an unacceptable risk for me to take. And I’d like future generations to have a chance to hear the great music that I have heard. At least if I have the CDs and others have the Vinyl, there is always a chance somebody could hear these great songs.
I started “collecting” music in 1983, although I didn’t see that as “collecting” at the time. Like everyone else, I started with LPs en Singles. My cousin bought a CD-player in 1986 and when I heard a CD for the first time I was sold. I loved the sound of CDs … and I still do! I started saving, because I also wanted a CD-player. In 1987 I bought my first CD-player and the first CD I bought was Dire Straits “Brothers In Arms”. I also remember that the next CDs that I bought were Dire Straits “Love Over Gold” and The Alan Parsons Project “Eye In The Sky”.
That’s why I think it’s a shame that record companies treat CDs so poorly. If you ask me, CDs are still the best way to listen to music! Hopefully there will be a time when record companies and music lovers will embrace the CD again.
The future of the CD would be better if they would use a more dynamically mastering. Now the use the same mastering for CDs as for streaming. But despite everything, I still keep “collecting” my music on CD!
Finally, I turn to Paul Sinclair. Maybe you can do something to promote the CD. Perhaps in addition to the Blu-ray Audio discs you release, you can also release CDs or SACDs. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a “CD Day” in addition to Record Store Day and National Album Day?
I completely agree the main points of your piece Paul. As someone who has bought physical music since I was 10 years old, it pains me to have arrived at the point in life where vinyl is largely priced me out of the market. I did get the two vinyl pressings of Gabriel’s i/o (one was a Xmas present) but they are ridiculously expensive and an indulgence that I can’t afford for anyone other than him. I’d love to have the Steely Dan albums on vinyl but alas I can’t justify them at the prices – ditto the Atlantic 75 pressings of a number of Genesis albums. I have basically thrown the towel in so the more effort made with CD editions the better for me.
There does seem to be an abundance of vinyl aficionados who are prepared to shell out for vinyl/coloured vinyl releases. More collectors than listeners, I suspect. Instagram is awash with them. Mostly blokes aged 40 and upwards with their #vinyl #vinylcommunity #recordcollection #vinyladdict #vinyllover etc. hashtags. It always raises a smile when someone proudly posts a photo of a brand spanking new vinyl album, probably bought from Amazon and still in it’s shrink wrap, and tags their post with #cratedigging #cratedigger
Totally agree with the sentiment. It’s exasperating the looks of incredulity you get when people hear you buy CDs [though I get just as many looks for actually buying music, which is a fair indication of where we are these days].
But just to flag up –
“Steely Dan albums, Depeche Mode’s ongoing 12-inch box sets, the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense reissue, the Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty 4LP set”
All the material on these reissues has been released on CD before, and is available to buy digital, usually in good quality.
The appeal for vinyl buyers is that it’s appearing on vinyl for the first time in ages, and vinyl is a lot harder to find. If you were [shudder] a vinyl purist, these releases are geared just for you.
I kinda like those incredulity looks, makes me think: ‘ I’m exceptional, You’re mainstream. I do what I like, You do what others do too.’ Great … the Joy of Being Different !
I buy both CD and vinyl – choosing new releases for the latter only if I see a good deal (which can mean a bit of a wait). Otherwise CD format wins for me and they sound just as good to my ears. I would have loved some of the latest releases such as the National, Peter Gabriel or Porcupine Tree on vinyl but the price point just cancels that option for me (my first thought is how many albums I could get on CD in comparison?) My local market has a really good used vinyl stall and I can pick up something (sometimes hard to get) in really good condition for around £10 to £20. As others have said, the threat to CD and vinyl is streaming but I really hope there is a secure future for both formats for a long time.
How about a “musicstore day”? Surely it would be far more successful than the stamp collecting style “recordstore day” that we currently have. People in marketing are currently pushing buzzwords like “inclusivity”, how about putting their money where their mouths are and stop excluding the silent majority ie people who would gladly buy a cd over vinyl any day of the week!
We all know that record companies exist purely for profit, not nostalgia. Its clear that vinyl lovers are being fleeced for the profit margins. If the same companies marketed cds in the same way ie. Playing on the nostalgia value etc, cd sales would go through the roof, easily aurpassing vinyl sales.
I suspect the 2 huge reasons why they do not push cds are 1. It would burst their lucrative vinyl bubble and 2. They wouldn’t get away with the rip off prices with cd copies…
This is intresting
Hear hear Paul, great article. Here at Key Production we manufacture huge quantities of CDs still. Consumers love the format and so do we.
As much as I loved vinyl, if it’s on blu-ray, I get that and if not, I get cd. Only vinyl records I tend to buy are old 12″ singles.
I bought mainly cd’s. Only vinyl records that i buy are used which have nice artwork. Total amount of my cd’s are almost 4000. My vinyl collection is almost 500. Are there many of you out there who hasn’t time to listen what you have bought? From the last few years i still haven’t listened Abbey Road box, White Double box, Who’s Next box, Sail On Sailor box, two Jimi Hendrix live boxes, several Frank Zappa live recordings, Buffalo Springfield box, Pentangle box, several Yoko Ono, T.Rex and Uriah Heep cd’s, Whitesnake box, Focus box, Ronnie Lane box, Fleetwood Mac box… There must be almost 200 of them. It’s nice to bought them. Especially when the price is right. But i don’t know where i found the TIME to listen them. Here they collect the dust. The day i die they probably found me buried under my cd’s that i haven’t listened!
This sounds very familiar to me. I also have a pile of box sets and CD’s that I haven’t listened to yet. But I still buy more CD’s.
I can relate. What is scary is when you finally do dig a cd out to listen to that in your head you bought two years ago, but find it’s ten years old.
I’m only a few years off retirement and the plan is to dedicate one day per week to catching up on my listening.
I do buy vinyl mainly for the fetish aspect it represents to me, at least reissues of beloved albums. I absolutley despise reissues that contain two vinyls of an album that originally was released as a single album and contains some “bonus” tracks on side D. Reissues should stick to the original versions. Playing vinyl and flip it over after 3 songs makes no sense to me. So in general I prefer CDs, especially when it comes to superdeluxe boxsets. I do not have any interest in playing demos and “work in progress” songs on vinyl. I think such tracks are better archived on CD where you can skip comfortably as skipping is needed in many cases. Imagine playing the Beatles Anthologies on vinyl. Horror.
I still love a well recorded and mastered CD. I actually only tolerated vinyl when it was the highest resolution option back in the day.
As soon as the CD came out, I was all in. The format has held up a very long time now. It’s amazing they still pull more detail out of recordings after so many years and remasters. Let alone complete remixes. The technology to squeeze out every last drop in those 16 bits skeeps improving. Of course I do love the hi-res and multichannel disc choices available as well. Physical media is also a way of giving back to the artists you love by actually paying them a lot more than the streaming companies do. You don’t get the tactile quality of owning a piece of music with streaming like a physical disc. They also almost always sound better than their streaming equivalent.
So I say, yes to the CD.Long live the CD!
Concerning sound quality: I like good sound as much as anybody. On the other hand, I am used to below-par sound as I listen a lot to pre-1954 music also, ànd I was a fan of the pre-hifi BBC World Service.
There are a few milestones in my perception of recorded sound. A peak was reached by the recording of ‘Visions Of The Emerald Beyond’ by the second Mahavishnu Orchestra, by Ken Scott (Beatles, Floyd, Bowie), recorded in 1974 at Electric Lady and mixed at Trident. I was blown away by the clarity, definition and transparancy of the sound. F.i. You could physically feel the impact of Michael Walden’s bass drums.
Since then, always to my ears, there sure has been progress, but only marginal. When digital sound came of age, around 1980, the first such album I heard was ‘Swing Of Delight’ by Carlos Santana: the definition was somewhat (let’s say 10%) enhanced. The advantage of the cd -format lies elsewhere.
Next, around 1990, when remixing and -mastering started in earnest, for legacy editions, there was again substantial progress (let’s say 25%) as the transparancy was enhanced. The first time I heard this, was on a very well (and legally manufactured in Indonesia) produced cassette (!) edition of the first Byrds box set. I was so amazed that I thought it were all alternate takes of the hit-versions.
Since then, always to my ears, there has not been much real improvement. All the ‘squeezing out’ is a lot of effort for ever diminishing results. HDCD is one, but only – let’s say – 5 %. Multi-channel and hi-res are sidesteps which do not improve sound quality, as such.
I can’t be bothered for buying the same music for such small improvements. I never buy the same music twice on the same format, if I can avoid it. (Some exceptions: f.i. Beatles and Miles Davis in mono, because I could get them for real bargain prices). I rather spend that money on fresh music.
Out or curiosity, I asked on Reddit why people are still so adamant about vinyl with the frequency of reports about bad pressings or badly done masters, and I was surprised that over half the responses were people who indicated that they don’t actually LISTEN to the vinyl they buy. They seem to treat owning the vinyl as a curio–nice artwork (in fact, some of them said they prefer to hang it on the wall–the record companies are missing out on a mint by no longer making album flats for promos) and something to have in a box to show their friends.
I honestly cannot understand spending that kind of money on what is essentially a knickknack for most of them.
Amen! Thanks, Paul, for voicing the obvious. This really needs to be heard by the mainstream press. Thanks again and Happy New Year!
If “they” are going to do away with the cd format, at least have the decency to replace it with Blu-Ray Audio! MMmmm… Dolby Atmos…
If all you’ve got is a boombox, Blu-Ray Audio has the same problem that DVD-A or SACD had, which is just not being widespread enough. In that regard, CD still has a portability advantage, as well as convenience when it comes to ripping files. Which is why, with all respect to Paul, I would’ve preferred several of the SDE BD-As to be CD/BD packages; how sad that the best digital mastering of The Hurting was not made available on the good ol’ CD. Or that there are bonus tracks on the CD editions of The Tipping Point, Tubular Bells, No Parlez and probably several others that aren’t on the BD discs. Yeah, I get that the BD-A format focuses on the album in different mixes and less on bonus tracks, but if the space is there…? The Hurting could’ve even included a large chunk of the 2013 box set tracks for those who missed it both times it was released. (And if you want the Stones album in Atmos as well as the live tracks, you have to buy the CD twice.) Just spitballing here.
I love records, CDs, tapes and the radio! Streaming is not for me. I prefer vinyl, I LOVE it’s quirks and ‘noise’ but above all else I just want the music, sounding good, on a physical format that isn’t over-priced for no good reason, and preferably decent sleeve-notes/lyrics, whatever the format. I would dearly love both CD singles AND the 99p vinyl single to come back ( wishful thinking, I know). I discovered many bands that way in the 90s, I used to buy at least one single every Monday. New streaming ‘singles’ annoy me, and so do one-sided ‘singles’ at £15 bloody quid ( U2, you do NOT need the money!) Give people CHOICES, and they will buy things. I’d love CD’s ( and half-decent boomboxes and headphones) back in supermarkets too. Chart music is not intrinsically worth ”less” than other music, no matter what some grumpy old blokes on here who think music ended with Pink Floyd/ The Beatles claim. If they want young ppl in particular to buy physical ”product” ( urgh) it has to be accessible physically and price-wise, and I’m sure we all know ppl who’d have a CD in the basket at SafeCoBurys who wouldn’t have gone in a record shop, and mightn’t even have one left to go in. Supermarkets selling the Top 40 did not undermine ”the industry”.
“It’s so transparent, and I don’t mean the coloured vinyl.”
Nice one Paul. ^_^
“Oh, and you can also buy a CD in a plastic jewel case that that has been mastered to within an inch of its life.”
Contrasting that with the many different vinyl editions makes me wonder why the labels haven’t cottoned onto the idea of releasing differently sounding CDs, one of them featuring good dynamic mastering… Hey, it’s a good marketing, idea, no??
I like this article. Here’s to it being spread far and wide.
Even if labels don’t want to issue multiple versions of a CD, why can’t they issue hybrid versions with lossless FLAC files in a data portion of the disc?
Well, a CD itself can only hold 700 MB of data, so that would only work for LP-length albums. Plus there’s the Redbook standard that most CDs tend to adhere to, and various compatibility issues with “enhanced” discs. DVD or Blu-Ray wouldn’t have any of those limitations, though. Alternatively, download codes could be employed much more widely and not just for vinyl releases.
There is a slight skew in the figures due to the propensity for artists to offer autographed or signed editions of the CD and occasionally Vinyl releases. The numbers of these are quite large but limited and scalpers tend to purchase multiple copies to resell on auction websites pushing the record up the charts. The last Kylie album got a number one placing helped not only by CD and Vinyl enthusiasts, but also autograph hunters, memorabilia collectors and resellers. If there had not been vinyl and CD bundles with a 12×12″ signed lithograph option and signed CDs offered by hmv and townsend records I wonder if the album would have topped the chart?
Absolutely right, Paul; sadly, my local record shops only offer vinyl, and they freely admit that profit margins are the reason, which isn’t very “rock and roll” of them. So, I buy new releases on CD online or from HMV stores instead, which seems like a missed opportunity for smaller stores.
My local record shop does have used CDs, along with lots of used vinyl, but as for new stuff , only new viynl comes in. Occasionally if there is some new CD I am having a hard time getting I can ask the owner, whom I know, if he can try to get it for me, and he will, but if my efforts have been exhausted, he probably won’t be able to get it either.
Those of us who were buying albums when CDs first appeared remember the stories about the death of vinyl and how it was only a matter of time before they would go the way of the dinosaurs and be consigned to history. One of the complaints at the time was how record companies were reducing choice and forcing the public toward CDs as the profit margins were greater, and for consumers to buy the music they already own again. I feel like history is now repeating itself with record companies pushing vinyl as a cash cow with the majority of big sellers being re-issues of classic albums and multiple and colour variations of the same title.
This is so absolutely true.
I notice nobody seems to workout how large the 2nd hand resale market is .i.e alongside the mint market there is also a very large quantity of 2nd hand cd’s and vinyl sold.This market must logically have some impact on how much( or little) of the brand new reissue stuff is sold.The turnaround can also be very quick too as many brand new releases often get resold and can turn up in the 2nd hand market less than a month after release.
Article is spot on, they could easily sell more CDs if they wanted to. As an example, I still listen to current popular music. Unfortunately, not everything I want is released on CD, some are Vinyl only or streaming only. And when I do buy on CD, they make me regret it and are training me not to buy.
I loved Sour by Olivia Rodrigo and was looking forward to Guts, but there are 4 songs only available on Vinyl, so I have not bought it at all yet. I did buy Taylor Swift, Pink, Kelly Clarkson, and the Rolling Stones right away and regretted it. All of them came out quickly with more songs not on the CD I bought. And in the case of Midnights, you can’t even buy all the songs on a CD. And I think at least some of them were only available on a CD you had to be at a specific concert to buy.
Its pure madness.
It’s all meant to boost the stats. Insane, I agree.
A couple of points come to mind. How many lost sales/revenue is there because a release is only available on vinyl and not CD. I guess the opposite is true. Irritating as it is I think with the “self fulfilling prophecy” Paul mentions the damage is already done to a great extent.
Also does this type of media bias towards vinyl influence more casual music fans who would never buy vinyl that buying CDs is somehow no longer “the thing to do”. I suggest this further erodes the impact of music in many people’s daily lives. Something that should be addressed for the long term for the music industry.
Here in the US, I see a much bigger problem. Online nonsense like TikTok influencers. All the time I hear about new ”artists” getting contracts because they did a dance on Tik Tok that averybody started copying, and sang a little bit .
But there are some young people who ARE buying new GOOD music. Most are buyng vinyl, buy some will end up checking out CDs, especually as most are still cheaper.
I like and buy both formats when it comes to v/a compilations, box sets, bonus materiel etc I always prefer CDs but when I just want an album I mostly buy vinyls. I really hope the CD will survive in the future.
Excellent article. CDs are my format and it’s sad to see the neglect. Why is there no Kylie Minogue Extension release, just one example of many. No CD is no sale for me.
I agree on this one. Extension is one I’d want on CD. Even better and Extension in CD that also has extended versions of the bonus tracks as well!
Would Steely Dan cd reissues with the new masters sound apprciably better than the existing CDs? What made those exciting is that for those who missed the vinyl decades ago, and for those into high-res downloads or streaming, that these could be heard in the improved sound quality for the first time since they were originally on vinyl. (Of course I wish these were all on blu-ray.)
Yeah, Blu-ray would be amazing
Exactly 40 years ago this year I brought my first cd (Space Oddity (RCA) by Bowie),and then CDs were as rare as hens’ teeth and if I Remember correctly twice the price of a vinyl album.
And now 40 years on record companies can make vinyl the premium product,and charge accordingly
I collect CDs ..nuff said
I still do collect CDs also, but I also do buy more vinyl, but as many LPs now offer free downloads, I sometimes may only get the LPs. But I do buy both on quite a few things.
I will always be a CD buyer with just an occasional vinyl version but mostly for collector’s purposes.
I wonder what the sales are like in the US – arguably the most important music market in the world.
I dislike the trend of taking a 45-50 minute album that was originally released as a single LP and re-release it is a 2LP. Definitely not a fan of flipping an album side every 10-15 minutes [or even less].
As far as issue delays [re: Now & Then released after the Red/Blue], you could probably include the Rolling Bones releasing Hackney Diamonds with the live CD 6 weeks after the single CD. I have the single CD, not intending on getting the 2CD edition unless dirt cheap.
Even PT’s Closure/Continuation Live could also be in this category. After the 2BR/2CD and the BR/DVD were sold out quickly, a few weeks back they took pre-orders for another batch of BR/DVD which I order. Then i cancelled that within 2 weeks after the new 2BR/2CD was announced and ordered that.
But the real kicker are the releases from the old farts [McCartney, Beatles, Rolling Bones] who released multiple variants [and still do] in vinyl. Think the 3 LP of McCartney III [just before Xmas!]. 4 now & then vinyls, how many vinyl releases for Hackney Diamonds? [Didn’t they have special releases with one vinyl release for each baseball team in addition to the various colour variants?]
I abhor flipping the vinyl so often. I prefer the single vinyl max of 46 minutes. I also dislike the 3 sided vinyls with an etching. How about use the 4th side for b-sides or remixes?
For me the biggest concern is mastering that uses anything more than subtle limiting.
All physical product, lossless downloads and lossless streaming should be mastered for good dynamics, sound quality, detail and sound stage.
The use of aggressive limiting should be limited (no pun intended) to lossy downloads.
Also vinyl fans should read this
https://magicvinyldigital.net/2023/02/19/do-analog-media-force-a-dynamic-on-music-or-does-analog-media-increase-the-dynamics/
In many cases the additional dynamics heard and measured with vinyl is just more distortion because the vinyl has been cut from a highly limited master.
16/44.1 (CD) can sound amazing
My preference is to own my music physically; well mastered Hi Res rip from a Blu Ray or well mastered vinyl but a rip from a well mastered CD is also fine.
So I never play physical digital as it’s all ripped to my server.
That’s a fascinating article – I knew the blog but hadn’t read that. Really puts things into perspective and shows how flawed the idea of reading DR numbers from vinyl or tape rips is – the algorithm was specifically made for digital files.
Thank you for this great article! The simple truth is that this of course comes down to money. The music industry charges 3 to 4x the amount for vinyl than for a cd and releasing vinyl in different colors adds extra sales opportunities hence revenue. The industry only thinks short term. Whatever makes the most money goes.
The mistake they make is that they seem to try to get “cd people” to switch to vinyl by withholding cd releases. That is clearly not working as people like me and many others here refuse to switch despite all the colors and even extra tracks in some cases. CD’s still outsell vinyl 2 to 1. The industry should clearly find ways to give the cd some love!
After switching to CD’s in the 80’s, I never looked back. The most annoying thing about vinyl was that you had to flip it after 4 or 5 songs. In todays reissue world, these big vinyl boxes are atrocious. If you want to listen to everything, you almost spend as much time flipping records, putting everything back in inner sleeves and the actual box than relaxing and listening to the music. There are ways to make CD’s special and enticing, like selling them in 7” format such as the new Paul Young No Parlez reissue, or add a bonus disc with live material such as Hackney Diamonds. The audience is clearly there.
As far as the sound quality, there really is no difference between vinyl and cd. The cd is capable of giving us the best quality. It’s the industry’s choice to not always do that.
I started buying music on vinyl as teenager ,moved to cd when it became the handiest way to play music ,in the car etc but moved back to vinyl in latter years & am delighted I did !
I still buy cd,s though ,particularly box sets when they offer more than vinyl box sets which is regularly or cd releases that have more tracks than a vinyl release !
You’re right though ,the companies aren’t pushing the cd editions the same way & should do more for cd buyers .
I recently bought the thin lizzy vagabonds box set on vinyl & cd to get all of the tracks ,this could have been done in one box but at least they were looking after the cd buyer with a better box @ great value too compared to the vinyl version .
Both worth an unboxing review Paul !
Keep up the great work ,love all of the reviews & news updates .
I only bought the Lizzy CD set, cause I could not afford both, but I keep looking to see when the price for the LP set drops considerbly, and of coure SDE is a great place to find this info!
I collect and play both vinyl and CDs, I love both formats for different reasons, I prefer listening to a studio album on vinyl but love listening to compilations and deluxe editions on CD.
I however do not care for cassettes and I’ve actively avoided buying them, I left them in the 90s as soon as I could afford to buy CDs, the only time I’ve ended up with a new cassette is if it’s included in a bundle, I’ve never listened to recent cassettes but I’ve heard they sound terrible because Dolby Noise Reduction is no longer a thing.
It is very weird for the industry to prefer vinyl over CD. Given the decline in sales of physical product they should push both formats as hard as they can. Sounds like they want to cannibalise their own market. I am a child of the 70s and personally prefer vinyl but the vinyl revival is killing my interest all together. Overpriced, unlimited, multiple coloured versions of the same album with no new content are boring. I buy almost nothing these days and I yearn for the vinyl revival to recede to force the companies to release well thought out vinyl reissues. CD’s I see as redundant as an HQ stream is better quality and therefore offers more than the CD. Regular CD packaging is really not worth it. CD box sets are different and of course Blu Ray Audio and SACD are certainly worthwhile.
Inevitably this conversation is primarily about cd and vinyl sales in the UK. It would be interesting to see the equivalent stats for the sale of cd’s and vinyl records in other countries. In Japan, for instance, the cd remains unquestionably the dominant format. Cd releases there are consistently of high quality and often add bonus tracks. The cd single too remains a popular format with dozens of releases every month. In contrast, vinyl releases in Japan are still viewed as niche products, often with very limited production runs (they frequently sell out before they are released). One does not get the sense that the music industry there has any interest in killing off the cd.
That stiff about Japan is absolutey true. I am a big fan of the Japanese group Shonen Knife. I have seen them 4 times and talked them each tome – I have 3 set lists in both English and Japanese all autographed by them.
And while I do have album CDs by them, I must have about 10 CD singles of theirs, some of them 3-inch ones in long sleeves. They are also all autographed too. They are great to their fans.
This is an interesting one, although sadly I’m not sure it changes anything. I would imagine that CD sales are most likely to people who have always bought CDs and will continue to do so. I’d be interested to know if CDs are attracting new buyers, especially amongst the younger generations. I’ve got a 17 year old and a 15 year old, neither of whom would consider CDs an option. Its streaming or vinyl. For them vinyl isn’t even a sound quality thing, it’s because it’s cool.
The record companies are interested in making money first and foremost, vinyl has high margins and CDs are selling with low marketing effort. I wonder if the CD market will die off with those buying them. Hopefully not for many many years.
I love CDs and have thousands of them. They are my preferred format, then purchased downloads. I’m 45 and have been collecting music for about 35 years so part of this is timing. However I don’t intend switching anytime soon.
The sound quality thing comes up repeatedly but I think there’s an element of subjectivity. I’m lucky to have a nice set up worth around £1,600. This is considered ‘budget’ by audiophile standards, but I would imagine compares favourably to most. I have a nice CD transport, amp with a dac and speakers on dedicated stands in a smallish room which it comfortably fills. To me it sounds amazing, obviously varies with the production of the music itself. I got a bit obsessed with listening critically and thinking, is this good enough? It actually stopped me enjoying the music which is the most important thing.
I’ve stopped worrying and just enjoy the sound, not to mention the cost, convenience and storage advantages. Also environmental benefits over vinyl and quality consistency.
CDs all the way
The CD is a fantastic format. They’ve sounded pretty terrible since the late 90s though, the emperors new clothes of the remaster, followed by a complete reduction in dynamics of new recordings have made it the least option I’m bound to purchase as a physical product. Make CDs for the audiophile market, not the soundbar/smartspeaker/smartphone crowd
Which is while I love Blu-ray audio….
there is absolutely no reason to continue making CDs with loudness issues.
The bosses who control the sound engineers should just go and do one or better still, take early retirement.
CD can produce perfect audio fidelity whether it be CD,SHM-CD or SACD it just needs people involved who give a damn enough to try.
Having read through the comments, the main difference for me between vinyl and CD seems to be the size of the packaging. When I buy an album (CDs only) for the third time or more it has to be in a decent sized package, preferably with a good booklet. The smallest size I like is the Marillion (and many others) which look great on a bookshelf. You could certainly make them thinner for a single disk release but keep the booklet with lyrics, photos and recording info etc.
The most annoying thing is having multiple different sizes for issues from the same band so they end up spread around the room / house because it is wasteful to put the tiny boxes on the large shelf (I am especially looking at you, R.E.M here). I would rather have them all the same size, even if it was as tiny standard CD boxes. I have a few recently in 10×10 inch boxes which are pretty nice, but for goodness sake, record companies, pick a size and stick to it!
I completely agree with you. They should pick a size and stick to it. I like the DVD size packaging, when it comes to deluxe editions.
Long time buyer of physical media but long time non buyer of vinyl.
I long grew weary of the many short comings of vinyl. Give me a CD or even better a surround remix on a blu ray disc . Thankfully I now have enough music that I am happy to avoid vinyl in support of New blu ray releases like Quadio from Rhino or SDE exclusives it’s been a great way to explore new music.
Also some reissue labels are having trouble licensing cd reissues with the major licence owners Universal will grant a vinyl reissue but not a cd one because they make more from vinyl licensing ♂️
An insightful article, Paul.
I wonder how far CD sales have to drop before they become a “niche” product worthy of promotion, allowing record labels and companies involved, to start selling them at £40 each
With CDs still almost doubling vinyl in the UK, it will be a while before it’s considered a niche.
Well £40 isn’t far off when I’ve seen some CD box sets are above the £60 level only because they thrown in a book [i.e. art book] that most will read and look at once and then that’s it.
The point I was trying to make was that
as a child I used to buy LPs for £5 and CDs for £13 now it’s nearly £40 for a re-issue.
Unfortunately limited or special edition box sets are not going to save the physical media market alone.
I’m not sure the people in the record labels even care anymore. They’re just after the usual fast buck… And right now that’s fleecing people buying vinyl.
In my opinion the “vinyl vs. CD” conflict is a fiction created by people who are wedded to one format or the other and fear the demise of that format. Vinyl and CD can, and do, coexist. There is no reason to believe one format will replace the other. Personally, I’m a fan of both formats and I buy one or the other depending on the type of release – sometimes I buy both (recent example both vinyl and CD copies of Alphaville’s “Prostitute” and “Salvation”). I do love the sound of vinyl and the experience of sitting down to listen to one, but I listen to most of my music on the computer, in the car, or through my AirPods – some of it streaming, and some ripped from CD.
The true conflict, as I see it, is “streaming vs. CD.” The resurrection of vinyl coincided with the advent of Apple Music and Spotify, which makes it easy to create correlations between increased vinyl sales and decreased CD sales, but as we all know “correlation does not imply causation.” It is only within the past few years that “lossless audio” has become readily available on the most popular streaming platforms (yes, I know Tidal was here earlier), which, I believe, poses the greatest threat to CD. I, like most people I would imagine, have long since retired my Discman and my 400 disc CD changer. Most cars, including my own, no longer come with a CD player. However, these changes did not occur because I adopted vinyl (which I concurrently did), but because of digital music – initially mp3, later Apple Music in my case, being so much more convenient. I’m not arguing that streaming will, or should, replace CDs – there are numerous reasons it shouldn’t, but only that if CDs “die” it is because of streaming, not vinyl.
I got my first CD player in 1985 and immediately sold my vinyl that I had collected since 1978 to fund CDs (not a lot given the price of CDs back then). I love detail and clarity and a well mastered CD still has the power to move me. Just last night I listened to a second hand mint copy of Van Morrisons’ Common One and the sound was stunning.
Over my 38 years of CD fandom I have witnessed remastering (some of it actually good), remixes (check out the 2004 Mind Games probably the best remix ever) and repackaging all to get me to buy the same music again – I have the 10CC box on preorder for example. CD is a pure joyride for me and the one thing I thank the vinyl crowd for is keeping the record stores open and allowing new record shops to appear (like my local Revolution in Selby) that also stock some lovely old CDs with the original mastering that in most cases was never bettered. Vinyl may completely bemuse me but that’s the silver lining.
I have said for a long time that part of the problem for CD is the loudness wars and compression for streaming. If CDs had continued to be mastered dynamically there would be no argument that sonically they are superior.
I respect people have their own preferences – each to their own – but the NOW Yearbook compilations sum up the whole vinyl v CD “debate” for me. On CD, you get twice the number of tracks for half the price. Throw in the special edition packaging on the CD versus the bog-standard vinyl record sleeves, and well…
But leave out the packaging and the comparison is stark enough as it is. Twice the tracks for half the price. For a physical product. People have other preferences, and good luck to them, diversity is good, but I can’t get beyond this simple stark difference. While other comparisons will be more “equal”, in the case of the Yearbooks a person buying vinyl is choosing half the content for double the price. That’s an arguably irrational price to pay for what is, essentially, a subjective “preference”.
Agree to each his own BUT I don’t believe using a compilation as an example is really a fair summation of vinyl vs. CD. I love vinyl, but I have always been, and continue to be a fan, of CDs. I would never waste my money on a NOW compilation on vinyl. In fact, there are few compilations I would buy on vinyl (admittedly, I did buy the recent Beatles Red/Blue Greatest Hits), instead buying them on CD or simply listening via Spotify or Apple Music. In my opinion, most people who buy vinyl do so for reasons that go beyond the music or sound, including larger artwork/liner notes/lyrics, which would not apply to many compilations.
Agreed. Makes no sense. It’s all about bang for the buck and vinyl prices are going up to the point of making them less desirable.
I started buying vinyl in December 1981 and was an early adopter of CDs – I got my first player in Easter 1986. All throughout the 1990s, my preference was to buy new albums on vinyl but as I had a full time job (and more money for music), I started buying more CDs – sometimes doubling up, but most of the time getting back catalogue remasters and compilations. I also got into box sets around then and these were perfect on CD – stuff like Nuggets, Acid Drops, Stax Singles etc – totally impractical on vinyl – and by and large, people accepted that CD was the optimum delivery method for titles like these.
Things started to take off in the 2000s – I kept buying new LPs but gradually noticed the increasing prices as most new albums were doubles. The price of CDs came down and by 2012, I had shifted to CD for most new releases – but still buying plenty of second hand records where there was still good value to be had. That trend has continued – still buying both formats.
Re: the intolerance towards CDs – a lot of it seems to be coming from Born Again Vinyl Junkies, many of whom ignoredthe format in the lean years (1990-2009) and now feel that they have to over-compensate by denigrating CDs at every opportunity. If you look at any news bulletins about upcoming multi-disc box sets, invariably someone will throw a tantrum if there’s no vinyl release.
Thank you for this article Paul. Vinyl is now a “niche” and prices are insane (Red and Blue Beatles lp for example or latest U2 reissues). For a long time beetween my 30 and 50’s i used to buy everything (cd’s and vinyl) and got a comprehensive record collection ….that i began to sell on the second hand market few years ago to keep the essentials pièces (in my opinion). I still buy cd’s of my favorite artists (The Harmony Codex , I/O and the 2 cds 2 BR’s deluxe edition of Porcupine Tree live album) , and that’s all . Oh and i have bought the vinyl of Harmony Codex.
When i realise that a music addict like me buy less and less music i ‘m not optimist (and i don’t listen more on Spotify )
I bought a new CD player a couple of years ago, a £400 Marantz and it definitely made a difference. I will still by vinyl for indie bands etc but for a lot of artists I would prefer the CD as I have a better set up than for streaming. E.g. double vinyl albums where they are only 10-15 minutes a side are not much of a fun listening experience compared to a CD. I miss the nicely collated CD series of Bowie or Zappa or Elton from the days before all the boxsets. It seems absurd toe how much back catalogue is no longer available on CD. Also recent CD releases sometimes disappear from sale faster than the vinyl! I like both formats but there’s a limit to how much vinyl I can store.
I bought my first vynil single on sunday 17.8.1969, the Woodstock-Sunday, around 11 AM, just after church service: ‘Living in the Past’/’Driving Song’ by Jethro Tull in a nice french cover. I remember this so vividly, as if it was 3 weeks ago. Still have it, still plays fine but lost it sheen after 500+ needledrops. My first lp was ‘Best Of Cream’ (vegetable cover), for my birhtday a few months later. Bought my first cd in 1982, ‘The Man With The Horn’ by Miles Davis, nr. 16 of the initial bunch by CBS/Sony.
I was immediately taken by the crisp, transparent sound (which – unlike vynil – never deteriorates) and the absence of cracks and plops. But I didn’t start buying then, as I thought they were to expensive. That changed, for me, when the first box sets came unto the market, in the nineties: the calculation being, 4 cd’s and a nice booklet is like 4 double albums with extensive liner notes. Count me in.
I have never understood the ‘warmth’ argument on vynil, as, in my mind, that is determined by the mixing, not the format. On the other hand, I am amazed at the fact that nobody seems to mention the rapid decline in sound of vynil, even after a few needledrops: you can hear that, to my ears, best on cymbal and piano passages. As I have lived and worked many years in third world countries, I also started buying cassettes.
And I still use all these formats, plus I listen to the (worldwide, nowadays) radio and stream from YT and Bandcamp. I don’t do Spotify as I don’t want an algorhythm to influence my choices. On vynil, I have always and still buy almost eclusively second-hand first generation. I was happy with the vynil revival, started buying new vynil in the 00’s, but stopped as the print quality was too hit-and-miss.
The vynil hype has now become ridiculous as, in the US fi., half of vynil-buyers don’t even have an turntable ! The most perverse effect of new vynil is that, increasingly, you now get cd’s of lp-play lenght (35′) where, until a few years ago, a cd had routinely 50′ to 70’+. That’s why fi. the cd’s of the Revolver-box are so short, because the music has also to be pressed on vynil.
Spooky
I was just about to write a reply and you have written word for word all the thoughts that I had about both formats.
The reasons you moved from vinyl to CD are word for word what I would have written
Sadly everything is about money, if only it was about art.
Music label companies aren’t interested in making a reasonable profit they’re just plain greedy.
When I was a child in the 80s you could buy a record for £5 or a CD for £13. Now you can pay £40 for a record
Well, I am a jazz fan too, so maybe there’s subliminal imbrication right there. But I don’t think everything is about money. It is the necessary pivot, but the result can be art. I would even go further: without ‘private’ money, there is no art. Sadly, public money – i.o.w. subsidies – hasn’t produced any great art, give or take an exception or two here and there (public broadcasting in Europe is one), but it can help a litte bit … sometimes. I know a few people in the music business, and even, in the most commercial segment, it is not only about money. They want to create a worthy product too, but it has – on average – to make a profit, otherwise the production process will inevitably collapse. It is not easy, but it is certainly possible. When I was in business, profit was essential, but it was not the ‘only’ thing: there is such a thing as product pride-and-satisfaction. Bliss is to attain both with what you do.
This is spot on. Personally I’ll never understand this obession with vinyls. I buy CDs only (and a lot, +2000 in my collection) and will continue until they exist. CDs are superior to vinyls, quality is great, fit more music, difficult to damage, easier to store. And they’re cheaper than bloody vinyls.
The industry want to kill CD’s and save on manufacture and replication costs. The removal of CD players in cars may just be the event that precipitates this happening. I love CD’s, but the lack of care in their mastering by most artists nowadays is a sad reflection on the attitude towards them. As you say, despite this they still sell very well – for convenience sake as much as anything else.
The week that Now And Then was no.1 it sold 18000 cd singles and 19000 on 7 inch single so you’ve overstated the impact of the CD.
You’re right, I misremembered and the vinyl did sell slightly more but there wasn’t much in it and the point remains. It was actually 18,738 CDs and 19,358 seven-inch singles, so you are overstating the gap which was only 620.
You said it outsold all vinyl. The 12 inch vinyl sales are in addition to the 7 inch so it’s much more than a difference of 620. Those sales weren’t included in the Music Week report because they were excluded for chart purposes. But I’d wager there were quite a few
I said, I misremembered, but the point remains that one CD single sold close to the same quantity as all those vinyl editions. Since sales and quantities of other editions (12-inches) weren’t recorded we don’t actually know. But the facts we do know support the point.
Such an excellent point made in your article! It’s such a silly argument. It’s like of course someone like Taylor Swift and her legions of fans buying every version of her albums to collect the variants vs people buying a single copy to own an album. The numbers are skewed, but this simple ONE CD compared to MULTIPLE vinyl says it all.
That week here in the US I could not BUY the CD then, and even though I ordered the single I did not get it until 21 December! I only just ordered the CD from Amazon UK, as many places here did not have it.
Very interesting article. I’m glad the CD decline is slowing and hope it can improve so it doesn’t have a risky future. I changed my car last year and even though I was looking for a car around 5 years old, I found it really hard to find a manufacturer these days that is still supporting the format. I suppose I’m not exactly representative of the typical car buyer who is looking to see if the car has a CD player but it is disappointing to see the lack of support. Whilst I love vinyl, I still buy a lot of albums on CD. This is mainly to do with value for money as it is getting to be that a new vinyl album is at least £30, if not £40 or £50. Record Store Day has got unbelievably expensive too and limits my ability to buy much on that particular day, so I agree there should be a special event for CDs or that more can appear as part of RSD. I really hope the CD can survive for many more years and I feel there’s plenty of room for both formats. I’d hate to see vinyl becoming “niche” however due to becoming so expensive
Like several of those who have left comments here, I abandoned the vinyl format for CD in the mid-80s, sold almost all my LPs (and rebought them as CDs, of course) and have never wanted to change back. Over the last 20 years, the availability of CD box sets containing virtually everything a particular artist has recorded/released has made the format even more attractive. Yes, a 12″ album cover is much better than its 5″ CD equivalent but, to me, that’s the only drawback. And I still don’t understand why so many new cars don’t have a CD player!
It does seem the music industry is doing it’s best to kill off CDs. Perhaps it’s like IKEA. They had a campaign encouraging you to “chuck out your chintz” and buy stuff that was plain and had clean lines. Then once you’ve done that, they sell you the chintz back a few years later! Once the CD sales have dropped to a low enough level, they will start promoting them again, possibly even introducing an “improved format” to lure in those sceptics. Perhaps the companies will have a share in manufacturers of CD players, so they can profit from a boom in sales of these as well. Music, like all arts, is a passion. It’s very emotive, and stirs up heated discussions about all aspects of the listening experience. I wonder if part of the increase in cost for records is to cover for the amount of returns they get for quality issues? There are genuine issues out there, I’m not disputing that, I’ve had a few myself, but possibly where newcomers to the world of vinyl expect CD sound quality and durability and return numerous items looking for that perfect copy, which doesn’t exist. Until the music industry clearly states the genuine reasons for the cost of records and their lack of enthusiasm for pushing CD sales, ( see the pigs flying, and not an escaped Floyd one!), then we will have to keep speculating. There have been some ridiculous reissue campaigns recently, most of which have been discussed vehemently on Paul’s site, and rightly so. We like SDEs. That’s why this site was set up. We don’t want pointless variations of the same thing, with no change in the actual musical content.
Yes it all gets tedious and pointless
Absolutely spot on and thank you Paul for being brave enough to publish this when your Music Biz connections are so important.
It’s quite incredible how every other media outlet just publishes the BPI spin on this without questioning the headlines.
I switched from vinyl to CD for all the reasons others here mention back in 1985 and refuse to switch back, if CD is ignored on new releases then I just don’t buy them.
The refusal to do anything CD related on RSD is bizarre, to ignore the media selling twice as much on a day supposedly to support the stores and encourage people to go inside seems to just shoot the whole concept in its foot.
My local record shop gets very frustrated it cannot get CD releases that day and feeds this back to seemingly deaf ears every year.
No doubt the Biz has already pencilled in when it is going to ride on the sails of a CD revival and persuade everyone to buy the albums all over again..wonder how many years it wil be? Hopefully the likes of Taylor Swift bringing out 4x CD versions in different colours is the start of a realisation the two formats are equally valuable and can co exist?
Personally, I‘m a vinyl guy, but I like the CD (and the Blu-ray) as a format too.
Sometimes I buy various formats of a new album or reissue. But the CD versions often sound so bad due to a different mastering approach.
Artists like Neil Young, Pink Floyd or labels like MFSL care for sound quality on all formats.
One thing that leads me to the opinion that the industry‘s impact on the decline of CD is minimal: in Second Hand Record Stores which have tons of well mastered CDs from the 80s and 90s I hear „no-one buys CDs anymore, they (the customers) all want vinyl.
Medium to long term, CD v vinyl could be academic given the steep decline in new album sales. How many platinum albums were there in the UK last year?
I agree totally with everything you say, Paul. CDs seem to be “forgotten” by the industry – but why should they bother, when this format still outsells the highly appraised vinyl, with no effort, as it seems?
As a collector born at the end of the seventies I was raised with the compact disc when my musical interest started to develop. And I thank God on my knees everyday that I never felt the urge to switch to vinyl, given the horrendous prices asked for unbelievably many variations of the same album – my wife shows a lot of understanding for my collection, but I think she wouldn’t, if I started collecting vinyl now (leaving aside the question of storage space).
So I’m quite happy to collect something that is not representative for the latest “trend” (or whatever the industry wants us to think), but I can imagine that there are already plans to exploit my generation once we’re turnung fifty in a couple of years, when all if a sudden the CD is coming for a “revival”…
I switched from vinyl to CD in the 80’s and have not looked back. Yes there are many days when i wish the print were bigger on the CD. For example, the liner notes on Trashcan Sinatras recent reissue of I’ve Seen Everything on CD are completely unreadable without magnification for my 50+ eyes, but I still prefer the CD format over vinyl. The day they stop making the 5″ discs (CD/DVD/Blu-ray), I’ll be officially done buying physical music. My wife will rejoice this event for sure! Pretty sure she would attribute a good portion of those CD sales numbers to me…
Some labels have tried to address the issue of the CDs being quite small. Demon’s 7″ series for example with Suede and the forthcoming Paul Young No Parlez reissue.
In 2024 the fact that you can still walk into a major high street retailer in the UK and browse and buy CDs is remarkable when the average civilian can access all the music they can eat for less than the price of 1 new CD a month. Basically buying any music on a physical format is, on the face of it, a completely indulgent and somewhat perverse activity that defies economic logic. Why spend 70 quid on The Beatles Red Album when you can stream it whenever you like for your monthly sub of 10.99?. The mass market – the people that would have bought a few Robbie Williams, Lighthouse Family or Toploader CDs in the 00s is now firmly into streaming and they’re fine – they don’t care that loads of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci B-sides are not available on streaming (FACT!) or that the wrong TFF Single mixes might come up on Spotify or that they don’t get to hold the music in their hands. They can press a button and music comes out.
However, the market for physical music formats is still significant – the industry should be working on sustaining and growing it and the CD still has a part to play particularly when Vinyl prices seem to be soaring. The key thing for me is pricing – it is absurd that CDs are still retailing for 12.99 or more or 25 quid if you’re Depeche Mode or Beatles. CDs should be a cheap and cheerful option – lets say 7 quid for a new album and 4 or 5 quid for back catalogue – knock em out – why not? They’d get chart placings and fans can collect stuff cheaply and have some fun and kids who are getting into the physical product have a pocket-money option. The Vinyl thing can be the deluxe option and that’s fine – both support each other. Bottom line if I was in music marketing I’d be very interested in growing a new generation of collectors and music heads who like to enjoy CDs and records rather than relying on ever decreasing revenue from aging Pink Floyd fans buying Dark Side of the Moon for the 28th time
In your first paragraph you may be mssing here that many of us like to OWN THE MUSIC, and not be at the whim of the interwebs. I will never use a streaming service that I have to pay for. As for that monthly sub of 10.99, you know they can always raise that? If you have bought the LP, CD or other physical format, it is yours and you can still play it if your internet connexion goes out. As for the high pricing for big acts, that is nothing new. At one time the Captiol Beatles albums were at particular price and then all of a sudden they were $1 more.
As for the Dark Side of the Moon, I call those people DORK Siders. I only have 4 copies: UK versions of both the stereo and quad LPs, a UK cassette, and a US Mobile Fidelity CD.
As it is, however, I am not a huge fan of that album as I think ”Wish You Were Here”, which I have both UK and US quad versions, and som stereo one. And my other more fave one is ”Animals” which I have UK and French (on pink viynl) LPs of, and I think a US CD.
I started collecting music around 1979 when I was 11 years old. Transitioned into CDs later but still cherishing vinyl. Many moves later I abondened my vinyl collection and stereo system in favor of midi set ups and ipods. Now I am 55 and recovered my excessive CD collection 10 years ago from my home country but I dont feel it anymore. Almost two years ago I bought a record player and new stereo system and now I try to unload CDs via ebay (geomoose-t) and purchase vinyl instead. I am conflicted on CDs but SDE’s are more affordable in CD versions and I do not need 6 sides of Diamond and Pearls b-sides and remixes. I have not played my Sign o the times vinyl box set yet. Working full time does not help… I spend more on vinyl novelties, colored versions, mono originals from Miles. Currently I dig Chet Baker but also need to restrain myself because do I really need 6 discs of This is the Sea and related recordings?
Playing a colored vinyl of Bangles or Paul Young gives me joy wheras Hackney Diamonds leave me cold, on both vinyl and CD. I feel that vinyl renaissance is mostly for sentimental reasons. Also, covers are cooler. Just spend some time with the cover of Powerslave and Somewhere in time and you see what I mean.
There are some companies that are breathing new life into the CD. In particular, the Sony SACD quad releases are phenomenal. Incredible attention to detail. The 7-inch package seems ideal to me — all the benefits of the CD plus the physical canvas of the big cover. The Pink Floyd “Atom Heart Mother” and “Dark Side” issues in the size have shown just how good it can be. I’d gladly rebuy all my old albums yet again in this format. (And give me the vintage quad mixes please, which are often so much more immersive than the modern front-focused multichannels.)
Frank Zappa had excellent ears and was a swift convert to CDs. (Okay, I admit: a couple of his CD masters were atrocious, but let that pass.) Here’s what he had to say in 1987 about the apparent “warmth” of vinyl, and it’s amazing that we’re still having this conversation almost 40 years later:
“Vinyl never really was all that terrific a medium anyway. Some people cling to the belief that vinyl sounds better. I don’t know. Not to my ear. I like it on digital tape myself.”
Interviewer: “There’s supposed to be a warmth to vinyl.”
“Well, let’s analyze what the word warmth is. Does warmth mean a lack of top end, or an extra bunch of frequency bulge at 300 cycles? […] You can demonstrate pseudo-warmth in a technical way in the studio by using a broad-band equalizer and boosting things around 300 cycles, you know. It just gets pudgier. And you roll off the top end a little bit, and things start to sound, you know, warm!”
Totally agree with you.
I have to confess that talking down the humble CD is doing wonders for me. 3 for £1 at our local charity store and all in far better condition than the £9.99 vinyl they sell. Reminds me of 20 years ago when I was buying LPs for 50p…
Does the BPI report its methodology anywhere? There’s an “All About The Music 2023 Yearbook” but it has to be paid for.
In a global marketplace and without knowing what does and doesn’t qualify as a ‘sale’ these figures are not really worth quoting.
Does it solely require the cd / record to be purchased by someone living in the uk from a UK stockist?
So if someone walks to HMV and picks up a standard cd and black vinyl but purchases a limited version from an online supplier, do all three count?
As Paul quite rightly points out, the reality could be a 4:1 vinyl to cd ratio, but how many of those would show up in these stats?
Do the new anniversary copies of Paul McCartney III get included?
This site is a perfect example. Would a cd sold here to a purchaser in Australia count as a UK sale?
The amazon widget shows prices from across the globe.
If a UK purchaser buys from Amazon France, who get’s the sale?
Unfortunately statistics-based stories such as the one published by the BPI are pretty much useless if you can’t look at the raw data.
A few thoughts on this:
I finally re-entered the vinyl world this year and picked up a few releases, but it’s really cost-prohibitive and truly hit or miss in regards to quality. Sticker shock is fairly common when I see the current prices for vinyl.
I still very much buy CD’s whenever possible, and exclusively in box sets, however, it’s getting near impossible to find a store here in Miami that has physical CD products anymore. Other than Target (which is usually just Taylor Swift, the occasional big release, and some K-Pop), there’s no retailers carrying CD’s of new releases. Best Buy doesn’t carry them anymore, and B&N only have old stock shoved in a corner somewhere, but they’re not bringing in almost any new releases on CD. The local indie record shops really only care about vinyl, so it’s either Amazon or other website based retailers – fine usually, but it takes away from the instant gratification.
I worked at PolyGram/UMG for years, and it’s true as someone mentioned here, that piracy was a very real problem. CD’s were easy to dupe. I believe the modern consumer is more savvy and would avoid cheap knock-offs.
Producing a specific quantity – supply and demand – might be the best route to also save the labels from having to deal with unwanted returns like the old days when a release would bomb. A reduction of risk could go a long way towards saving the CD. A few labels do this already, but the caveat being that it also leads to collectors and dealers hording supply to resell on Discogs or eBay for extreme prices.
Someone here also mentioned hardware is an issue. It’s true that it’s very difficult to find high quality, dedicated CD players at an affordable price for beginners. Not everyone can afford a Marantz. Yet decent turntables are cheaper and seemingly easier to find these days.
The labels and powers-that-be have really seduced a generation into trading quality for convenience in regards to streaming as the preferred way for Gen Z to listen to music. Vinyl has become the preferred method to actually “own” a small, albeit expensive, part of the fandom. CD has been cut out of that mix. We need a few big artists to continue to embrace the format they grew up with, and somehow remind consumers how good they can sound, how practical and sturdier they are, and why the noble CD is still a worthy format for owning and enjoying music.
The B&N in my town still does have CDs, but one thing really puzzles me? Who do they think there clientele are now? WHY are they getting all this K-Pop stuff in very boxes and special sleeves?
And they get vinyl that people never buy party as it is a mish-mash of mostly non-popular things. There is an advantage to those that wair for firt thr 25% discount, the 50%, and then the 75% !
That waiting got me the latest album by Joan Baez, a 2-LP album by Chris Isaak, and an album by M. Ward.
Ironically I have met all three of them and Joan has signed the CD of that particular album.
Oh, and did I forget the prices? Around $3.65 for each!
The word album seems to have been replaced by the word vinyl. It’s not a new album; it’s a “new vinyl release”. I’ve noticed a rise in the past 12 months on Bandcamp in the number of independent artists and record labels who don’t offer a CD release alongside the vinyl release. Multiple limited edition coloured vinyl editions, but no CD.
I do like the versatility of owning a CD. I can rip it and use that rip to stream it, add it to my phone or put it on a memory stick and listen to it in my car (I don’t believe in the argument that cars should still have CD players). I have no interest in 12″ x 12″ album art or coloured vinyl, I buy music to listen to it.
Regarding the name that is not really a problem. Many people do not even know where the name ”album” came from. Back in the days of 78 RPM records, they were mostly all singles. But when you had symphonies you hade to find a way to put all those singles togther. And someone designed what were called ”albuns” because they were modelled on photo albums. First it was only classical and then companies started compilng hit singles togther into albums, still using the original pressings.
Eventually some singers would intentionally have albums made with say an album of Cole Porters songs, and if the record company got information that one or two of the discs were more popular they could jut put them out as singles, whcih essentially the separate discs were.
As CDs are esstionaly that grouping of more thene one song in the same way, the certainly can be called albums. But single fo many years viynl was the only medium, people associated albums with only vinyl, when eventually there were 8-tracks, 4-track, and cassettes.
As for the adverts saying “new vinyl release” they are just being accurate. As for Bandcamp, I have not noticed many people not offering CDs if there is a vinyl release (maybe we just like different music).
As a format there is nothing about a CD that I find appealing. It does not have a USP.
I signed up for Spotify the day it launched in the UK and gave about 2000 CDs to a charity shop roughly 10 years ago.
I bought vinyl and cassette as a kid really only buy vinyl these days.
However the prices rises are such that it has greatly slowed down. A lot of the time I am use Grab A Deal or camelcamelcamel to get something sensibly priced.
The last vinyl Bowie boxset (Brilliant Adventures) was £365 when released. The next one will probably be £500 which is daft.
Bowie Brilliant Adventures is just over £50 on Amazon. I don’t care about format, it’s the music that matters.
Well, as someone who has used Discogs to collect the entirety of the Flash and the Pan catalog as well as some old CD singles by other favourite artists of mine, something that’s not really well represented on Spotify, I’d say that CDs do have some advantages. Ripping them to files makes it easy for me to listen to the tracks on my phone or my computer, a process that’s a bit more involved when you have to get those tracks from an LP.
Brilliant Adventures on CD was down to £55 over Christmas. Having the option to be able to afford to buy a physical music item, to me, is very much a ‘USP’. (Yes, I had to look it up).
Thanks for your thought-provoking article Paul. I buy CDs, vinyl and downloads and I also stream music. I never stopped buying vinyl, while concurrently buying CDs. I buy box sets on CD as vinyl box sets are too unaffordable for me. I found your article provoked these thoughts:
Major labels also tried to kill vinyl in the late80s/early 90s by adding bonus tracks to cassette and CD versions and phasing out vinyl as a format for releases, as CDs and cassettes were cheaper to make.
In Australia JB Hi-Fi are one of, if not the biggest music retailers in Australia, with bricks and mortar stores in many major shopping centres as well as an online store. A recent experience I had with them was getting the recent Duran Duran album Danse Macabre. I decided to get the CD version due to price (about $26 compared to about $94 for vinyl, approximately £13.72 and £49.62 respectively) and looked up the website to see if there were copies at my local store. I had to order the CD online as it said no store in a 200 km radius had the CD version in store – this 200 km radius included Melbourne and the regional cities of Geelong and Ballarat. This really struck me because I would always find CDs of new Duran Duran albums in store previously and of course they had the vinyl version of Danse Macabre in store. It seems they’re making CDs more difficult to buy and less accessible.
You mentioned there is no CD day, which is correct, and odd because there is a cassette week.
The increases in vinyl prices were getting beyond ridiculous years ago, when single vinyl albums were exceeding AUD$50 (approx £26). I have since seen single LPs retail for AUD$80 (approx £42). When it was released, JB Hi-Fi were selling the 2LP of Memento Mori by Depeche Mode for AUD$150 (£79) for the black vinyl and $160 (£84) for coloured vinyl. Don’t get me started on the price of new 7” singles!
I hear many people saying they don’t have a CD player, without realising CDs can be played in DVD/Blu-ray players and gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox.
Other factors affecting CDs include new cars not having CD players (as you pointed out) and PCs/laptops not having CD ports.
Overall, it seems to me that CDs are being targeted for phasing out while vinyl is becoming increasingly unaffordable.
I don’t think I can add any more to what’s already been said here without repeating stuff, apart from this relevant snippet; the first CDs I bought in 1987 were Madonna’s True Blue and U2‘a Where The Streets Have No Name single. I still have them and both are in original condition with no deterioration. I remember the fascination and the clarity of sound was a bit of a revelation. I had a fairly decent but not fancy Sony player which sounded great through my amp & speakers. Any limitations of my turntable/cartridge combination while playing vinyl were suddenly a thing of the past.
I prefer buying vinyl but still buy CDs regularly especially if vinyl version is excessive, or for the likes of the Marillion/Jethro Tull sets with loads of content. The format isn’t past its sell by date as far as I’m concerned.
Paul, how do they count boxsets and music that is put on bluray’s(cd\bluray or individual bluray releases) and dvd’s-cd\dvd boxset,individual dvd with (dts or dd)?
Hi Peter,
i think that box sets sales are added to the numbers of the most included format (usually cd or vinyl) while standalone dvd(a) and br(a) will be counted as part of ‘cassettes and others’.
Also interesting in the report i found that it stated ‘cassettes have sold above six figures for the third consecutive year’ where the truth also is that UK sales of ‘cassettes and others’ were about 17% lower than in 2022…
I was originally into vinyl big time but when the CD came along I changed for all the reasons that still hold true. No clicks and pops and with the recent advance in excellent players/DACs Cds to my ears sound superb. I have a Luxman D10X and the sound is brilliant and my hundreds of vinyl records now stay permanently on the shelf mostly as a curiosity and shelf filler! I dont buy the vinyl warm sound mantra – when I go to a live performance I dont hear a warm sound but something more akin to a well mastered/produced CD. I also buys SACDs and Japanese pressed CDs/SHM CDs etc which sound, again to my ears, superb. Yes lets promote CDs by essentially continuing to buy them and when releases come out only on vinyl let the record company know of our displeasure!
Revenue per unit of sale probably also has a part to play, vinyl will be at least double the price if cd, though I imagine the margins are similar.
Do CD collectors exist in the same way vinyl collectors do. I buy vinyl at at least a 20:1 ratio over CD’s and only by CD’s if they either have different content, or won’t be available in online digital form. I just don’t have a CD player, I only rip them onto my digital library.
CD sales I’d guess are to a much more diverse customer set overall and I would guess an RSD focused on CD would not have the impact Vinyl does because CD limited editions are not that big a thing. I happily camp out for vinyl, I wouldn’t do it for cd’s.
But what do I know, I’m just a vinyl snob!
Don’t be so naive..the margins are not similar, the Biz is plugging vinyl due to the margins it makes..no other reason.
Yes of course CD collectors exist in exactly the same way as vinyl and yes limited editions would sell on RSD if the Biz bothered to produce them.
I’m a CD snob but quite happy for both formats to co exist and happy people still want the physical product.
Of course they do
Box sets and deluxe versions are though.
I buy both, but for almost all new releases I go for the CD version (price plays a part in this) whereas I buy a lot of secondhand vinyl. Very occasionally I will buy new vinyl if it’s a very special release or (as the article states) the release is only on vinyl. In terms of sound quality I think both formats have merit and I listen to both without worrying whether one is better than the other. CD is certainly more convenient and often special edition releases are better organised on CD and/or have more tracks, but growing up with vinyl I still love the size and tactility of it. So for me both formats can co-exist and we should be encouraging that, it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Hopefully CD’s nowadays don’t suffer from “CD rot” that affected a few CD’s from 30 years ago. Both my Beatles Red and Blue double Cd’s purchased 30 years ago are unplayable for example. And a few CD’s that were silver are now copper coloured. I remember when CDs first appeared their main selling point was that they were virtually indestructible. I can recall a demonstration on Breakfast TV of them being scratched and having food cover them and they would still play.
That was an issue with a few specific pressing plants who used poor quality discs.You won’t find many if any factory pressed CD’s made after the mid 90s that suffer from this.
I could tell you how many copies of the brilliant Elvis Costello compilation Girls!Girls!Girls! I bought looking for one that didn’t suffer from it but you would doubt my sanity.
Regarding Steely Dan, I would counter that no CD reissues are necessary, since the 1999/2000 reissues mastered by Roger Nichols are not in need of updating.
I prefer CD to listen to. For me it’s easier to handle as I have arthritis. I choose vinyle if it has more content (songs or a bigger book). For that reason I bought the CD version of Diamonds and Pearls SDE from Prince as the book was the same size and the content was the same. It also saves a ton of money.
Like many here I buy both vinyl and cd but that’s partly because I’m familiar with both formats and have the means to play them both. Younger music fans don’t buy cd’s partly because they can’t play them. Where can you buy a CD player these days? I was talking to a young (20 something) music fan the other day who told me that they had started to build a vinyl collection but after a few years were now seriously contemplating switching to cd’s. The reason, of course, was the spiralling cost of new vinyl records which is often 3 times the cost of a cd. How many young fans can afford to shell out around £30 for every record they want to buy? If the music industry continues on their current path they will soon kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
“Where can you buy a CD player these days” – it’s no harder to find a CD player than it is a Vinyl Record Deck- you can walk onto any high street in the UK with a branch of Argos, Currys, John Lewis and also in Hi Fi shops like Richer Sounds and walk home with a decent CD player or a little Hi-Fi system with a CD deck – and of course Ebay etc is awash with decent 2nd hand players
Any DVD or Bluray player can play CDs.
It’d certainly explain why Cherry Red’s attempts to reissue the first Win album sank without trace, while LNFG’s reissue on Past Night From Glasgow has gone ahead – Cherry Red did it before the vinyl “boom”, but LNFG are putting out a CD version (which is printed, packaged and will start shipping next week) and *also* a couple of splatter vinyl and a “plain” pink vinyl version of the album – where the vinyl is coming in “early 2024” (no sign of it yet). Fortunately, while they only squeezed a single extra track onto the vinyl, the CD includes the two extra tracks that were added to the original CD, plus the extra track that’s on the vinyl, another very welcome 12” mix and four tracks recorded for a Janice Long Session in 1985.
No, it didn’t fill all the holes in the Win back-catalog, but I’m quietly hopeful that’ll happen, since what’s left is essentially a quartet of 12” singles, which would fill either a 2LP or a CD, and LNFG seems to have adopted that combo for quite a few of its previous releases. Fingers crossed.
Of course, if they released the other stuff on vinyl only, I’d probably declare war against somebody.
I got on the vinyl revival bandwagon in 2016 when it was possible to get them much cheaper – both new and second hand. I amassed dozens of records, many courtesy of deals announced on this site and it was fun while it lasted. Then Brexit kicked in, increased cost of living, etc. etc. and it’s prohibitive now. I went into HMV Oxford Street on the 2nd and saw single records going for as much as £44 and with nothing less than £18. I left. Charity shops too are selling vinyl for absurd prices, even for tatty, scratched and dirty old records with little value. The new managers come along and label them up using sites like eBay, Discogs, even Amazon as price guides. It’s become a joke and a mug’s game. And that’s before we get to vinyl’s endless reflogging of dead horse meat…hello Macca.
Time to go back to the future.
The only vinyls I own are the ones that come packed with CDs in deluxe editions. I don’t intend to buy any vinyl edition in the foreseeable future (I MIGHT consider buying some of my favourite albums, but nothing more) because I don’t have the physical space to store them, because of its lower playing time, and because of their ridiculous prices. The minute they retire CDs from the market they’ll lose me as a music buyer, and even paying for a full-year Spotify subscription won’t make up for the amount of money I invest in buying CDs.
The majority of my music is bought on CD, picking up the odd SACD & blu ray audio. I never stream music,.mp3 literally hurts my ears and those awful ear buds do too.
I buy very little by way of records ( it’s not bloody vinyl), not least because the prices are ridiculous, and the fact that the majority of records now emanate from digital sources. So all the “audiophiles” out there who go into raptures about how superior their record is to the CD are heavily into the placebo effect.
In truth CD is a versatile medium which has and continues to serve us well.
The artificial growth in record sales is entirely industry led & carries overtones of snobbery & gamesmanship; the rise of the grossly overblown turntable has grown hand in hand with this, allowing it’s owners to smugly show off their 50k turntable and pretend they can hear the vastly superior quality their record has over CD.
One hope’s the industry learns from its’ manifold mistakes before condemning CD to death.
I would counter that the vinyl editions being released are often better sounding than their digital counterparts, since the physical limitations of the format make the kind of brickwalling found on most CDs impossible. Back in 2012/2013, I bought both CD and vinyl editions of Donald Fagen’s Sunken Condos and Pet Shop Boys’ Elysium. In both instances, the vinyl editions had more dynamics than the CD versions.
That said, I mostly buy CDs. I can usually tinker with the audio in Audition to reclaim some of that lost dynamic range and temper the oversaturation added in mastering.
That’s a choice made with CD’s at the mastering stage.It is nothing to do with the intrinsic technical capabilities of CD compared to Vinyl.
The majors are definitely behind some of the vinyl hype and CD sales misinformation. I’ve said this for the last few years, ever since I started doing vinyl reissues, CDs sell more in general and usually more than twice the amount of vinyl. Unless it’s an Oingo Boingo title, which sells pretty much the same amount on CD and LP, most other titles I’ve tried on LP don’t match the sales volume of CD. I’ve moved around 1000 copies of the Danielle Dax CD I reissued, I haven’t even hit 200 copies of the LP yet. I sold nearly 4500 copies of one of my Missing Persons CD reissues, when my current stock of the LP runs out then the grand total will be around 1500.
But it’s not only the buying public that is being strong-armed away from CD by the majors, third party reissue labels, at least in the USA, are becoming unwilling pawns in the game. I recently found out, after trying to get an answer for a year, that UMG had deleted all of my CD reissue requests nearly a year ago and weren’t going to tell me, even if they were just about cleared for release or I had been waiting on them for many years. They kept all of my vinyl reissue requests and that’s because they get higher license fees, this along with the oft-reported plot to do away with the CD format. For most of my LP reissues, if I move a single 1000 unit pressing then it’s good enough, but in each case I could likely move 2x, 3x more for a CD reissue. Last year, I asked one of the other majors if I could reissue a particular artist. They said if I wanted vinyl then yes, but if I wanted CD then the answer would be no.
Thanks for being so open with the figures Scott.
The first thing that came to my mind when i read the final paragraph of your comment was a quote from ‘Forrest Gump’:
Stupid is as stupid does…
I like your agreement for record purchases! I’ve grown up with records and their associated foibles. It’s something I post on YouTube channels on a regular basis, it’s a “contact sport”! You will never not have noise. The stylus is physically being dragged through a trough in a plastic disc. There will be noise and particles of debris and the disc is susceptible to damage with scratches. If you don’t mind these unavoidable characteristics, then records are a great way to listen to music.
I wonder how Cherry Red and Edsel then do it. They sell mostly CD’s (vinyl too of course)and they seem not to have these issues. Emphasis on “seem” as I don’t know that of course except that they keep drawing from the same bucket of artist as you do and they keep releasing lots of interesting stuff. Is it because they are bigger and have more reach?
That’s why I mentioned “at least in the USA” because for a long time now, it’s been much easier for UK based third party labels to get licenses than it is for USA labels, and also notably less expensive in the UK. Sony in the UK seem to be very easy going and happy to license, Sony in the USA want some ridiculous approval form signed by all band members stating they back the reissue before it’s even considered, and then Sony further dissuade licensing by requiring an advance of 25% of your RETAIL price per unit. Other labels base their fee on the wholesale price, which is more realistic. In other words, you are guaranteed to lose money, or if you have a ‘hit’ you may make your money back. Warner licensing in the USA is only slightly less expensive but anything that is not a USA signed artist is immediately denied. But this is a double-standard because if a UK third party asks for a USA signed artist, they are able to proceed. The offices of the major labels are very different between the USA and the UK, there is no set procedure across territories. And while it would be great if I could work directly with the foreign offices, I’m forced to stick with the very disinterested USA branches.
Move to Scotland mate!
You can stay in my east glasgow headquarters for a while.run rubellin from there! Big visage fan from childhood!
Hey Scott – glad you weighed in here. You do a great job, and we need mor like you in this shriking market.
Looking forward to the CD revival in about 10 years when the ” big 3″ try to resell the same product again rather than actually try to give buyers the choice of buy either format now if they treated them the same.
I dislike this growing trend of using partial statistics to support incorrect statements.
I predominantly listen to my music in a physical form, and do not ever listen to the radio or use streaming services (I do listen to digital versions of albums when in the car or using a portable player though). I like most physical music formats, having a large vinyl and CD collection, and a growing Blu-ray Audio collection (thanks in part to the SDE Surround collection). Nostalgically, and from a purely audio perspective, I enjoy listening to vinyl – with my old stereo amp they sounded great, but when I moved to a surround receiver years ago the phono sound quality dropped. I tend to play CDs more often now as it is easier to pop one in and press play, however the deterioration of the aluminum layer on a number of older CDs in my collection has made me realise it is not as durable a format as believed (in contrast, I have 50-year-old LPs in pristine condition). As I like to listen to albums in their entirety (and dislike playlists, and to a large extent, compilations) I will stick with my physical formats. I would purchase more music, if it were offered on a physical format in new or expanded formats (surround mixes, and deluxe, or super deluxe, editions of great albums), but there is less and less to choose from. I do not purchase variant copies (one version of the album is enough for me in a particular physical format). When the music industry stop selling CDs, vinyl, and Blu-ray Audio I will then stick to the collection I have amassed.
I use CD Japan to order a range of SHM CD and SACD-SHM CDs. The presentation and sound is A+. The packaging and presentation is far superior to ordinary large label UK, USA and EU releases. MOFI and Analogue Productions releases are also attractive. Of course we have to pay a premium for these CD formats but they are far cheaper than coloured vinyls and don’t suffer from warps, crackle or hiss (which I find increasingly with today’s vinyl reissues and new vinyl releases).
To my ears, almost none of my vinyl records suffer from warps, crackle or hiss, in a collection that goes back to the 70s. I guess it depends on how you maintain them. I also don’t consciously collect coloured vinyl (the occasional one will be added to my collection if black vinyl is unavailable, or more expensive). These days I rarely purchase vinyl unless it is a boxed set I want (or something at a ridiculous sale price), not only because of the cost but also because you can’t get fully analogue sourced pressings any more. As mentioned in my initial post here (and elsewhere), I now have a growing number of CDs that suffer from holes appearing in the aluminium layer (which is completely out of my control), eventually causing skips, then unplayability – I’ll check out more SHM titles now though. I’m not against either format, but wanted to point out that some CDs have problems.
While we can of course point the finger at the industry and the record labels, surely it is sometimes also the choice of the artists. I can’t remember the exact quote, but didn’t Elvis Costello basically diss the CD, considering it dead? He felt that vinyl is king. And of course it’ll make him more money.
Also consider small unsigned bands. There are lots of bands selling on Bandcamp who only sell downloads or vinyl. I personally know an artist who said he’d stopped releasing his music on CD because he had a massive unsold box of them under the bed!
I’m pro-CD, but there are many new bands (or older artists like Costello) who simply don’t see the appeal. Strangely they tend to sell cassettes though!!?
We could open a sub thread here regarding the question if anyone buying a cassette release in the past, say, five years has actually listened to it or do they all sit on a shelf (or in the box set which they made part of) still shrinkwrapped?
I have a theory that all these cassettes that are being sold are just blank TDKs and no one has yet noticed.
I think for the most part no, but there seems to be a small niche amount of people who do, as shown in this story from last year in Australia: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-27/big-resurgence-in-cassette-tapes-through-new-gen-z/14066354
If you buy a cassette or another physical format on Bandcamp you usually get a download of the release, which you can also stream through the Bandcamp app, so it’s quite possible to buy a cassette and not need to play it to hear the music.
New cassettes and cassette players are also said not to include Dolby noise reduction, like many old cassettes did.
Yes, I have bought a few cassettes on Bandcamp and gootten the downloads.
The last tape I bought was an Aphex Twin EP which came with the download. I ended up selling it on eBay at a profit as couldn’t see the point of keeping it and yes it was unopened.
I have, on a few rare occasions, seen bands selling the cassette on Bandcamp (which, as you point out, comes with a download) for a lower price than purchasing the download! Therefore encouraging people to buy the cassette, regardless of whether they want it or not!
Yes have bought them. They are usually a cheap way to check and see if I like the album before purchasing it on CD or Vinyl.
I always at least take off the shrink wrap as one time I got a cassette where there was no tape in it!
Costello’s comments which were made at the time of the release of the Armed Forces deluxe were a load of complete nonsense.
Whatever reasons he gave publically it was all about the absurd profit margin on vinyl.
Use Paul’s excellent search function to go back and look at the debate about this particular release.
And yet almost all of EC’s releases over the years have had CD releases.
What many people haven’t been releasing are pre-recorded DATs, and yet in 1989 the compilation
Girls +£÷ Girls =$& Girls by EC and The Attactions was. Laid in the old kind of 2CD case was a DAT (which is still unplayed as I have no DAT player.
Anyway, some years ago on one of the 8 times I’ve met Elvis over the years I brought it along to be autographed and as he opened it looked to me like he had never even seen a copy before! If there hadn’t been others waiting for autographs, I would’ve asked him.
https://www.discogs.com/release/14056997-Elvis-Costello-Girls–Girls–Girls-The-Songs-Of-Elvis-Costello-The-Sounds-Of-Elvis-Costello-The-Attr
Typical corporate marketing spin. I am a huge vinyl collector for the ones pressed before the naughts, when sound quality was better. Now, vinyl is another sales gimmick in my opinion.
Now I either buy the albums I like through Qobuz (when well recorded) in Hi-res, buy old cd’s/vinyl or get the BRAudio releases off of SDE. I refuse to sign on to the colored vinyl band wagon.
Mark my words, one day they’ll add fragrance to the vinyl and make that another way to sell more/different. Imagine another version of Hackney Diamonds vinyl with Polident fragrance.
“All that glitters is not gold” – William Shakespeare.
We’ve had scented vinyl for years. The Damned & Lightening Seeds have reissued albums smelling of strawberries, and a Dirty Dancing anniversary picture disc smells of watermelon. Not to mention the scratch n sniff car tyre scented sleeve for an Akron compilation on Stiff Records in the late 70s
A&M released the Brothers Johnson’s version of “Strawberry Letter 23” with a strawberry(ish) scent in 1977.
On 12 inch clear red vinyl too. Eventually the records on eother side also smelt of strawberries. Also the original realease of the Raspberries first album had a scratch-and-sniff logo placed on the front cover.
You are so right. I do recall. Goes to show how my memory is fading. Thank you
There was also this marshmallow scented 12” of the Ghostbusters theme: https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/ghostbusters-stay-puft-white-12/
Now i’m anxiously waiting for the fragranced vinyl edition of ‘Sticky Fingers’… ;-)
I thought about saying something about that but due to the nature of the subject, thought it may not cross the Sinclair filter.
I’m used to having comments not being published (out of various reasons i’m certain, but frank language might sometimes apply ;-) ) but nothing can stop me from trying…
What a ridiculous state that you have to try to convince an industry against shooting itself in the foot and ‘spot’ the potential in its biggest product!
And to think the British Music Scene led the world.
I guess their concern is that CD ripping facilitates piracy thus reducing profit?
Frank Zappa called them on that bullshit back in the 80s/90s, reminding folks that while the major labels had been complaining for years about home taping, they were also selling master-tape quality copies on CD…
I don’t have any qualms buying vinyl and cd. It all depends what the release is.
Brilliant article, Paul. Thank you for standing up for the humble CD – a wonderful format that doesn’t get enough love. Even if the pricing for vinyl wasn’t ludicrous (and that bubble surely has to burst soon), I still find CD a more reliable format. You don’t have to seek out a good/flat/clean copy, for a start.
As a CD buyer who got rid of a 1200 album vinyl collection 25 years ago and hasn’t regretted it for a minute I am always going to defend the CD.
I think the sales figures of CD’s have stopped their free fall generally and in the US have even begun to rise again.Companies were out to kill them either by plan or neglect but that clearly isn’t happening.A few years ago I was thinking they might be on the way out but confident now they won’t be extinct.
There may even be some advantage to them becoming more of a niche product.Once you are not aiming at the masses who like their music loud and compressed you will get better mastering with more dynamic range.Some evidence of that happening already.
The failure to issue CD versions is really annoying.Ryan Adams is releasing 5 new albums with no CD versions because ,to quote him , he’s a “ vinyl guy”.Hasn’t stopped him putting them up on streaming or selling downloads in addition to the coloured vinyl.Not to mention Lorde’s empty box.
Thanks for your CD support.I am doing my best to support them by continuing to buy!
Thanks for reminding me of the most ridiculous publicity stunt within the music industry during the last few years: Lorde’s cd-pack sized version of ‘Solar Power’ without an actual cd included.
I just looked up Paul’s original post of this and noticed that this already happened two and a half years ago.
On the bright side i can’t remember any other artist following her example so far.
There is a new Lorde album supposedly due for release this year.
Betting the formats won’t replicate the last one.
I agree with this 100%-sadly though whilst they still manufacture vinyl in umpteen different colours and just one cd then of course vinyl will see an upward trend until they stop this nonsense and cds will seem to be selling less but we, as collectors don’t always help as it’s standard for a lot of us to get at least 2-3 of the variants; I prefer the sound of vinyl, especially as I’m hearing impaired and wear hearing aids so the sound is much more nuanced for me however I prefer cds as a format from ease of use to storage just don’t get me started on the modern technology used to ‘remaster’ cds (ie make them ear-blisteringly loud) as for the most part it’s horrid
Would the SDE shop not consider boycotting records( vinyl) and just sell CD?? That would teach them!! HMV and amazon would surely follow your lead and CD would be king again!
Interesting theory ;)
It’s interesting this debate about CD, I took approx 100 CDs to a national charity store this morning all good stuff from the 90s including Floyd/Blur/Oasis/REM etc. chap who was doing donations said sorry we don’t take CDs anymore as they all go into landfill and it costs us. I was a bit taken aback by this and thought if this is a national thing by this charity who must have stores in every town and city it’s not a good look. Took them to a local Dog Rescue instead who were
More than happy!!. Before anyone asks they were duplicates and I haven’t got the space so thought of the obvious to give them away – how times have changed. I like vinyl myself but it takes up far too much space once you get comprehensive box sets.
Regarding R.E.M.’s ”Monster” which I think is one of their best, many people bought it after having heard ”Everybody Hurts” from the ”Automatic For The People” album, one of their quietist ever. And having bought that they assumed that “Monster” would be the same. NOPE.
Almost polar opposites (and one of my faves).
Well, I knew very simply that many were horrified as the thrift stores were fire with them,
And it was very easy to tell as the CDs had orange trays and stuck out in the bins like, well, monsters….
Surely, there’s a place for all relevant forms of physical format music? We love it all over at the Record Collector FB page.
I was a CD refusenik originally but I’m just not interested in vinyl having abandoned it years ago when the record companies stopped releasing music on vinyl. CD holds a lot of audio and is convenient and requires little investment in terms of buying a first hifi. I suspect that most of the vinyl sold is never listened to. It’s a collectors item, nothing more. If there’s six vinyl variants, someone must be buying multiple copies.
I’m bored with the wankiness that surrounds vinyl. It has become a bore: I lived through the managed death of vinyl in the 90s. Seeing them doing the same to the CD now makes me determined that when they stop releasing CDs I’ll not buy anything. My must buy is always CD or high resolution audio formats like SACD and Blu-ray audio. There’s not a lot out there anymore for me to buy.
I can sense mingled disappointment and underlying anger in the article and it’s justified. The record companies are really not doing anyone a favour by working so hard to kill the CD.
Discogs is a case in point. They have a comment/review section for releases and all there is written in there nowadays is people commenting on how flat and quiet their records are, rather than what the music is like…
I think that one has to consider the annoyingly hight prices for new vinyl in the about past two or three years as a reason that CD’s are still ahead. If the greedy industry would call more reasonable prices for vinyl the medium might really do much better and would mabe even outsell CD’s. I know some who are just held back by the astronomic sums of euros, pounds and dollars for vinyl. Industry should try the trick with selling vinyl cheaper and sell more of it.
There’s always a little voice in the back of my mind telling me that the absolutely absurd rise in the price of vinyl, as it’s popularity continues to increase, is the record industry’s silent retaliation against consumers for a near decade of music theft that started with Napster. They’re like, “we’re back in the drivers seat, b**tches!”
Maybe it’s just me.
A few thoughts:
1. How do you compare streaming ‘sales’ with physical sales? A stream is someone listening, not buying. So a physical sale can only count once whereas streaming figures reflect ongoing listens. It’s not like for like.
2. CDs generally cost much less than half the price of vinyl so from those figures it suggests vinyl sales generate more revenue? So that would explain a lot.
3. When I was a kid in the 80s, CD was the premium format and usually cost a tenner. Now they still cost about a tenner whereas vinyl prices have increased by about five-fold and is now the premium format. Funny old world isn’t it?
For chart purposes I think 150 streams = 1 physical sale / download.
CDs a tenner in the 80s? It was about £13-15 for a new release CD back then.
I completely agree. I tend to buy vinyl most of the time. I prefer the format and way of listening. But I still buy some CDs especially box sets as they are far more affordable. Vinyl costs are sky high and it is now obvious that the big 3 are taking the rise out of use all with the mark up they are putting on Vinyl. I don’t see why all formats are not treated with respect. The industry never learns. Vinyl would not have died out in the first place if they had not deliberately tried to use CDs as a cash cow.
And the reason the vinyl prices are sky-high? The multiple colours of a lot of releases. In the US it is a well-known fact that their is a huge pressing backlog, especially with the majors, and one reason why?
The three majors, Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music do not have their own vinyl pressing plants in the US any more! So all the LPs we get from the majors are pressed either in The Netherlands and Czech Republic (Universal), Germany and Austria (Sony), and Germany (Warner).
Also as it tkes time to invent new colour ”mixes” that slows down the process. I have ordered LPs in March that did not come until December. It wil probably be just as bad this year.