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[Meiko]

What will be the future of music? I read somewhere people, especially young people, buy CD's less and less. I am one of these people, I think, in fact I don't buy CD's anymore because they can break or scratch easily, they take space and they get lost all the time. I buy music from other sources, and load it on my mp3 player

Do you still buy CD's and plan to buy in the future? Do you think you'll find other ways to listen to music?

[Pu the Owl]

I don't buy many CDs either lately. I don't know where to put them so they fall down all the time from shelves, which is very annoying. I also keep on losing them, as you said, which is most inconvenient. The problem is I am a very lazy person and I don't go looking for the case everytime, so I put more CDs into the same case and forget about it. When I have to listen to something, I have all these empty jewel cases and I know somewhere there's a jewel case with a pile of CDs in it, but I don't know which one it is. The thought of having to open all cases to look for the CDs make me feel terribly dizzy, so I always give up and listen to something else I can find. In some cases I lost the CD more than once and ended downloading it because I didn't want to buy it for the third or fourth time. I like other formats because I can keep all albums stored together and listen to them on the iPod without having to embark on some tiring hide&seek adventure. Laziness is a bad thing, and most people are laziest. It will make CDs disappear from the market one of these days.

[Big Dude]

I still buy CD's. More regularly than I should be able to afford, actually. I'm one of those people that likes to have an actual hard copy for the sake of a collection with all the fancy cover and CD art. Its just not the same experience for me to download all my music.

From there though, I usually rip my CD's for use on my computer and mp3 player, burn a copy for my car if I feel so inclined (so I don't have to worry about having the original being stolen/lost/scratched), and use the original copy in my home stereo.

If it does come to a "download only" age, then I guess I wont have a choice but to conform, but I'll always take a CD over a mp3 folder.

[Phenom]

I haven't bought any cd's since 2002.. (or around that time.) Sometimes I would download my songs, but majority of the times I just listen to the cd's my family has. And then from there I (or someone else) would rip it onto the computer.

I listen to mainly gospel music, with an occasion to listen to R&B, but chances are if I don't buy cd's in the future, someone in my family will, and I'll just continue listening to theirs.

[Berserker]

I more or less stopped buying cd's with the introduction of the euro, when you had to pay 20+ euro's for a single cd I stopped. Prices nowadays are much lower, but I still think the ruined it with the absurd prices some years back. Nowadays I mostly just download and buy only the really great stuff that I think deserve my support or local hardcore/punk bands. I will never pay for downloading, cause that seems just so pointless to me...why pay for something that's free? With a hardcopy you get the coverart and all the fancy stuff, payed downloads are exactly the same as the free ones. So no extra value to me...

[Hylas]

Originally Posted by Berserker

I will never pay for downloading, cause that seems just so pointless to me...why pay for something that's free? With a hardcopy you get the coverart and all the fancy stuff, payed downloads are exactly the same as the free ones. So no extra value to me...

Sorry man, but I can't agree. What you call free isn't supposed to be free. It should cost less, it's true and on this point I agree with you. But completely free? Being a musician is a job like any other. You pay for services and things you buy. You pay when you go see a movie, you pay for other forms of entertainment. So why music should be free if there's somebody doing it for a living? Production and distribution costs too, you know. iTunes and other similar stores don't charge much for music you buy from them. I mean, they have affordable prices. It's fair to pay for services and goods you buy. Music too.

[Berserker]

Partially agreed, I've played in a band for 7 years and released a fulllenght cd, some tracks for compilations and a demo. I know the deal, but it's a fact nowdays that musicians make money from touring. The benefits from cd's/mp3's are very low and that isn't because most people don't pay for them it's because too many people need a piece of the cake. The music industry killed itself from ripping people like you and me off for so many years with their insanely artificial high prices, they made multi-miljonairs of themselves and their families and now we all need to feel sorry for them cause technology has catched up with them? Do you think it will directly benefit the "hard" working artist if I started paying for downloads? No mam, it goes foremost directly to all the ceo's and bands would still have to tour their asses off to make a buck. So if I wanted to support a band I would show up at a show and buy some merchandise directly from them. Let the entertainment industry battle the monster they themselves created...

[tempted]

I don't buy cds anymore, unless it's from my favorite bands... and i think that unless the prices drop drasticaly, i doubt people will continue to buy cds, when it's much easier and obviously cheaper to download. There's always someone that still buys them and kindly makes it available for others to get it without pay. I don't see it change, especially here in my country, where i'm pretty sure that 70% to 80% of the people downloads.

[jjmoohead]

The problem is that music these days is borderline disastrous. I love music, and have lots of cd's and downloads. I was a DJ for almost 8 years too. The number of quality songs coming out each year is getting smaller and smaller. I can remember being 16 and buying a CD cause it had one good song. One song that made me want the entire CD. I would sometimes luck out and there would be a couple other good tunes on it. However now I am struggling to find even one good song on CD worth purchasing.

There just seems to be very little imagination. The best selling artist are ones who get stardom from TV shows and don't write the majority of their music.

Until that pattern changes, I won't be buying CD's or downloading, free or not.

[merylsilverburg]

I'm not so good with technical things and I don't have an MP3 player, Ipod, or what-have-you. So I still buy CDs and I keep them all nice and tidy. But I get Japanese CDs which, thankfully, the Japanese market still has some use for them despite their incredible technical advances. As for the US market of CDs, I hope it doesn't dwindle out because there are a soundtrack or two that I buy once in a while.

Overall, it would be upsetting if CDs became obsolete but I guess then I'll just have to follow the tech-age crowd and "update."

[Faile]

I love to ramble on about music, but it's getting late so I'll just throw some random thoughts into the ether.

x. The record companies have done this to themselves! Hurrah! We, the consumer, rightly or wrongly have completely destroyed the mainstream distribution system. No longer shall we get charged £16 for an album, or £5 for a five-track multi-format single. Why is this? Because we can obtain music for free!

x. Who suffers the most, the artist or major label? Definitely the label! For years labels have been taking the greater cut out of an artist's profits. Essentially, if you signed a deal for five albums, the label would loan you thousands of pounds/dollars/euros and then expect you to pay that back through sales. If your second album failed and you got dropped, that money still had to be paid and because most musicians need to live like everyone else, that money got spent. Now labels aren't able to cut such big deals, because they don't get the money coming in, so musicians get better deals for touring and earn the majority of their money that way. However, this still leaves the question of how new and emerging bands build a fanbase and distribute their music, so on to the next point.

x. The re-emergence of the indie label! Bands can now sign pretty good deals with some of the bigger indie labels and do very well; essentially they're not signing over their souls by taking loads of money. Bands can now make a deal whereby a record company pays to manufacture, distribute and promote an album, and takes a cut of sales, whilst the band tours and earns. It's a fairer system. With cd sales dropping, the majority format will soon be digital download, but this isn't so bad. It cuts out a lot of expenses; transport and packaging amongst those. Multi-format cd singles are a thing of the past (no more do you need cd1 and cd2 - hooray!).

x. The building of fanbases by bands now has to be done in new and creative ways (lots of internet hype through the more 'underground' music sites (pitchfork), myspace*, viral marketing) or in boring ones (myspace*, adverts, nme, etc etc etc)

x. Touring is more important than ever. you need to engage with an audience. Bands should slog through smaller venues and actually play their music to people. No more one tour every year.

x. Bands should never be scared to give away demo tracks or b-sides, or even imitate Radiohead and give an album away. If people are aware of your music and enjoy it, they will come and see you and buy your other music, t-shirts and the like.

x. The best thing to come out of this situation is the power that it hands artists. you can now run a label from your room in a far more easy fashion than ever before. You can put on your own shows and have pretty big bands come and play. You can engage with the world and showcase your art and meet lovely and like-minded souls. You do not need the five album mega-deal. You do not need to be nirvana! You'll be happier and free!!!

*you decide if it's boring or not

[Redpyramidhead]

Actually you should all be concerned about the sound quality of the music you listen to. MP3 is an extremely lossy format. Whatever algorithms are used to create MP3 files out of much large original WAV files... they have to exclude certain things from the sound you end up with. Usually that is what the programmers deem the least likely for the "average" consumer to notice in sound quality... but once aware of it, any fool can hear the major difference. This is supposed to be an advancement in technology, but what is really happening? Movies are going Hi Def now, but what is happening to the music we listen to? Sure... its great to fit thousands of tunes on your ipod, but you are not giving your ears the full experience originally intended by the musicians and recording, mix, and master engineers. Our children will grow up never expereiencing sound the way we did.

REd

[Pu the Owl]

You are right, .mp3 is a lossy format, but don't be so catastrophic: there are many other lossless formats, you know. Your children won't be that unlucky to not be able to experience high quality music, since mp3 isn't the only format around these days, and I'm sure there's more to come in future.

[Berserker]

Originally Posted by Faile

I love to ramble on about music, but it's getting late so I'll just throw some random thoughts into the ether.

x. The record companies have done this to themselves! Hurrah! We, the consumer, rightly or wrongly have completely destroyed the mainstream distribution system. No longer shall we get charged £16 for an album, or £5 for a five-track multi-format single. Why is this? Because we can obtain music for free!

x. Who suffers the most, the artist or major label? Definitely the label! For years labels have been taking the greater cut out of an artist's profits. Essentially, if you signed a deal for five albums, the label would loan you thousands of pounds/dollars/euros and then expect you to pay that back through sales. If your second album failed and you got dropped, that money still had to be paid and because most musicians need to live like everyone else, that money got spent. Now labels aren't able to cut such big deals, because they don't get the money coming in, so musicians get better deals for touring and earn the majority of their money that way. However, this still leaves the question of how new and emerging bands build a fanbase and distribute their music, so on to the next point.

x. The re-emergence of the indie label! Bands can now sign pretty good deals with some of the bigger indie labels and do very well; essentially they're not signing over their souls by taking loads of money. Bands can now make a deal whereby a record company pays to manufacture, distribute and promote an album, and takes a cut of sales, whilst the band tours and earns. It's a fairer system. With cd sales dropping, the majority format will soon be digital download, but this isn't so bad. It cuts out a lot of expenses; transport and packaging amongst those. Multi-format cd singles are a thing of the past (no more do you need cd1 and cd2 - hooray!).

x. The building of fanbases by bands now has to be done in new and creative ways (lots of internet hype through the more 'underground' music sites (pitchfork), myspace*, viral marketing) or in boring ones (myspace*, adverts, nme, etc etc etc)

x. Touring is more important than ever. you need to engage with an audience. Bands should slog through smaller venues and actually play their music to people. No more one tour every year.

x. Bands should never be scared to give away demo tracks or b-sides, or even imitate Radiohead and give an album away. If people are aware of your music and enjoy it, they will come and see you and buy your other music, t-shirts and the like.

x. The best thing to come out of this situation is the power that it hands artists. you can now run a label from your room in a far more easy fashion than ever before. You can put on your own shows and have pretty big bands come and play. You can engage with the world and showcase your art and meet lovely and like-minded souls. You do not need the five album mega-deal. You do not need to be nirvana! You'll be happier and free!!!

*you decide if it's boring or not

Amen to that, my point exactly...only yours is well written...

[jjmoohead]

Although I agree that the MP3 format is not doing an amazing job at sound quality I can say though that it doesn't make that much of a difference in many many situations. I still do some DJ'ing for weddings and school dances and the acoustics in many of the buildings are so bad that you could play the radio and get what you needed out of it. (ok so its not that bad.)

I see the point of how the video industry is going ahead but the music is staying where it is. However I kinda hope it doesn't go ahead. I have lots of songs I don't want tohave to redownload.

[Redpyramidhead]

Originally Posted by Psychopu

You are right, .mp3 is a lossy format, but don't be so catastrophic: there are many other lossless formats, you know. Your children won't be that unlucky to not be able to experience high quality music, since mp3 isn't the only format around these days, and I'm sure there's more to come in future.

I cant help but be catastrophic when I am in a bad mood..


RED