The upcoming resurgence of the CD

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

This is a thought I've discussed with another revered member of this esteemed message board, a member who shall remain nameless despite his many human qualities: is the CD "coming back", at least for music nerds, hipsters and the underground? I've noticed a while back that I enjoy buying CDs for reasons other than the purely practical lately, and at the same time CD prices seem to be creeping up a little, even for releases that are not obviously collector's items. In the mainstream, the CD is obviously still dying (https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/05/best-buy-will-stop-selling-music-cds/), but might it be about to reawaken in a zombified state before it's even quite dead? Vinyl has, of course, already established itself as a minor but probably long-lasting medium (http://fortune.com/2016/04/16/vinyl-sales-record-store-day/), as has the audio tape, but will the CD follow suit? Obviously, the spotified mainstream will not be interested, so actual sales will probably keep dropping for a while, but I myself have lost that old sense of of a CD being a bunch of high-res mp3's in a box you mainly bought to support the band/label. Obviously even now things are not exactly like in the early 90's, when this was the only way to get a hold of the actual sound, but I do find that I enjoy buying CDs again (I've never stopped 100%, but for years it's been more vinyl/tape/digital).

So: anyone else recognize this feeling, or sense that the CD might once again be a fetish item? I realize that "I've never felt it wasn't - I don't use the youtubify" is a likely response, and you are very welcome to post it or any variation thereof, but I am of course mainly interested in the opinion of people who've lost their love for the digital little buggers and now experience, or do not experience, a rekindling of that love.

[Soloman Tump]

I still purchase the odd CD, but I am more picky about what I buy these days. I find I get more and more through the likes of Bandcamp or download services.

I still listen to CDs whilst travelling in my car for work and I do find the format convenient.

Vinyl purchases are now restricted to essentials due to cost, but I *never* stopped buying them since I started in the late 90s.

[Andrew McIntosh]

So: anyone ... sense that the CD might once again be a fetish item?

What doesn't become a fetish item again after a week or so? At this rate we're one generation away from mp3 nostalgia.

[PTM Jim]

It's still big in the Black Metal community and it seems the "hatred" of the CD is a USA thing. Of the CDs I've put out on Fusty, a significant amount have gone to Europeans.
The reason the prices have increased also is because the manufacturing price has increased.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

So: anyone ... sense that the CD might once again be a fetish item?

What doesn't become a fetish item again after a week or so? At this rate we're one generation away from mp3 nostalgia.

True. These days, my innate old-man nostalgia for everything that happened 15 years ago or more is fighting a hard battle with my innate adolescent need to be different and interested only in things no-one else likes. I have a few burned CDs from the 90's based off of mp3s I downloaded from Napster that actually awaken something akin to mp3 nostalgia, so I fear you may be right.

It's still big in the Black Metal community and it seems the "hatred" of the CD is a USA thing. Of the CDs I've put out on Fusty, a significant amount have gone to Europeans.
The reason the prices have increased also is because the manufacturing price has increased.

As far as prices go, I was thinking of the second hand market. It used to be you could get many CDs for almost nothing, if they weren't something special. Now, my impression (unscientific and unproven) is that many albums that would have cost a few bucks five years ago are more expensive. It may be discogs fault, though, since I buy most of my second hand music there - CD or not.

Are CD sales still constant for you (or other label proprietors reading the thread)? If my theory is correct, then certainly underground (and hipster - let's make a difference here to protect our self-image) labels should start noticing soon.

[Duncan]

The thing is, none of our demographic's purchasing habits or attitudes about CD really influence whether or not there is a resurgence of the format.  I'd assume we here care more about music as a form of art/entertainment than most average people and have been taking it in whatever format it comes for many years. Fine, but the relevance of a media format doesn't really get determined by how groups of fanatics take it but rather what it means to the general public.  The price of CDs is certainly interesting from this perspective but not much of an arbiter of resurgence or obsolescence.

Whether or not you like it, there IS an MP3 nostalgia of a kind and there IS a CD nostalgia of a kind because for most people these things were connected to the time and place of how they consumed music before a 'better' more popular kind took over.  It isn't only to do with the music contained in the format.  It's about what else was going on at that time, your age etc etc.  It may not be your experience or mine to have some golden memory about an old version of iTunes or buying a Taylor Swift CD but for damn sure it will be someone elses.  In terms of how these memories and 'cultures' develop around a format, it depends on a lot of things...CD is interesting because it has been around long enough for a few generations to experience it as their primary music format while MP3 has stuck around but changed constantly since its arrival.  The book 'Unofficial Release' by Thomas Bailey - which has been sometimes discussed in this forum - has a great chapter about why Mini Disc never developed its own kind of cassette culture style aesthetic and circulation in which he - correctly in my opinion - identifies that the rate at which MP3 entered and developed into the market made the format obsolete too quickly for such a culture to take form.  This arguably marks the situation we've been in since the earliest introduction of digital music formats and the 'death' of physical media as a mass market force is well under way.  When it comes to new music, hardly any physical format is being shifted.  If you look at the rate of downloads/streams vs physical sales in even some of the most popular new music right now it's astonishing. 

So while the game has been changing rapidly and some formats survive while others get out moded or tweaked into a new form within a year or two, our ideas of what 'format nostalgia' entails needs to change a bit too.  In any case, its in the hands of a generation who -  like me with my parents vinyl and cassettes - had CD in the house as children but mostly just listened to MP3.  In a few years when these guys are older and making more influential purchasing decisions it may well be the case that CD then takes its place alongside vinyl as a kind of fetishised collectors item with retro novelty value (as well as people who just claim it to be the 'superior format' anew?!)

In any case you can guarantee there will always be a dickhead with a stupid hair cut who will buy some billionth reissue of a shitty Neil Young or Morrissey album on pink cd for £22.99 when he could get an 'original' for a few quid.

[FiEND]

I had tape players growing up and never took to Compact Disc. Always felt fragile to my young hands. Decades later and it's mostly tapes, essentials on vinyl and spotify streaming.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

The thing is, none of our demographic's purchasing habits or attitudes about CD really influence whether or not there is a resurgence of the format.  I'd assume we here care more about music as a form of art/entertainment than most average people and have been taking it in whatever format it comes for many years. Fine, but the relevance of a media format doesn't really get determined by how groups of fanatics take it but rather what it means to the general public.  The price of CDs is certainly interesting from this perspective but not much of an arbiter of resurgence or obsolescence.

To be clear, I of course understand that even if all the world's fans of HNW, harsh noise and power electronics unite and start enjoying the CD like it's the second coming, that would of course not matter at all. And as far as the "general public" goes, physical formats are probably doomed to be regulated to the state of curiosities. I am, of course, only thinking of a vinyl style resurgence - i.e. all or most special interest musical sub cultures including major once like "rock" starting to appreciate the format and putting a floor in its decline, possible reversing it somewhat.

Also, since I might have been a bit unclear on this point, I was in fact at least as interested in the more limited question of whether anyone had himself experienced a complete or almost-complete loss of interest in buying CDs, but more recently started changing his mind about them again. Or if there are any signs in the experimental/noise scene of increasing sales or increasing interest.

[Duncan]

Well I still think that cd is great and only gets better as format fetishism continues to rage. Cheap, large storage, easy to package and store. I think 75% of my posts here relate to how they make for much better reissue formats as opposed to ludicrous and pricy cassette or vinyl projects.  That said, my personal record buying autism does dictate that certain stuff is preferred on other formats. The stuff of another thread, though. Basically, it's the very comparative uncoolness of cd these days makes it such a great format for so much music.

[PTM Jim]

It's still big in the Black Metal community and it seems the "hatred" of the CD is a USA thing. Of the CDs I've put out on Fusty, a significant amount have gone to Europeans.
The reason the prices have increased also is because the manufacturing price has increased.

Are CD sales still constant for you (or other label proprietors reading the thread)? If my theory is correct, then certainly underground (and hipster - let's make a difference here to protect our self-image) labels should start noticing soon.

Depends on what it is really. Obviously a bigger name act is going to sell a bit more. But the sales are relatively consistently low as opposed to cassette. I can get rid of 100 tapes of something far far quicker than I can get rid of 50 (possibly even only 25) CDs of the same artist. So it makes it not worth it to press the minimum 300. If I knew getting rid of 150 no problem is a realistic outcome, I'll do another CD. I probably wont be doing them again otherwise.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

There are plenty of places who press now 100. This is the advantage of CD's downfall. More and more factories are suddenly user friendly. Small clients become important, when the big ones have started to disappear. Of course making 100 is just about the same price as making 200. Or 300.  A lot of it depends on packaging, of course. Disc price is the same, whether one takes 100-300. Time and effort and costs varies with the packaging. Be it hand made, and one saves times and money. Factory made, one saves money and space. Not needing to storage things.

Like some people observed here, hating CD's is more of hipster thing - if you want to call it that.
If you have some label producing boutique raw bm in US, of course it's going to be tape. Or collectible vinyl products.
If you got east- and north european - or perhaps in general, european black metal, It's CD that dominates. Same for industrial for example. You can list handful of small dealers of tapes and vinyl, who'll make 30-200 copies editions, while you got anything from LOKI, TESCO, OEC, COLD SPRING, F&V, FREAK ANIMAL, AUTARKEIA, UNREST, TURGID ANIMAL, and so on and on doing CD's. Year after year. Of course most do also LP and tapes, but every label always saw the benefits and importance of CD as format.  Fact remains, that a lot of current vinyl suck ass. As simple as that. Quality of sound is half assed compared to what it could be. Notion that LP is somehow better looking package, is often crushed by sheer amateurism of graphics.  Costs of manufacturing and shipping become increasingly unaffordable.

Now thinking, would one want to buy 30 euro LP of generic noise, or look how dirt cheap fucking great CD's are now. One can probably look out for mint CD's and grab 5-10 good albums for same price.

I personally, have always been fan of tape and vinyl, but never hated CD's. The more time passes, I'm even more and more in favor of CD's. And I see this shift of mindset with a lot of people I talk to. Many people who used to be biggest advocates of vinyl, suddenly have started to prefer CD. It happens so often that it starts to be almost like current when people started to get into vinyl. So The upcoming resurgence of the CD, within underground - I would bet on it. It's not going to be huge obviously, but if one looks at the actual benefits of physical formats, CD has many of them.

What comes for sales, I think in micro-level dealings, it doesn't show. If band has potential to reach more, my observation has been that any format will sell 100.  Tape may reach 200. Occasionally more, but not often. But CD might move more copies. That is very true in context of metal for example. Of course 100 tapes sells fast, but try to sell 1000 tapes, not to mention 10000. It would never happen. I'm not sure if tape buyers are more adventurous so to say? Since unknown tape sells better than unknown cd. But known names CD has bigger demand than tapes. CD for conservative consumers? Perhaps, hah.... In that sense, I also see how certain fringe underground people simply identify with format. You see the shining digipak of post-industrial release, and conclude "I have nothing to do with THAT", and end up associating with xeroxed j-cards and obscure tapes. Or other way round.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

I personally, have always been fan of tape and vinyl, but never hated CD's. The more time passes, I'm even more and more in favor of CD's. And I see this shift of mindset with a lot of people I talk to. Many people who used to be biggest advocates of vinyl, suddenly have started to prefer CD. It happens so often that it starts to be almost like current when people started to get into vinyl. So The upcoming resurgence of the CD, within underground - I would bet on it. It's not going to be huge obviously, but if one looks at the actual benefits of physical formats, CD has many of them.

There we go. There is some substance to this after all, at least there is qualified anecdotal evidence to support the idea that this may be going on after all.

"Even though shipments of physical media dropped 4 percent to $1.5 billion, digital download revenues fell 25 percent to $1.3 billion in 2017, putting CDs and vinyl back on top of non-streaming music formats."

http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/RIAA-Year-End-2017-News-and-Notes.pdf

Double-edged, there. It makes sense that the digital havoc still have some territories to conquer in before things stabilize at a low level, and any actual "resurgence" can begin to be seen in official statistics. As a side-note I loathe streaming for the same reasons I loathe social media (except I do stream some music sometime, but I use no social media whatever unless you count this forum), but I do enjoy the occasional digital download.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Double-edged, there. It makes sense that the digital havoc still have some territories to conquer in before things stabilize at a low level, and any actual "resurgence" can begin to be seen in official statistics.

This seems very true, especially in Finland - what is small enough country to actually concretely see how shitty the "statistics" may be. Lets say the uprise of tape. It was big news couple of years ago that "tape is back". Of course it was more hip than it used to be, but statistics what IFPi has in their use, is handful of biggest retailers. One convenient store and one music store chain takes few tapes in stock, just for fun, and suddenly you see 100% increase in sales of tapes, hah... of course. But when you look at actual numbers, it appears if merely one guy - like myself, actually produced MORE tapes every damn year though entire 2000's while official statistics showed format was dead. Count in dozens of bands, labels distros, and whole statistics and every media article appeared as pure joke.
It's often same for vinyl. All the genres of music beyond the mainstream pop, often goes under radar. Statistics in general has no correlation to underground. If mainsteam CD sale per title drops from hundreds thousands to couple thousand, noise CD sales drop from 500 to 200-300 or so? There is no way statistic of supermarket music department measures what happens in underground. It may echo the shift of habits and of course there may be indirect influence. Not all bad, though.

I think more interesting angles to approach CD question, would be for example how big role is the mentality, where people think CD will be "always available". The price, or urgency to buy it. When you announce LP, ltd to 99, people rush to buy it. Simply because they know it won't be available for long. I think CD generally is assumed to be "always there". You buy it when you got time and opportunity, like waiting bigger order to save with shipping. When CD is now being made often 100-300 copies, just like vinyl, how it will effect? I would assume, that their availability won't be forever, like in case of early 2000's CD 1000 copies editions forever listed at discogs for 2-5usd level.

And second, what type of stuff is being done on CD. I often look at labels who CD multiple format stuff, and with tapes, they seems to do new interesting, currently active bands. And then CD release comes, and it's far less interesting formerly "big name", with release that ain't that good in context of their masterpieces. Then comes conclusion that CD doesn't sell, while I think that question is not the format, but what and how it is done.

Another case for declining CD sales would be sheer volume. If noise CD sold 500 to 1000 in 1995, just think how many CD's people had in their shelves back then? Fast forward decades, and people may simply have so much of stuff, that releases selling less is not matter of format or even pricing, but simply question how much stuff one would need? So instead of buying 100+ CD's a year, you buy... 1-10? I can totally understand the guy who has thousands of releases he didn't listen for years, even if he wanted, that thinking "no thanks" is better option than buying more. Answer would be only to reach new blood, or release something unique enough, in edition that is realistic. Not just like.... another lazy M.B. collaboration?

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

This seems very true, especially in Finland - what is small enough country to actually concretely see how shitty the "statistics" may be. Lets say the uprise of tape. It was big news couple of years ago that "tape is back". Of course it was more hip than it used to be, but statistics what IFPi has in their use, is handful of biggest retailers. One convenient store and one music store chain takes few tapes in stock, just for fun, and suddenly you see 100% increase in sales of tapes, hah... of course. But when you look at actual numbers, it appears if merely one guy - like myself, actually produced MORE tapes every damn year though entire 2000's while official statistics showed format was dead. Count in dozens of bands, labels distros, and whole statistics and every media article appeared as pure joke.
It's often same for vinyl. All the genres of music beyond the mainstream pop, often goes under radar. Statistics in general has no correlation to underground. If mainsteam CD sale per title drops from hundreds thousands to couple thousand, noise CD sales drop from 500 to 200-300 or so? There is no way statistic of supermarket music department measures what happens in underground. It may echo the shift of habits and of course there may be indirect influence. Not all bad, though.

Indeed. It is only when the sum of all minor scenes (especially the more amorphous and not so minor hipster crowd) get in on the action it affects anything approaching officially available information. There are hints, though. At the moment, ugly-ass brand tapes that were only used in the 90s because many of us were too lazy or poor to use decently looking ones are getting both expensive and rare. I saw somewhere that tapeline immediately sells out of C60s and C46s, and even have the C90s moving quickly, despite the fact that they sell tons of beautiful tapes that make much more sense to buy from almost any perspective. This, of course, says at least something about the increased popularity of tape - though nothing at all about the popularity of tape in the industrial underground. Either way, as far as I know tapes aren't even being manufactured on any scale yet (or at all; do you know?).

Another case for declining CD sales would be sheer volume. If noise CD sold 500 to 1000 in 1995, just think how many CD's people had in their shelves back then? Fast forward decades, and people may simply have so much of stuff, that releases selling less is not matter of format or even pricing, but simply question how much stuff one would need? So instead of buying 100+ CD's a year, you buy... 1-10? I can totally understand the guy who has thousands of releases he didn't listen for years, even if he wanted, that thinking "no thanks" is better option than buying more. Answer would be only to reach new blood, or release something unique enough, in edition that is realistic.

It may well be that the influx of younger people into the industrial scene is somewhat limited, in which case the problem of older men overburdened with possessions is certainly an issue. I have no insight whatsoever these days, but it feels that way and seems likely.

Not just like.... another lazy M.B. collaboration?

Ha, yes, this is a whole other point which saddens me greatly: the free market has finally caught up with me. It was not that many years ago that I could get all sorts of amazing things dirt cheap and feel like a special snowflake because I liked tons of shit that no-one else cared about. Many odd black metal tapes that had fallen out of grace, the stuff now known as "dungeon synth" and - yes - CDs of bands that had simply either sold too much back when they were popular, or simply disappeared because no-one remembered them. I could even be picky and only buy the precise edition I remembered from my teens. Then one day I decided to go get Agatus "Dawn of Martyrdom" off of discogs, expecting to find it at somewhere between five and ten euros, and saw that the "first edition" CD was priced at like three hundred, and had sold for something similar not that far back. While this was an extreme case, it was the first sign of new times. No $4 Bestial Warlust for me anymore.

Unfortunately it also affects my ability to expand my horizons, with the sad instance of my mass M.B. purchase being a horrible and obvious example (some of them are quite good though, ahem). Even gas station Kario Tapio best of-albums cost at least a little too much to give me that feeling of getting music for free, but physical. In other words: low prices now correspond much more directly with equally low quality than just a few years ago. The consumer in me hopes that all this is passing, and that the hipsters and scenesters will flock back to Nintendo 8-bit and let me buy decent BM/industrial/whatever albums - at least reissues - for next to nothing again. Then again, it would obviously be great for labels, and hence also for my long term interests as an actual music listener rather than nostalgic and hoarding rodent, if at least underground CDs generally commanded enough value to allow said labels to print in decent limitations, take risks on new projects etc, etc.

[PTM Jim]

I think more interesting angles to approach CD question, would be for example how big role is the mentality, where people think CD will be "always available". The price, or urgency to buy it. When you announce LP, ltd to 99, people rush to buy it. Simply because they know it won't be available for long. I think CD generally is assumed to be "always there". You buy it when you got time and opportunity, like waiting bigger order to save with shipping. When CD is now being made often 100-300 copies, just like vinyl, how it will effect? I would assume, that their availability won't be forever, like in case of early 2000's CD 1000 copies editions forever listed at discogs for 2-5usd level.

This is an important statement because the more "rare" or scarce something is can instantly make people buy it for, as you said, fear of missing it. The thing is when you have even 300 CDs and everyone is thinking they can wait, it will kill any life in the release. When people wait they most often forget about it and never purchase it in the first place. It also, in turn, irks distros from taking it because they know they won't see an instant return and quite often they are dealing with cents on the dollar profit, so it doesn't make sense to get it.