Is the CD doomed?

Questioning the future of something that is to be found all around us in everyday life needs some explaining. I think there's a good chance that we will, this decade, see a serious drop is CD sales and use. CDs are still common, and they're good at what they do, but they're no longer the best—they've been beaten in every way.

They call us the iPod generation, or, if they don't, they might as well. That's how we relate to music: everyone has some manner of MP3 player, everyone has an internet connection, everyone has a computer, and those tend to have large hard disks: When we listen to music, most of us listen to MP3s, not to CDs, and more and more people are discovering that it's possible to legally download them—on the one hand, there are those that have been pirating music for years, and on the other hand, there are those that used to buy CDs, and then started ripping them. With every iPod owner being an iTunes user and Amazon providing MP3 downloads alongside physical media, it'd be hard not to notice that the way music is being distributed is changing.

CD stands for “compact disc”. True, at 12 centimetres across, it really isn't a large medium, but, to put that into perspective, nowadays, you can store the MP3 equivalent of over a hundred of them on a chip smaller than a dime with normal consumer equipment. CDs aren't even that useful any more: the MP3 player and PC having become the tools of choice when it comes to listening to music, a new CD usually ends up being ripped, possibly passed around to friends, and then shelved with the other dust magnets.

True, CDs offer really high-quality sound that an MP3 can't. But, let's be honest: have you ever noticed the difference between a CD and a good rip or commercial download? I'll give you that your typical Napster file might not be that great, but most of us have no chance of telling compressed audio files from compact discs by listening. The true audiophile might prefer a CD over an MP3, but then, more often that not, we see audiophiles declaring that vinyl sounds better than CDs. I also think it's possible that, soon, some online music stores will be offering CD quality files for those that will satisfy those that once shunned MP3s in favour of shiny round 12cm plates.

Vinyl records have been having quite a renaissance in the last few years, and I think it's fair to say that this is part of essentially the same movement away from CDs—in a way, gramophone record beat CDs and don't so much as glance at the unworthy MP3. There is one thing that digitally distributed music does not have, cannot have: a physical form. We just like being able to touch things. Being able to physically and separately handle, display and admire a record appeals so much more to our collectors' instincts than simply fondling a tiny box that blasts photons at us from minute pixels. I find it adds a whole dimension of value to the music that it just doesn't have when I tell amaroK, winamp or rockbox to open a certain file. One could say a physical record honours the music and the artist a lot more.

In that area, however, it is not the CD that trumps, it is the gramophone record. Vinyl records are larger, there's more to look at, more to touch, not just that flimsy little booklet. You actually see it while the music is playing, and anyone can understand the basics of how it works: a lot more down-to-earth, appealing so much more to our senses, gramophone record are a lot more “real” than those tiny, silly CDs. I think that we are going to see, and seeing right now, a development away from them in two directions: the “mass market”, that gigantic group that runs around with iPod & Co., donning earbuds in the tube and connecting their trusty companion to their home and car stereos, will pay for more and more downloads, while that niche of audiophiles, music enthusiasts and collectors will develop their, or should I say our, preference for “the classic”, vinyl.

A great example of this development is the La Roux single Quicksand: in December of 2008, it was released as a digital download and as a 12 inch vinyl EP, not as a CD. (There has since been a re-release on CD—a year later)

What about you? How do you buy music?

The Right Thing

I'm a great fan of the British actor, writer, comedian and just generally tweedy person Stephen Fry. I recently came across a quite an interesting interview with Fry at Big Think, a web site I might want to have a closer look at. One part I find particularly worth underlining is the following:

The most important philosophy, I think, is that, even if it isn't true, you must absolutely assume there is no afterlife. You cannot for one second, I think, abrogate the responsibility of believing that this is it. Because if you think you're going to have an eternity in which you can talk to Mozart and Schopenhauer on a cloud and learn stuff and, you know, really get to grips with knowledge and understanding, and say you won't bother now — it's a terrible, terrible mistake. May be that there is an afterlife and that I'll look incredibly stupid, but at least I'm going to have had a crammed pre-afterlife, a crammed life. So, to me, the most important thing is, as Kipling to it, to (…) fill every unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distant run. So, that's all I'm saying, I suppose, it's that there's no point wasting time … being lazy

Thor 1 - 0 England

Great, great Britain is being hilariously useless at the moment. How can a country suck this bad at winter in a temperate climate? For the record, yes, there it is snowing here, right now, and has been for days. And there's quite a lot of snow. And nobody really cares. And, at 47.9°N, I'm quite a bit further South than the British Isles. More to the point, I came across this splendid e-mail by a German expat in England today. I hope this amuses you. You can find the original at Fefes Blog, below is a quick and dirty translation into English by myself.

[...]
I was at Sainsbury's shopping for a proper Sunday lunch. It was like there was a war on. We might not be able to stop the country with bombs, but after a little ice and snow they're almost about to re-introduce the old ration stamps. Two gigantic vegetable aisles, empty save one or two cabbages and peppers.
[...] There's more snow in Berlin than here. But this place is in a state of emergency. Normally, when it snows, everybody just goes South and waits for the snow to melt. (Okay, the North knows how to cope with snow, but nobody lives there anyway)
Thing is, it's not melting.
Snow tyres are a completely alien concept. There are barely any snow plows, side streets are still snowed in. No garbage disposal, no mail.

Trains are being cancelled one after another, and are on an emergency schedule anyway. Complete standstill. And everybody's acting like that was normal and adequate. Absolutely normal that people stop going to work at the slightest sign of snow.

[...]

PS: The best bit is that nobody clears the pavement. Apparently, you can't be sued that way if somebody slips, because that'd be an “Act of God”. If you do something, on the other hand, you're aware of the danger and just didn't do it properly. That means that nobody dares and everybody is happy to have an excuse for doing nothing. That's the kind of absurd nonsense they're happy to accept here.
I do keep my pavement free, I'm way too German not to do it. And the people applaud me like some kind of hero. All I can say is, damn, if you think that's the way to go, do it as well!
[...]

via fefe.

To be fair, there are forms of humorous art only possible where the infrastructure is not in place to free town squares of snow.