Continuing with CDs?

indie rock on vinyl in the 90's was definitely the way to go. so cheap compared to CDs. i don't think anyone had any idea what stuff like that would be worth in the 21st century. how could you know? i would have bought 30 original copies of bee thousand instead of one if i had known. i still go back in my head to the dozens and dozens of copies of paul's boutique on vinyl at strawberries in philly. in the dollar bin! nobody was buying records. all those copies of the dead man soundtrack for 2 or 3 bucks at 3rd street jazz....oof. it makes sense though. the lack of demand meant they only did limited pressings. and they STILL hung around stores forever.

yeah that new yorker article is amazing even if it raises as many questions as it answers. paints a picture anyway.

reading that article made it seem like none of those people had any fun! so dreary.

and yeah... god the discs i passed over. knowing me though, had i even had it in my to buy extras of things as 'investments' they would have gotten dumped at some point for space or the weight or something.

kudos to those labels/artists that've kept stuff in print and cheap that they easily could have jacked up CRAZILY. like, in the aeroplane over the sea was $12 circa 2002. it's $15 now. that's less than inflation! if they wanted to, they could have forced all latter-day arrivals to this band to buy some horrifying super-edition for $32. really a bummer when something that's been long unavailable finally gets reissued, but it's only in this narrow little niche edition for a million dollars, making it effectively as unavailable as before. o well, can always walk across the street and rifle the dollar and $5 bins of all the endless music from the 60s through 80s that i've not heard yet.

the 90's vinyl pressings were good too. nothing fancy, but i'll take them over all the new stuff that comes out now.

i have "Continuing" on cd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9JzxBFP3Ck

Really? How lossy?

having worked in the media department at Best Buy for a year or two, we barely made pennies on each cd sold, and in some cases (especially with new releases) lost money; this is why our employee discount often wasn't jack shit on cds, if anything at all (we got items at cost + 5%). we were expected to upsell to every customer for this reason - anybody coming in for the new Alicia Keys had to have one of us assholes hovering over their shoulder trying to sell them expensive CD storage cases, cleaners, and other bullshit with high margins.

mizzell is otm about the washing machines too. the margins were the highest on appliances. but really we made our money fleecing people with shitty performance service plans.

so glad I got out of that shit hole.

wow. that's really revealing, thanks. not surprising as such, but fleshes things out quite a bit.

Very timely - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-broke-the-music-business

I like that all that was made possible thanks to a questionable fashion accessory.

MikeTD I'm interested in the Jazz Loft cases; I don't suppose I could be cheeky and ask for a loan of a couple to try out, if you have any spare? Will return relatively quickly, obviously.

Will you bother trying now to sell off your existing CDs?
Will you leave them as a record of 80s/90s to early 00s buying?
Will you continuing buying CDs selectively alongside downloading, for reasons of completing certain artists or genres?

No, I still use them every day.
No, I still buy new ones; they're my primary (only?) format for purchasing / experiencing new music.
No, I'll continue buying them to the exclusion of downloading, because fuck being a database temp for you own hobby.

I don't use a computer at home very often; we have a laptop that I type on or work from home on occasionally, and which I run my iPhone off, but I use it maybe once a week if that. Other than that all my web / information / communication needs are done on an iPad or my phone. Fuck using a computer at home. Computers are tools I use at work. At home I want to cook, hang out with my family, ride bikes, play football, listen to music on big speakers, etc etc. I don't want to sit looking a fucking computer screen anymore.

Written about vinyl vs CD an odious number of times. Here's one! http://sickmouthy.com/2013/12/31/on-vinyl-vs-cd-again/ I just like Cds; they're convenient and sound good and I like how they look on our shelves (which we had purpose built, and which look awesome, thank you very much). Ascetic minimalism is a nice idea but it doesn't work for me in practice. Plus it's a bit Fight Club and I'm not 20 anymore. I like stuff; books, CDs, boardgames, chairs, blankets. Not trinkets and ornaments so much, granted, but I guess books and CDs fill that gap slightly. There are a couple of thousand CDs in the house; about 1,600 on the shelves and about another 400ish in a couple of boxes under the bed in the spare room. And another 100-200 in the loft, actually. We have maybe 50 pieces of vinyl. Never liked it.

Don't get harddrive / cloud / streaming 'convenience' arguments; 'convenience' is something I only want a certain amount of in my life, because I also want to be aware of what I'm doing, and that means ritual and attention and a certain amount of awkwardness, sometimes, to have a better experience. Otherwise I'd eat microwave meals off paper plates.

because fuck being a database temp for you own hobby.

^^^ a million times this

Paper plates all the time would be my dream. Paper plates and streaming music. Life.

Nick, I can happily bung a couple of Jazz Loft cases your way. DM me your postal address on the Twitter.

Definitely agree with that data entry feeling part. Really hate the idea of your job, phone, book reading, music listening and general internet stuff making you spend so much of the day looking at an electronic screen (in addition to screen based things like tv, film, videogames). Don't know why so many people feel comfortable with that amount.

Thanks Mike, will do.

very good point about the database temp. Then again that database work lets me have a curated set of my entire collection on a 4-ounce device.

I wonder if lack of storage space and the likelihood of needing to move house are some of the biggest factors or if just as many digital converts have lots of space in a big house they probably won't leave?

I think that's a good point. Physical media gave me anxiety until my partner and I bought a place and knew we wouldn't have to move again. I've certainly bought more CDs and records since then.

Written about vinyl vs CD an odious number of times. Here's one! http://sickmouthy.com/2013/12/31/on-vinyl-vs-cd-again/

Good article but the Hydrogen Audio FAQ link is broken there, I assume you meant this?

plus you have a lovely daughter to pass them on to now stevie

as does nick

EXACTLY

she bloody loves records, tbh. i think that's half the reason i love putting them on now, she gets v excited and wants to see them spinning around - picture disks and coloured vinyl at a premium. obvs she loves the noises they make too, has already been spotted dancing to madness and oranger and grace jones.

you should get here a toy fisher price one like I had as a toddler. Loved that thing (and the tv my aunt threw out at my grans that was mine)

Thought about that, but the modern day one plays mp3s like it was some kind of plastic serato gizmo. Might see if I can find one of the old school ones on eBay. She clearly would dearly love to be able to get her hands on the record as its spinning...

Thx scikmouthy for an inspiring read - I do feel your approach to formats is quite idealistic in that it is very focused on content, which is ofc cool but I also think it's cool to enjoy the material aspects of whatever formats you collect. Finally I find it a bit meaningless to try and convince anyone that their formats of choice are "wrong" or "inferior".

My stereo setup: ATC speakers, Nakamichi pre-amp, NAD power amp, NAD cd player, Technics 1200 MKII w/ ortophone concorde pickup & om20 stylus. Nothing fancy, but certainly a good enough system that I have a clear idea of what vinyl and cd sound like, and have also on multiple occasions listened to state of the art sound systems (digital and analogue) since I work part time in a hifi store. I realize that the sound of vinyl is in theory distorted, but my experience is that this distortion in many good setups sound more like "clarity" than "warmth" where cds often come off as very "direct" in sound. Love listening to tape to, but my tape recorder is not in good condition so it really just adds lots of warm/muddy distortion - can be nice too though.

I threw out my mp3 collection a while ago, now collect primarily vinyl but also some cd (such bargains atm!) and occasionally will grab tapes at shows/flea markets.

I made the choice to move my main stereo and albums upstairs when my son was about ready to be born because i didn't want to go ape-shit about him putting his sticky mitts on, well, anything he could reach. I had a couple Fisher price units that i bought new needles for but he destroyed them (the needles) within a month. Since, my main stereo has gone into disrepair, my son is ten-yrs-old, and while i'm still buying discs and wax, neither one of us get the pleasure of spinning albums.

...i really need to get back to the real shit.

nick's post makes me long for the inevitable day when all music exists only in the cloud and physical possessions are banned

lol @ the link to home ownership tho. of course. s0 tory

and what is "and physical possessions are banned" ?

if u own physical possessions or a house ur a tory

the alt: lyrics of "Imagine"

all ur cds is tory ammos

http://leftfootforward.org/images/2015/02/tory-boy.jpghttp://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44103000/jpg/_44103121_amos1989_203.jpg

Great article Nick but I disagree with your database temp analogy. It takes me less than 30 seconds to properly tag a downloaded record and much less time to file it than it would take to do the same with physical media. Backups are automated. That said, I'm certainly one of the vast majority who still spends too much time online, and having so much music on a PC system likely contributes to that behaviour. Clearly the trick is to avoid staring at the screen after you've cued up some music.

i don't really go around tagging my mp3s all that much. i still arrange them into alphabetical/artist/album folders on my HD which is a tedious way to go about things but it works for me. At least, it did work for me until I let everything go to pot and now my music collection is p much just an overgrown mess of files and duplicates. The more I can get away from the computer, the better, and that's why despite everything I can't help but admire Nick's CD-only stance even if it's not for me.

what's this idea that music is "a hobby"?

hmm might explain a lot of ILM...

lol @ the link to home ownership tho. of course. s0 tory

that's s0 tory! smdh

I mean i explicitly pointed out that it was the fact that i wouldn't have to move this stuff ever again that made me comfortable to accumulate records again, but go ahead and leap to snap judgements.

I miss spending hours meticulously editing meta data. It fulfilled the same need that level grinding a RPG did for me. Sadly lost that when I switched to 100% streaming.

classic t0ry!

I don't stream, generally, but I often find myself at a party or gathering where the host asks me to choose some music on Spotify and it's just... uhh... it's like I'm staring into the void. I realise in these situations how much I rely on flicking through a CD rack or a bunch of records or a HD folder for inspiration.

I just subscribe them to my starred playlist and put that on random.

yeah that would only work if everyone likes late-period Scott Walker and Cecil Taylor jams.

luckily, everyone does

late-period autechre CDs continue to sound outstanding on my mediocre setup (~40 year-old Pioneer SX-450 receiver). Sony DVD players are very cheap nowadays, they also play mp3 cds. I've always wondered how their vinyls sound, but it seems unreasonably expensive at this point.

CDs were kinda invented to play autechre. and the like. any one of my kompakt CDs could be used as a reference disc in a fancy hi-fi store. no reason to own well-made modern electronic music on vinyl unless you are some kinda insane millionaire DJ and have $$$ to spend on 12 inches. (12 inches the way to go if you are gonna go that way.)

How did those 5 album cheap collections become something so many labels are doing? I'm really happy they're doing them because it's made getting into various bands a lot easier. So many bands I've wanted to get into for years but never started, but now I've bought the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Sisters Of Mercy and Incredible String Band collections; I want the New Model Army, Fields Of Nephilim, Rainbow, Faith No More and Steeleye Span collections. Maybe even Robin Trower and Blue Oyster Cult too.
I'll probably get the Jethro Tull one because it has 4 albums I don't have.

Only worry is that some of them will be poor album selections.

There's a surprising amount of thrash and death metal collections but maybe they're too much of a gamble if I don't know the bands. Not getting the King Diamond one because I need the bonus tracks.

Its because a lot of the original labels have been bought up by the bigger multinationals who want a cheap payback and can knock these sets out without having to involve anyone else, agreementwise.

Also, a lot of the individual cd albums won't sell on their own, but as part of a set they get legs.