Continuing with CDs?

graphic design was their passion

f^ck.
now the "revival" has gone mainstream.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/cd-revival-compact-discs-rob-sheffield-1284487/

i must have ~150 discs already, after three months. scored so many pop & indie gems from charity shops for peanuts. i could have never afforded that many records in the same amount of time. it's been such a pleasure to just sit and play them through, not be tethered by my laptop or phone, not skip tracks, know that it is full fidelity. excited to actually be able to afford to press my own music on disc soon, too. there is nothing to lose here.

after three months. scored so many pop & indie gems from charity shops for peanuts. i could have never afforded that many records in the same amount of time. it's been such a pleasure to just sit and play them through, not be tethered by my laptop or phone, not skip tracks, know that it is full fidelity. excited to actually be able to afford to press my own music on disc soon, too. there is nothing to lose here.

so long as this is not a p£ss taking post then welcome to the nu-old world order.

We've repressed exactly one CD title in the last half decade, and that's for a band with over 1M monthly listeners. Most of our new CDs struggle to sell out of their meager initial pressing, which is why we've more or less abandoned the format. The CD revival is a myth.

— numerogroup (@numerogroup) January 19, 2022

if it's a myth why has every music outlet published nearly identical articles about it over the past 3 months

Numero pvmic

CDs full of old 45s nobody wanted to begin with ;-)

I don't really want to un-debunk the notion that the CD revivial is a myth but the vinyl revival of course started with old stuff long before it was about actually pressing stuff up again.

Or un-debunk the notion of the CD revival, rather.

I've got a lot of love for Numero Group and I'm not doubting their experiences but, at the same time, I'm not going to look to a label that stopped selling CDs half a decade ago to have their finger on the pulse of what is selling in 2021-22.

I think it depends on genre or label, seems like a lot of metal or stoner leaning labels still do decent CD numbers.

i think it's kind of a shame — I'd hold up Numero as a label that actually shows how appealing CDs can be.

personally i have been having a great time scooping up numero releases during their periodic CD sales as they clean out their stock.

idk at some point it comes down to your definition of "revival" but imo while its a great time to be building/maintaining a CD collection it doesnt seem like a lot of people are exactly rushing to pay retail for new discs (even if that "full-price" is only $10.) while there are certain niches and scenes that obv move more new CDs than others, to me that doesnt spell "revival" so much as, well, "niche format".

It was a shame, to be sure. Numero had some great CD packages and I was really bummed when they gave up on them.

serious "sour grapes" vibes from that Numero post

sorry you pressed too many back in the day and took a bath on them, but maybe it's time to reconsider

like, if they repressed that fucking Unwound box on CD I would buy it in a second, and (almost) forgive them for the absolutely garbage job they did on the vinyl versions

i think it's kind of a shame — I'd hold up Numero as a label that actually shows how appealing CDs can be.

― tylerw, Wednesday, January 19, 2022 5:28 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is absolutely right. all their old soul label comps were great CDs--a little disc with 20 or so fun obscure songs that fit on a shelf. i don't really need a 3xLP box and full size book of pictures for that but i guess enough people do.

i bought more CDs last year than i did the last decade combined. looking for used CDs can be more fun/fruitful than looking for used records these days... i went into amoeba and searching for vinyl there is completely useless at best and actively aggravating at worst. but i bought CDs of janet jackson's entire discography for like $18 total. they were basically begging me to walk out of there with them. now all i need is a way to play them, lol. but it's worth it for getting the booklets alone... esp CDs from the CD era, there's so much info and personality in the booklets that you can't find online. some of them basically qualify as historical literature at this point imo, should be in the library of congress

can you address my studenst

certain kinds of small bookstores and second hand stores are teeming w/ good used CDs these days. i got a pristine copy of 'rhythm of the saints' for a few bucks at a tiny bookstore in santa fe recently and i could've floated all the way back home i was so happy

i've bought > 100 CDs in the past year at thrift stores - most for $1-2 each

most of it's shit but a few gems

i'm not sure i would buy a new CD tho unless i knew for a fact that a lot of effort had been put into the packaging, booklet etc. i'm not really buying them in order to play them.

i just find CDs increasingly interesting and useful as historical artifacts. for me, the vinyl market feels so out of wack now in terms of difficulty in finding good original pressings of records for affordable prices. and then re-pressings are either lazily done just so someone can say a vinyl of album x exists or lavishly done, priced at $32, and buying them feels like you're being robbed. getting a CD that gives you the artist's original artistic vision for less than $5, that's what has a lot of appeal to me.

I'm glad Sheffield mentioned box sets. THAT is where CD's truly shine. Four CD's and a booklet in a long and thin box set seems like the perfect balance of size and economy to me (James Brown's Star Time, Motown's Hitsville, The Patsy Cline Collection, They Call Me the Fat Man, Otis!, etc.) Hefty yet light and portable, the same 300 minutes converted to vinyl would be pretty damn cumbersome.

That’s a good point. CDs are a perfect format for comps

And bands like The Necks, whose 60 minute reveries would be buzzkilled by vinyl.

i just find CDs increasingly interesting and useful as historical artifacts.

I remember talking with Simon Price a couple of years back during a UK visit about how I specifically had been getting them because a good CD booklet with liner notes is kinda invaluable. Obv. you can get that with vinyl too but combine the convenience with the size and there you go. The vast majority of my music buying remains Bandcamp digital but I've picked up a LOT of Ace and Cherry Red sets in recent years, not least because due to licensing and all they're not on and likely never will be on Bandcamp.

The record store in my hometown has a well-stocked Various Artists section, and when I pop in it tends to be my first (and sometimes last) stop. I'll generally snap up whatever Bob Stanley comps have been released in the interim, as well as whatever other Ace/Cherry Red things look good. (They all do.) And it really is all about the liner notes. I can't just listen, I need the context.

cheery red is a good answer to my earlier question, lots of useful looking cd box sets available direct from them

Have you all bought the C86, C87, C88, C89 3CD compilations?

I like them. Haven't gone on to C90 as it was basically moving into Madchester territory.

The Rob Sheffield Rolling Stone CD Revival article is bad. Badly written, badly structured. And like so much discourse in this area, it strains to make a very subjective feeling into a convincing argument. Even the claim that 'Sure, you were never sentimental about your CDs' is false. I'm just as sentimental about many of my CDs as about much of my vinyl.

Yet it does contain one compelling argument, about the transience of non-physical music - ie: 'you had an mp3 collection that you can't play anymore', etc. I think there's a lot in that, as also in the points that people on this thread have agreed upon re: the unreliability of streaming due to a) unreliable internet, b) unreliable corporate decisions / copyright.

i *lived* the c86 c87 c88 cds 8)

lots of things on those i already have, to the point of making them bad value, whereas...

actually looking at the various 3cd psych compilations which contain about 70 things each that i know very little about. like this https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/lets-go-down-blow-our-minds-the-british-psychedelic-sounds-of-1967/

lol, cd91

"PACKED WITH WELL-KNOWN FAVOURITES – THE CHARLATANS, MANIC STREET PREACHERS, DODGY, SAINT ETIENNE, THE CRANBERRIES, NED’S ATOMIC DUSTBIN, NORTHSIDE, ETC – ALONGSIDE UNDERGROUND AND CULT INDEPENDENT HEROES – SULTANS OF PING FC, CHAPTERHOUSE, KINGMAKER, THE STAIRS, FLOWERED UP, LEVITATION AND MANY, MANY MORE."

kill me now

There were a lot of chicken littles warning in the 90's about the transient nature of compact discs, i.e. they were a cheap medium that would degrade over time (like, ten years time) to the point of being unlistenable. Music that was digitally recorded and manufactured would be lost forever! I'm guessing I'll be long gone when that happens to a vast majority of the CDs I have amassed.

xp If You Aren't Nauseous You Weren't There!

I've got just under 2,000 CDs that I'm now ready to part with. I'm streaming everything now, so I don't see the point in keeping them. Went to a record store owned by a friend, and he told me I'd probably get less than $1,000 for all of them. I was thinking about inviting a bunch of friends over and let them go for $1 or $2 apiece, but I'm not even sure if there would be any interest.

I sold off a large chunk of my CD collection over the years and nearly always the ones I most regret not hanging onto are boxed sets or compilations, the liner notes being a big part of it. I often feel like the time I started digging into older music (at some point in the 2000s) was a golden age for affordable comps and reissues, Soul Jazz and Strut as well as Numero Group.

(Various xposts, that wasn't meant as a counter to Jazzbo!)

You could always start a thread to sell them here for more? .50 each when purchased for $10 each would make me stubbornly keep them.

I have about the same amount now. After several purges over the decades, pretty solid on keeping what I have. I do need to get a cd player installed in my 2021 Jetta to play them.

I'll tell ya what sucks: new cars not coming with CD players. Often it was the only time to listen to archival stuff. I can't even hook up a portable player...unless someone has suggestions?

Koogs: yes, I have lots of those C88 etc tracks on vinyl and some of them even on mp3 from ... you! But the CDs are still good to have and good value I'd say.

Bluetooth transmitter? xp

I would take suggestions, too. Right now, I'm playing radio and a USB flash drive patched into the USB-C outlet playing .mp3s. I guess one VW bonus is the ambient highway noise makes the .mp3 audio sub-purity a non-issue.

There are a few YouTube videos out there (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0QschYV9Y8, one) I've looked at, though haven't bought yet.

I'm playing radio and a USB flash drive patched into the USB-C outlet playing .mp3s

me too

my car has Bluetooth, used for my phone.

Have you all bought the C86, C87, C88, C89 3CD compilations?

Got 'em all! Useful summaries of a time I just missed in terms of my reading/understanding of UK stuff before it really started kicking in more in 1990.

actually looking at the various 3cd psych compilations which contain about 70 things each that i know very little about. like this https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/lets-go-down-blow-our-minds-the-british-psychedelic-sounds-of-1967/

Reviewed it!

https://thequietus.com/articles/21195-lets-go-down-and-blow-our-minds-the-british-psychedelic-sounds-of-1967-review

That whole series is pretty good, I stopped with '71, but it's most recently backtracked to '65.

Other Cherry Red series I've followed in recent years from them: the Close To the Noise Floor underground electronics/experimental comps from the 70s/early 80s, the Musik Music Musique early synthpop series, the proto-metal early 70s I'm A Freak, Baby comps.

My car is a 2009 model, so just old enough to have a dashboard 6CD changer which I never use, and an aux port that I plug my digital Walkman into.

Another thing Cherry Red's been good for lately are some really, really sharp single-artist boxes -- Tommy James and the Shondells, Steppenwolf (at unperson's recommendation!), and especially the Electric Prunes one, which for all the David Axelrod stuff alone is amazing. The two separate boxes of Raw Power-era Iggy and the Stooges, one live and one studio, do a great job of pulling together all these weird demi-bootlegs and Kris Needs's liners are crucial for making sense of it all.

Yeah, I've also bought single-artist Cherry Red boxes by Mudhoney (all their mid '90s albums), the Georgia Satellites, Sir Lord Baltimore, Toe Fat, and a massive Pentangle box from 2017 that has all their classic albums expanded as double CDs with a shit-ton of bonus tracks, live material, etc., etc. There's an Atomic Rooster set I've got my eye on, too.

Yeah, I picked up that Atomic Rooster one recently, it's good! Sounds like I need to investigate the Mudhoney one.

I also picked up a Toe Fat one, but I think it was from Esoteric, which is another good place for decent single artist boxes. I picked up their Fruup one during the pandemic.

bookmarkflaglink

I'm playing radio and a USB flash drive patched into the USB-C outlet playing .mp3s

me too

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, January 20, 2022 10:19 AM (one hour ago)

how about a 3.5mm to USB-C adapter if you already have a discman?

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61YDwa-YBHS._AC_SL1500_.jpg