RIP, CD: Best Buy to Cut CDs, DVDs....

[The_Iceflash]

RIP, CD: Best Buy to Cut CDs, DVDs as Google, Apple Prep for Music War

Well I'm not happy about this. First of all, the movement of CDs to downloads is taking a step backwards in terms of music quality and all. Second of all, I don't think enough catalog DVDs have been given BD releases to warrant a decrease there yet.

I find it amazing how people are willing to go backwards in quality in terms of music but go forward in terms of movies. Doesn't make any sense to me. (I will defend vinyl listeners because there are many reasons why that can be defended.)

Your thoughts?

[blackcauldron85]

I guess Target and Amazon will be getting more of my money, although I've been shopping less and less at Best Buy pretty much since Circuit City closed.

[UmbrellaFish]

I've never shopped at Best Buy anyway, so it doesn't affect me. But this seems like one heck of a stupid decision...

[Disney's Divinity]

This is just insane. The decrease in DVDs I can kind of understand (though I think they're jumping the gun--DVD's not going as fast as VHS did), but the CD part is just stupidity.

[Escapay]

One of my local Barnes & Nobles did the same thing. They downgraded their CD and DVD section to make room for more Blu-Ray shelves.

When better prices are to be had online, yes, it does make sense to cut down on the space for DVDs. But I don't think they should downgrade the DVD section so soon and so drastically, especially as VHS took quite awhile to get kicked out of stores. DVDs first started hitting the market in 1996, didn't get *big* until 2001 or so, and VHS finally kicked the retail-store bucket in 2004/2005 (I remember a thread on UD in 04 celebrating that Wal-Mart would no longer stock VHS's). They seem to be jumping the gun with DVD, as it's only been 4 years since Blu-ray first arrived.

Oddly, I'm a mixed bag when it comes to CDs. I generally get my music online, but only get a CD (or burn a mixed CD) for the car, as I'm still backwards in that respect by not owning any type of mp3 player. Plus, I like timing my drives to a certain number of tracks on a CD.

albert

[Avaitor]

Well there goes my use for Beat Buy. Maybe I'll go back when I can afford a Blu-Ray player.

[magicalwands]

Plus, I like timing my drives to a certain number of tracks on a CD.

I do too! It makes my drives to school, work and home a LOT more epic and adventurous.

It is kind of scary watching the internet taking this and that away from the world. Nothing beats going out and buying the soundtrack of a new film at your local store.

[DaveWadding]

Unless the CD is BRAND new, I never even think about Best Buy as somewhere to buy a CD. If they have the best deal on the newest release that I want, I go there.

Best Buy is just cutting most of their back catalog type stuff. Everyone is. Maybe I'm "old school" but for the most part, I buy my own CDs and make my own MP3s out of it. I would rather have the ability to dictate the sound quality of the songs on my iPod and have that hard backup just in case something goes wrong. Physical music media isn't going anywhere. I'm not going to say I don't buy music from iTunes or Amazon, but it has to be a much better deal than the physical CD for me to even CONSIDER it.

Again, that's just me I guess.

[milojthatch]

I have been for some time a loyal customer of Best Buy, even when their prices were just so/so. But with this news, I'm done. DVD's and CD's were THE BULK of what I ever bought there. Stuff that wasn't one of those was very rare that I'd buy there. With this news, I think I'm done with them for good.

I hope lots of other people feel the same way I do and that they go the way of Circuit City. I'm sticking to Amazon.com from now on.

[ajmrowland]

though whatever few ?treasures? they have are much cheaper than amazon.

[Lazario]

On the CD part, I hate the idea too... But I have to stop myself to remind me: I haven't bought a brand-new CD from an artist since 2004. 6 entire years. When I did, it was Bjork's Medulla and Gwen Stefani's Love Angel Music Baby - though someone gave me Madonna's Confessions On a Dancefloor as a gift in '05- the version where all the songs blend into each other. And after that, I bought about 6 or 7 of the Confessions tracks online because they had spaces between each song. So, I think I'm starting to understand what's going on here.

I got a weird question though... People really do like listening to music on their stereo, so what's going to happen to Burnable/Recordable CD's? People do not just stick digital music files onto a portable device and listen to it that way. The talk I'm hearing makes it sound like they think all form of compact disc will die- but that's absurd because digital music makes those CD-R's and CD-RW's essential along with the iPods. This move will probably help destroy CD. And here's another quandry- what about albums? If we're talking tracks now, digital music buys where people might just take a couple singles... but a real CD album you play all the way through because you pop it into your stereo is the reason bands have always made whole albums (which of course: used to be on 45's, vinyl records, cassette tapes). Will that stop in 10 years time or something? Will artists just make a few digital tracks and say- screw doing albums altogether? What would they bother doing it for, a stream of digital music?

Maybe, if they just manufactured fewer CD's because they know fewer people are buying them. I'm a dolt when it comes to this kind of thing- but wouldn't that help a bit? Then they really wouldn't have to worry about the space it takes stores to stock them. I know one of the reasons I stopped even looking through stores' CD sections was because they would always stock way too many copies of one kind of new stupid artist I didn't care about and didn't have enough variety. There would be 2 entire rows of 8 CD's (so there'd be at least 16 copies in the alphabetic section, plus more display cases in the walkway next to the clothes section and more near the check out aisles!) for some... CENSORED Jay-Z CD at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, maybe even Aimes when they were still around. And nobody wants censored rap. Of course... this probably doesn't apply to Best Buy, does it? When I look through their DVD section, they do try to only have a few of one kind.

But the last time I went to Blockbuster- it was the same bloody problem as Wal-Mart: a million copies of that Cheaper by the Dozen Part 2. I am not kidding - wall to wall of that thing. There were copies lying randomly face-down on the floor because they didn't have enough shelves to stock them in the display cases. They were in every section of the place: the New section, the Used section (and there were hundreds in there as well as hanging in the mountainous New walls), the Alphabetical racks. It was almost creepy- like Blockbuster were now some Mom & Pop store trying to sell out and thinking this was the title to usher in all the people who just couldn't find enough copies of their favorite new movie at the major stores. I'm not surprised that they're out of business. They sucked.

I never go to BestBuy though. Their selection of Horror back in 2002-2003 was superb! I almost went crazy in there one day. Then I watched as year to year it dwindled down to nothing. Last time I went in there, I took one look at their TV section and walked away fast. After buying 2 seasons of Roseanne for $13 a piece, BestBuy was selling them for $25!! A piece. That's just sick. And their Disney section? Laughable at best. Same as Wal-Mart's stock, some missing in fact. And the prices are just as bad. $20 for Robin Hood: Most Wanted edition?! There's more stuff on The Rescuers and Wal-Mart was selling that for $10!!! Though by the time I ran in there to get it, dreaming about owning it all week- they jacked it up to $13. I could have screamed!

Yes, I'm practically broke and desperate. Which is another reason I haven't bought a new CD at some place like Wal-Mart in so many years. I don't know how much it costs to mass-produce a CD title and distribute, but $15 for an album where most people always tell you: "there's only one or 2 songs you're going to like"... ? If these people aren't going to lower prices- it's always going to be cheaper to buy online. Not to mention, the people who steal music online too. Again, I say it's because to buy music in CD form is ridiculous!! It's too much, too high. Ridiculous. The only way to get Lady Gaga's song "Fashion" is to buy the soundtrack to Confessions of a Shopaholic for at least $12 on CD. Maybe less if you buy it digitally, but you want the album? You pay shipping and handling too, to get it the cheapest, and online to avoid paying the $14 or $15 overprice at a big-name store. So guess what? I went to some online webpage and downloaded "Fashion" for free.

THAT is why CD is in trouble! I don't know about you guys, but I'm still hurting financially from The Bush Years. Even the people with jobs are struggling at best and we're all still drowning in material consumer culture. Part of us deserves a spanking because we're spoiled. And we feel entitled to things we aren't owed. But that doesn't stop us from taking it. I was reading a related discussion online- about the Recording Industry's measures to stop illegal online music taking / downloading. Because their CD sales were hurting. And they were convinced everyone on Earth with a computer were stealing music. But no matter how reprehensible what the people who steal are doing is, the record companies are out of their friggin' minds still charging us so much for CD's to buy in stores and kind of expecting for the longest time that we would buy them there and pay the highest prices. Instead of looking for a cheaper way.

You know what I do now to get the few pop songs I like? YouTube-to-MP3 conversion! Even a slightly degraded form of music quality has now taken a priority to paying a dime for radio tracks by Katy Perry, Rihanna, Christina Aguilera, Beyonce, etc.

As for this DVD news... I told you guys: Blu-Ray is trying to take over DVD. And as long as everyone here buys the newer movies and shows (which almost all uniformly suck anyway), the newer format will keep subtly destroying something a lot of people can't afford to replace right now. They're not giving anyone a chance. Well, in a few months or a couple years- you'll see I was right all along. And we'll just see if Laura (1944) has a chance of getting a substantial release then (sorry, Escapay!).

[DarthPrime]

Doesn't sound like they are getting rid of them completely, just reducing space. I can sort of understand it. A lot of people have went to downloading music instead of buying CDs.

As far as DVDs, its a little early, but Blu-ray is catching on better now. I read earlier this week that stores are expected to have $49 Blu-ray players during some of the holiday sales, and I'm sure by next summer that will be normal price for some models. At the sub-$50 price there isn't room for DVD and Blu-ray players on store shelfs. Although I think there is still room for DVDs for catalog movies, etc...

[David S.]

RIP, CD: Best Buy to Cut CDs, DVDs as Google, Apple Prep for Music War

Well I'm not happy about this. First of all, the movement of CDs to downloads is taking a step backwards in terms of music quality and all. Second of all, I don't think enough catalog DVDs have been given BD releases to warrant a decrease there yet.

I find it amazing how people are willing to go backwards in quality in terms of music but go forward in terms of movies. Doesn't make any sense to me. (I will defend vinyl listeners because there are many reasons why that can be defended.)

Your thoughts?

My thoughts are that it sucks!

I'm not into this whole download stuff! I buy packaged media to get the artwork and credits and so forth - to have the "real" album. If I was just going to download a "bitstream" or whatever that I'd have to burn onto a CD or DVD myself to actually listen or watch it on my REAL stereo and tv instead of on a computer, and not get any packaging whatsoever, why buy from the media companies at all, when you can just get them other ways! To me, downloading a file is no different that having someone make a copy of one of their albums for me to listen to. If I liked it, I'd still want to buy it "officially", and if I didn't, then I wouldn't be listening to it much anyway. But even if I had an album on a CD-R or whatever, I NEVER feel like it's part of my collection until I have the REAL, official packaged version with the artwork the artist intended to represent their work, the lyric sheet, liner notes, or whatever else is included in the CD booklet. Once I have that, and it's on my shelf, only then do I feel like it's part of my collection!

Also, I view albums (whether on CD, vinyl cassette, or otherwise) as a complete work of art, intended to be listened to in their entirety, as per the artist's wishes while putting thought into the running order (ie Sgt Pepper, Dark Side Of the Moon, A Musical History of Disneyland boxed set, etc)

This whole download craze seems to be emphasizing the "instant gratification" of individual tracks rather than the album as a cohesive work of art. Which in my eyes is regression, considering all the strides that were taken in the 60's and 70's to establish the concept of the album as an art form.

As far as the idea of people being willing to settle for a loss of quality for the "convenience" of downloadable music, considering the CD "outdated", and embracing VINYL as their medium of choice for home listening... I don't get that AT ALL!

Vinyl? The only advantage I can ever see about vinyl is it has larger artwork to CD. That's it. CD has a cleaner sound, better dynamic range, no snap, crackle, pop sound artifacts that vinyl is infamous for. It doesn't deteriorate every time you play it (like vinyl, cassette tapes, and VHS) and, like DVD, if you take care of it, it will last forever.

And a work of 80 minutes or less can fit on one disc, allowing for smooth, seemless, flow, unlike vinyl which can only be played for around 20-25 minutes before it has to be flipped over or changed to "Record 2"

Sure, the "loudness wars" have caused some newer CDs to be mastered way to loud, crushing dynamic range and leading to distortion, but that is NOT the fault of the CD medium, or an inherent problem with the format! The loud mastering, from what I have read, seems to be a result of the desire for the music to sound "better" on cheap systems, like I-pod earbuds!

IMO, CD should still be the ideal medium of choice for home listening, and will remain my medium of choice. And I am PROUD of the fact that I don't have an "I-pod" and that when I take music on the go, I take complete CDs to be played on my portable CD walkman player, with more traditional headphones! Apple schmapple! The fact that they are playing a large role in killing my beloved packaged CD format makes me HATE them!

I grew up with vinyl, but was a CD "early adopter". From the beginning, I LOVED the format, and repurchased all of my vinyl records and casette tapes on CD. I always keep a working turntable and casette deck, though, for material which has sadly never been released on CD.

When DVD came along, it seemed like the CD revolution all over again, only this time, for video content. I embraced it just as enthusiastically as I did CD over a decade earlier, rebought my VHSes, etc. And always keep working VHS players for material that has sadly never been released on DVD.

As for Best Buy, it does sound like they are not getting rid of CD altogether, but drastically reducing their selections. They'll probably be like Wal Mart and Target, and just stock the "latest and hippest" new popular releases, with very few if any "catologue titles". Which sucks for me, because 99 percent of the "pop" music I buy is catalogue titles! And I also buy a lot of "esoteric" genres, such as film scores, musicals, classical, Disney music, and so-called "children's music", which are hard to find anyway.

That's why the biggest blow for me was the nationwide loss of both Tower and Virgin. If a CD or DVD was in print, they either had it or would order it for you! And they even stocked a nice selection of import CDs from Europe that were unavailable as US releases!

Oh well, if they don't want my money, I know someone who does - Amazon.com, and they have pretty much every physical media CD and DVD that ever existed, either new if in print, or through their "Marketplace" for OOP stuff.

Ideally, I prefer to buy new titles in person in a "brick and mortar" store, but if much of what I want will be harder and harder to find, I'm glad to know Amazon is there!

My favorite thing to go out shopping for has ALWAYS been CDs and DVDs! I LOVE the thrill of finding EXACTLY what you want, holding it in your hand, and the anticipation of driving home looking forward to watching it or listening to it! If it becomes more necessary to start buying these from home, that's one less reason to leave the house, which I think is kind of sad.

[my chicken is infected]

^ I have plenty of needledrops I've downloaded off the internet that have none of that loud hiss, crackle, popping, static, etc. Of course, those people probably removed the pops manually, ran a few light filters to reduce (not remove, just reduce) noise and other artifacts, have high-end equipment, good clean copies of the records they're needledropping, etc. There's some needledrops I have that far outshine the available CD versions - mostly albums that were released on CD in the 80's using second or third generation masters and haven't been touched since, such as Stevie Nicks' Bella Donna, which, along with all her other solo albums from the 1980's, desperately needs remastering.

A properly remastered CD is always superior to vinyl to my ears, but unfortunately, not all CD's have had a proper remaster. And some get one, then the good version is taken out of print and replaced by a version that sounds like shit. I'm looking at Capitol Records and some of their shitty Frank Sinatra CD's that have flat lifeless sound, drenched in awful reverb, have too much noise reduction, etc. that replaced superior ones released in the early 90's. Depressing, considering that the same record company has released several Judy Garland compilations, full-length albums, etc. and they all sound damned near flawless.

[The_Iceflash]

One of my local Barnes & Nobles did the same thing. They downgraded their CD and DVD section to make room for more Blu-Ray shelves.
albert

One near me too. Though we know it's the same one.

[Flanger-Hanger]

With the ability to hook up my ipod to my stereo I have no use for CDs beyond backing up my music should something go wrong with my computer.

It's been years since I bought a CD and it's entirely for the reasons Laz mentioned. Why pay that much when you want so little? For the same $15 you could get an itunes card and shop on that store to get specifically what you want.

As for quality, everything on that store is already sold at 256kb and it wouldn't surprise me to see it go up to 320kb when CDs become so scarce. And to me, the gap between 256 and 320 is negligible and hard to hear a significant difference in quality.

With DVDs it's probably too soon to downgrade stock to a large degree.

[pap64]

In all honesty, I could care less about CDs. I no longer use CDs except to burn MP3s and data files for backup purposes. It's been ages since I last heard a CD, so the only ones affected here are the rat packs and people that are obsessed with owning something physical rather than the data (I could easily go on a rant about this since I've heard so many ridiculous claims it's silly...).

But the DVDs...that's a serious problem. Like Escapay said, Blu-Ray has yet to take over for DVD in the same way that DVD took over VHS back in the mid 90s and early 00s. The adoption rate, I believe, is very slow, and there are still some movies left to be ported to Blu-Ray so axing them completely might be a mistake.

[David S.]

It's been years since I bought a CD and it's entirely for the reasons Laz mentioned. Why pay that much when you want so little? For the same $15 you could get an itunes card and shop on that store to get specifically what you want.

I guess I don't have that dilemma, in that I am rarely interested in individual tracks as compared to entire albums. I see the tracks as like a scene of a film, part of a larger whole, which is the complete work - the full album.

So I don't mind paying a little more to get the official album art, lyric sheet, production credits, etc. of a "real", physical CD. It's the same reason why when friends have "ripped" me a "bit for bit" CD copy of an album I haven't heard to see if I might like it, if I ended up liking it and wanted it to be part of the "family" of my collection, I'd go out and buy a CD copy of it even though I already had a good sounding copy. Plus, if I paid to get a "download" version of an album, I'd still need to spend the time converting it to a homemade CD so I could actually LISTEN to the music I paid for on my stereo, car CD player, and portable CD walkman.

I don't have an "i-pod", "i-tunes", or "i-phone" or whatever and have no plans of ever getting one, so in my world all this "download" stuff would just be a complicated hastle compared to the convenience of just buying what I want on a physical CD and having it already on the disc for me! And I still buy CDs on a near-weekly basis!

In all honesty, I could care less about CDs. I no longer use CDs except to burn MP3s and data files for backup purposes. It's been ages since I last heard a CD, so the only ones affected here are the rat packs and people that are obsessed with owning something physical rather than the data (I could easily go on a rant about this since I've heard so many ridiculous claims it's silly...).

I'm not sure what Frank, Dean, and Sammy have to do with this! But it is neither rediculous or silly to want a physical copy with the official album artwork and credits to proudly display on your shelf as part of your CD and DVD collection, for reasons I've described above in this post and my earlier one! If all I'm paying for is a datastream that I have to convert to a CD-R in order to be able to listen to it on all of my equipment except a computer, I see no incentive to actually pay the media companies for music I will be listening to on an unofficial CD-R, in any cases where someone I already know with that title would be willing to "rip" it for me onto that same CD-R, with the same exact quality, free of charge!

For the way I collect and listen to music, this whole "download" thing is a MASSIVE step backwards!

Damn Apple and their CD-killing "i-this" and "i-that"!

[Flanger-Hanger]

Feel free to rant Pap, I'd love to hear those "ridiculous claims".

Just doing some simple search for info on sales figures I found this on wiki (I know, I know) that was interesting:

"In the 21st century, consumers spent far less money on recorded music than they had in 1990s, in all formats. Total revenues for CDs, vinyl, cassettes and digital downloads in the world dropped 25% from $38.6 billion in 1999 to $27.5 billion in 2008 according to IFPI. Same revenues in the U.S. dropped from a high of $14.6 billion in 1999 to $9 billion in 2008. The Economist and The New York Times report that the downward trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future[6][7] —Forrester Research predicts that by 2013, revenues in USA may reach as low as $9.2 billion.[6] This dramatic decline in revenue has caused large-scale layoffs inside the industry, driven retailers (such as Tower Records) out of business and forced record companies, record producers, studios, recording engineers and musicians to seek new business models.[8]"

There's an odd bit of wording in the text in that the predicted low of $9.2 billion in 2013 is somehow lower than the $9 billion sales figure in 2008.

However, the simple fact is, alot less people are buying CDs and the trend is not going to change anytime soon if at all. At this point in time, the industry can still pull in billions, but if sales are dropping so quickly what will be the point in supporting their production? How many people will be buying CDs 10 years from now?

[David S.]

How many people will be buying CDs 10 years from now?

At least one, but I can't speak for anyone else but myself!