Post by Erik Rupp on Aug 18, 2012 13:28:19 GMT -5
I found myself driving home from work the other day, and I was in the mood to pick up some new music. I had the money, I had the interest, but there was one problem.
No record stores.
Sure, WalMart still has a miniscule CD section, as does Best Buy, but most true Record Stores are gone. That means that buying music is almost exclusive to the internet, and that sucks.
One of the great joys in life for many people - myself included - was going to a record store and browsing through the shelves or bins. You never knew what gems you'd run across while looking through the inventory. I found literally hundreds of good to great albums over the years that way. And there's something to actually touching and feeling the CD (or, going back further, record). You can flip it over, look at the back cover, and really get a sense of what the thing is all about. It's a tactile experience - something that gets completely lost when looking for music on the internet.
And then there's the whole, "CD VS Downloads," debate.
I'm one of those people who wants a physical product. I want something tangible for my money - and something more durable than a digital download. If I want my MP3 fils I'll just rip them myself from the CD (at what is usually a higher bitrate with higher quality than the downloads would have). I've lost hundreds of music files on a couple different computers that have gone bad over the years. Even if itunes or Amazon would allow me to re-download them that is a time consuming effort. I'd rather use my CD's to do the same thing - it's just as fast, but again has the best possible quality.
Then you've got the instant gratification factor. Assuming that you do prefer CD's then the lack of true record stores just kills that desire to buy a couple new CD's on the way home. If you can't find the titles you want at Best Buy or WalMart then you have to wait a week or more to actually receive the CD in the mail after you've ordered it online. UGH. Another disappointment.
Yeah, I was out of luck. Sure, I stopped in to a Best Buy and did pick up the remastered version of Van Halen's 1984 CD, but that wasn't exactly what I was hoping to find going in. I was hoping to find a title that I hadn't thought of previously. I was hoping for something that would surprise me. Hoping and expecting are two different things.
The music industry is in shambles, and the main reason for that is the advent of digital downloads. OK, the people running the record companies over the last decade plus haven't exactly been rocket scientists (they've made a ton of mistakes that have hurt the industry), but, still - it's the download that has made the CD an endangered format.
Those experiences I had at Tower Records or Lou's Records or even my own Vista Records are long gone, and 9 or 10 times a year I really miss them.
For now I'm going to buy as many titles on CD as I can while I can. I just wish I could do it the old fashioned way.
-Erik Rupp
August 18, 2012
No record stores.
Sure, WalMart still has a miniscule CD section, as does Best Buy, but most true Record Stores are gone. That means that buying music is almost exclusive to the internet, and that sucks.
One of the great joys in life for many people - myself included - was going to a record store and browsing through the shelves or bins. You never knew what gems you'd run across while looking through the inventory. I found literally hundreds of good to great albums over the years that way. And there's something to actually touching and feeling the CD (or, going back further, record). You can flip it over, look at the back cover, and really get a sense of what the thing is all about. It's a tactile experience - something that gets completely lost when looking for music on the internet.
And then there's the whole, "CD VS Downloads," debate.
I'm one of those people who wants a physical product. I want something tangible for my money - and something more durable than a digital download. If I want my MP3 fils I'll just rip them myself from the CD (at what is usually a higher bitrate with higher quality than the downloads would have). I've lost hundreds of music files on a couple different computers that have gone bad over the years. Even if itunes or Amazon would allow me to re-download them that is a time consuming effort. I'd rather use my CD's to do the same thing - it's just as fast, but again has the best possible quality.
Then you've got the instant gratification factor. Assuming that you do prefer CD's then the lack of true record stores just kills that desire to buy a couple new CD's on the way home. If you can't find the titles you want at Best Buy or WalMart then you have to wait a week or more to actually receive the CD in the mail after you've ordered it online. UGH. Another disappointment.
Yeah, I was out of luck. Sure, I stopped in to a Best Buy and did pick up the remastered version of Van Halen's 1984 CD, but that wasn't exactly what I was hoping to find going in. I was hoping to find a title that I hadn't thought of previously. I was hoping for something that would surprise me. Hoping and expecting are two different things.
The music industry is in shambles, and the main reason for that is the advent of digital downloads. OK, the people running the record companies over the last decade plus haven't exactly been rocket scientists (they've made a ton of mistakes that have hurt the industry), but, still - it's the download that has made the CD an endangered format.
Those experiences I had at Tower Records or Lou's Records or even my own Vista Records are long gone, and 9 or 10 times a year I really miss them.
For now I'm going to buy as many titles on CD as I can while I can. I just wish I could do it the old fashioned way.
-Erik Rupp
August 18, 2012
