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Well, this was quicker than expected

People pay for media-less music all the time - Sirius and the music channels in TWC & Comcast, for example.

Personally, I want the highest quality format. I can live with downloadable content if, and only if, it is at least 16/44.1 resolution (lossless compression is fine), I can play it on any device I own or may own, and there is a method for re-downloading it should something catastrophic happen and I lose it.

Another important aspect is the ability to perfectly reproduce the full-album experience. For decades many artists made albums with a cycle of songs all tied together with overlap and auditory flow. Take Frank Zappa, Kate Bush, Genesis, Jethro Tull and others whose records were listened to like one long song rather than a collection of singles. I hate it when I am trying to listen to a real "album", like Quadrophenia, on my portable music player or phone and there are little half second gaps between the almost arbitrarilly defined track separations.
 
Randy said:
Plus where would we be without all those cool album covers of our youth.
Meh, when you get to be my age you can't see it on CD covers either... :geek:
 
Botch said:
Randy said:
Plus where would we be without all those cool album covers of our youth.
Meh, when you get to be my age you can't see it on CD covers either... :geek:

:text-+1:

You know you're getting up there when a magnifying glass is essential to have sitting on the end table.
 
Flint said:
Another important aspect is the ability to perfectly reproduce the full-album experience.

Honest question... Do you think that is important to the typical musc buyer? When I listen to people talk about music I invariably hear the same thing... "I don't want to buy the whole album becaus theres only one or two good songs". With the exception of a very few audio enthusiasts (most of the ones I know are on this forum) I don't know anyone that values at all the full-album experience.
 
Towen7 said:
Flint said:
Another important aspect is the ability to perfectly reproduce the full-album experience.

Honest question... Do you think that is important to the typical musc buyer? When I listen to people talk about music I invariably hear the same thing... "I don't want to buy the whole album becaus theres only one or two good songs". With the exception of a very few audio enthusiasts (most of the ones I know are on this forum) I don't know anyone that values at all the full-album experience.

I agree. The key words today are speed and convenience. People buying music today will tell you if they want the "album experience" they can just look it up on their phone,tablet or computer.

We are a dying breed.
 
mzpro5 said:
Towen7 said:
Flint said:
Another important aspect is the ability to perfectly reproduce the full-album experience.

Honest question... Do you think that is important to the typical musc buyer? When I listen to people talk about music I invariably hear the same thing... "I don't want to buy the whole album becaus theres only one or two good songs". With the exception of a very few audio enthusiasts (most of the ones I know are on this forum) I don't know anyone that values at all the full-album experience.

I agree. The key words today are speed and convenience. People buying music today will tell you if they want the "album experience" they can just look it up on their phone,tablet or computer.

We are a dying breed.

I don't care if I am not mainstream, but I think there is an appreciable sized market for albums. Look at the LP market. It never completely died and is doing very well today. If we started a thread talking about the death of LPs there would be several people on our own forum who would argue that LPs are alive and well. I think CDs could go that same route. We have another thread showing that Cassettes are making some sort of comeback.

So, we can talk about the mass market and say that the lack of popularity of CDs is a sign they are completely going away, but I don't believe that is the case. They may become a nitche product, but they will remain for some time.
 
I never meant to imply that the CD format was going away because of the way people consume music. Just that it is a factor in the decline of the format. For the record (record... get it?) I'm convinced CDs will be around for a long time. But I don't think that the "whole album experience" has much to do with it.
 
I think it may matter to the greater artists.

They'll find a way, though. I know they will.
 
Yeah I think the "iPod generation" doesn't care about albums, and how could they learn to do so when everything is sold per-track? They pick the songs that are most popular and probably never even hear the rest, which in some cases is no big loss but in others they're really missing out.

I'm definitely in the full-album camp. Many of my favorite artists I feel put a lot of thought into the "arc" of their albums and it increases my listening appreciation when I play it from start to finish. Some examples from the top of my head are Mumford&Sons (very much so in this case IMHO), Sarah Jarosz, Philip Aaberg, Kate Bush, and yes... Joe Bonamassa. Even if we're a minority, the best and perhaps only thing we can do is to try to be a vocal minority, and continue to buy entire albums.

And of course, this is probably almost a non-issue in the classical world, as others have mentioned. It would never even occur to me, nor - I would guess - to most classical enthusiasts, to listen to only one movement of a symphony. Longer classical works are much more tightly integrated than almost any rock/pop album.
 
Yesterday I was ready to bring the"generational" aspect into this discussion, that most people 55+ we're going to keep buying CDs rather than download music but I have had reason to reconsider.

I had a phone conversation with a very good friend that is a true tech Luddite, this guy is a throwback to the 19th century, continually calling me about what we here would consider obvious situations. Oh yeah he is 61yo.

Well last night he was telling me about the songs and albums he bought via iTunes. I will say this guys quality standards are not that high but if the iTunes model has hooked this guy we are in trouble.
 
I greatly hope there is room for everyone going forward. People who are happy to download a song or two when they get a whim to own something are, to me, very likely and most often the same people who wouldn't buy a CD anyway. The classical music and jazz music markets didn't go away when their share of the market dropped well below 15%. Let's hope the serious rock/pop/alt market for real albums survives forever as well.
 
I'm all for it, if it opens up the possibility of high resolution, no DRM, and no dynamic range limiting. Although I have a hard time believing that the cd will be gone in less than a year.
 
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