I’m 40, and when I was a teenager, EVERY band had CDs. And I know a lot of music has shifted to digital. So much so that I heard Best buy stopped selling CDs. Presumably because nobody buys them.
So I wonder what musicians sell besides t-shirts and posters at concerts. Do the kids have ANY CDs? Do they buy mp3’s? Do they just use pandora and spotify? Do they even own their own music?
I’ve given up on trying to understand the lingo. Other generations lingo sounds stupid to me, but still understandable based on context.
I have NO idea what a skibifibi toilet is…sounds like a toilet after some taco bell and untalented jazz, but maybe I can try to understand their thought process on media consumption.
I never really liked physical media. But I also don’t have a Spotify subscription. So I guess my music is downloaded from YouTube and other sources.
Teenager here, I regularly buy CDs at bagpipe concerts* because there’s no unique bagpipe music on streaming services.
*Bagpipe concerts here means renn faire performances
May I introduce you to Ally The Piper
This comment makes me extremely happy that a teenager is going to bagpipe concerts.
This comment made me day. Bagpipe music at a Ren faire. What a homie.
Thanks for the clarification. I’m 43 and have never seen a bagpipe concert and thought I was missing out. I don’t consider renn faire or highland games to be bagpipe concerts since that’s just a small part of the larger experience.
What’s a CD?
It’s a way banks help you grow your money.
Certificate of Deposit? gotcha did not knew concerts sell this stuff.
“Grow”
Story time! Back in the year of 1999 I took out a student loan for $5000. I didn’t actually need the money for that semester so I put the money directly into a CD that had like 4-5% interest on it. When I finally needed the money like 2 years later for my senior year of college, the interest on the CD had paid for the interest of the loan. More surprising I was able to fill out the loan paperwork and the CD paperwork at the same time with the help of a bank representative. These days I’ve had $4000 sitting in a rolling ladder CD for almost 8 years and barely made $200 back in interest. It’s pathetic and not really a mystery as to why people don’t bother to save money anymore.
Shiny disc with hole in the middle. Look through the hole and you can CDs nuts.
Lmao good one!
angry upvote
I go to small venues, small bands. I’ve bought cassette tapes, vinyls, and CDs. Last cassette I bought was like early 2023. So it’s definitely not phased out completely
I’ve bought usb drives with music and pictures and tabs. I don’t trust usbs anymore, but I would be open to buy a code for downloads.
Not a younger person, but last concert I attended, the artist was selling bandcamp codes for their albums (I got two for €5 each). On top of that CDs and vinyls, each would include a bandcamp code too, so I assume people without CD players or turntables can get the physical item and still enjoy the music digitally
Thats pretty awesome.
If I had a CD player, sure. Can a PS5 play CDs? 🤔
Yes.
Since when? It certainly couldn’t play them when the PS5 launched.
I’m 22 and 240 months… And I wonder why not small USB sticks with m4a files on them… Maybe some behind the scenes footage and a digital poster or message/manifesto?
I could see this being awesome but include FLAC and MP3 on a branded USB promo card like this:
https://www.logotech.com/technology/usb-flash-drives/usb-business-cards.html
A) it’s a horrible idea from a security standpoint
B) all the anti-piracy groups would probably have a heart attack and attempt to shut it down in any way possible
C) it’s a lot more expensive for the band to pay for this type of distribution compared to CDs
D) it will most likely end up as e-waste
For point c, it’s actually cheaper depending on how they do it. One of my favorite artists, mc chris, has done USB discog sales for over a decade. He charges like 100 for it last I saw, but it’s also a custom USB along with having like 10-20 albums and Eps.
It would be much more expensive to press, bundle and package/ship that many CDs in comparison to a single USB drive. And since it’s also merch, point 4 is unlikely. He’s never cared about his music being pirated (and even has lyrics about his music being ‘forever free for the poor kids’, so B isn’t an issue either.
Option a is basically do you trust the artist, which one would hope they’re trustworthy, but they could also Sony you if they weren’t…
For point c, it’s actually cheaper depending on how they do it. One of my favorite artists, mc chris, has done USB discog sales for over a decade. He charges like 100 for it last I saw, but it’s also a custom USB along with having like 10-20 albums and Eps.
That’s pretty cool, but at what quality? MP3? AAC? M4A? FLAC? You don’t know until you buy it and plug it in, you know that a CD is going to be WAV files which is uncompressed audio mastered at the best quality possible, which you can then rip to your desired format. If whats on the USB drive isn’t FLAC, you’re limited to what they gave you.
It would be much more expensive to press, bundle and package/ship that many CDs in comparison to a single USB drive
It all depends on if you’re doing it yourself or if you have someone that’s already setup to do it as a business. After a quick search, I found a site that will do 100 CDs with inserts and jewel cases for $255, I’m sure the price goes down with the more you order. The same site offers custom USB drives with silkscreen printing (how else are you going to know what’s on it amongst all your other flash drives assuming you intend to keep it?) is $330 for 100, so if the artist is actually putting multiple CDs onto a single USB drive than it definitely is cheaper for them, but I’m not sure how many bands would actually do that.
And since it’s also merch, point 4 is unlikely. He’s never cared about his music being pirated (and even has lyrics about his music being ‘forever free for the poor kids’, so B isn’t an issue either.
That’s one artist, lots of artists care about their music being pirated because it cuts into their revenue, which they get very little of in the first place (referring to CDs, not streaming which is a lot better for them in terms of revenue). IDK how old you are, but I’m guessing you don’t remember Napster/Limewire/Kazaa. Also, a lot of the time it’s the companies that own the rights to the music that care the most because they’re the ones that get like 70% of the profits.
Option a is basically do you trust the artist, which one would hope they’re trustworthy, but they could also Sony you if they weren’t…
Ah, yes, the good old Sony rootkit.
CD without download code is a rip off.
Wait…do people not rip mp3s from cds anymore?
well we do because we r old and know that Audio CD quality is superior to MP3’s. But young people don’t even have a CD drive. TBH this is the best way to build your music collection on a budget. Buy original CDs off discogs for like 1$ and rip them.
The artists I like don’t put out CDs with their music so no.
Pins, patches, vinyl, tapes and very rarely CDs.
My band is planning out our merch for the fall and we’re planning on two shirts, four larger patches, 2 to 6 pin designs, logo patches and a 7-inch (TBR). It’s a street punk band.
My death metal band has a slightly different table, but it’s those things in general.
A band we play shows with often has hot sauce they produce for sale as merch.
Yo, the Elder hot sauce is great, though. I went online to buy more a few months after I saw them, lol
I don’t intend wasting space with a CD player
I’m not a “younger person” but I do still buy a lot of music within a specific genre. Although most of it is digital as that is what I prefer I have bought music in the past few years on vinyl, cassette, CD and USB. So artists are still producing physical media all be it in smaller quantities.
The last gig I went to earlier this year the merch stand was mainly t-shirts but there were some CDs to be seen, these were bands of “our era” though that I went to see in my teens (early 00s) so maybe they are just holding on to the way things used to be done, I can’t speak for any newer bands.
I like CDs, but I guess I can’t really call myself a kid anynore though, being in my mid twenties. I typically use Spotify for discovery/casual listening but but an album on CD or digitally through Bandcamp when the option is presented to me. I went out of my way to buy a 25 disc CD changer.
Vinyl have definitely become way more popular for physical music purchases, but I like the smaller footprint of a CD.
I do think the vast majority of people use Youtube Music, Spotify or a similar service though. It’s inexpensive, has family plans and optical media players just aren’t common anymore.
I’ve gotten a free CD at a concert recently. I don’t have anything to play it on.
Omg come to my house! I have a computer dvd-drive and a 4k drive for ripping. I have 3 gaming consoles with disc drives. And I have 9 portable CD players and 3 portable DVD players.
I am a collector. I have a hobby of making my own CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays.
What 4K drive do you have, and how do you like it?
It’s an Archgon Md-8107-U3. I got specifically because the firmware could be updated to allow ripping with programs like Make-MKV. Works great.
I’ll bring the pizza and some two liters! Who wants what?
That does sound fun. How far from Berlin are you, in rough terms? Can I walk over, or is it more of a cycling distance?
I’m about 6000km from Berlin I’m afraid.
Yeah, that’s a bit of a hike, probably would throw my plans for the week.
New York?
Yep, last time I owned a CD drive was two laptops ago, around 2016 or so…
I dug out my Wii for it once… Which probably proves im not a young person anymore
Could the Wii even play audio cd’s???
It had the capability (as with DVDs), so as long as you’ve got a modded Wii and the right homebrew software, yes!
Ahhhh not stock, only via mods… I have the black “unhackable” Wii :(
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rleF4f1dBVo&pp=ygUaSGFja2luZyB0aGUgdW5oYWNrYWJsZSB3aWk%3D
Not anymore, my frend
Do you have a game console? Uhhhh…besides Switch I guess.
This was my first thought as well, but disc drives are an option on them now, not a standard.
I have a switch emulator on my pc. Ones for other consoles too. Don’t see much added value in a physical console, since I need a reasonably powerful PC for work anyway.
Also, to touch on the other questions in the post, I have an Apple Music Subscription, but do have about 50 GB of flac files of my favourite music mirrored to most of my devices, in case I’m holed up somewhere without Internet access.
Yeah, I don’t own anything that can play optical media. When downloading MP3s became a thing I just stopped using CDs.
Get an external drive, it’s useful to have lying around for those rare occasions where you have something on an optical disc.
The weirdest one that we had recently that comes to mind is when my wife has an MRI recently, they gave us the scans on a DVD. We had no external drive or any other way to view it / transfer it to a USB.
