I’m still buying CD’s

Since the recent closing of a popular invite-only music website, Oink.cd (formally Oink.me.uk), I’ve been resorting to purchasing music I cannot find to download, or music I have found but am not pleased with it’s sound quality rip. Oink was an excellent source for music of all kinds, and they were very strict on the quality of rip’s that were allowed and Oink also kept a tight ratio rule for it’s users to make sure that people were giving as much as they were taking. The concept was great, and Oink had grown to a to just shy of 200,000 members during it’s short lived 3-year existence.

I’ve always been a quality not quantity type person when it comes to my music, and Oink served me well in this aspect as well as it’s flourish of FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) rips. I’m no audiophile, but I can definitely tell the difference between a CD and a poor digital audio rip. I’ve been buying CD’s for years and even though I could download FLAC versions of them online, (which is supposed to be of equal sound quality) as of lately, but it’s simply less of a hassle to have to deal with ratio contingencies and the effort of searching, waiting for download times, vulnerabilities that come with bittorrent usage (as mentioned in a previous article), relabeling files and organizing files in your file structure. You may be wondering, that option of downloading must be easier than going to the store, browsing the shelves, waiting in line and finally paying $14 for a CD right? Downloading music is cheaper yes, but online shopping is incredibly easy.

I normally use Amazon.com’s 1-click ordering when I buy CD’s online. I typically buy them used, so I get them around half the price compared to a retail store even with shipping costs. The 1-click ordering is fantastic, when you see what you want, you can literally buy it with only 1 click of the mouse (granted you have an Amazon.com account) and you’ll soon have your new CD in your mailbox. Got to have it now? Other options are in-store pickup. Circuit City offers a guarantee that if your online order isn’t ready in 24 minutes, you’ll receive a $24 gift card when you pick up your oder. I’ve actually received a $24 gift card from them because my product wasn’t ready during a pickup. Granted my main catalog of music is digital, but when I hear a great piece of music, I typically buy the CD just for sheer sound quality purposes. I’ve also purchased CD’s directly from up and coming bands that I’ve liked in my effort to support them. I do this as well with buying their merchandise and paying to see them live. Without this support, these artists simply wouldn’t exist.

CD’s may be a thing in the past, but before MP3 players were affordable, it was basically the only way to listen, especially in the car. I remember driving around fumbling with my large case of CD’s popping them in and out of my CD player until I could afford a CD-ROM for my computer and I could then consolidate a couple of them onto a customized MP3 disk and not have to swap out disks as often. Times have changed and today I’d be lost without my Ipod which is excellent when you have a CD deck in the car that can control it but compared to a CD, I’d still rather pop in a disk occasionally when I want to hear some great sound quality.

The era of having to wait for album release dates are a thing in the past, over thrown by it’s digital media nemesis. It’s more like an album release date minus a month or three when it comes to downloading and the leaking of new music via the internet. I’m glad to see more and more artists are now offering their entire CD’s for free on their websites.

Before I began to write my blog post on how I’m again buying more CD’s than normal, I thought I’d research a little and see how the mighty CD is doing these days versus downloading digital media along with the help of the popularity of MP3 players. My hypothesis was true, digital media is strong, and the CD industry and sales are hurting. According to the 2006 postings on the RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America) website, the value of a CD and number of shipments is at an all time low compared to the previous 10 years. In a pathetic attempt to cover this fact up, the RIAA released a report in August 2007 stating “the CD has become a better value than ever before” when compared only to inflation. More silly statements found in this report that are meant to win you over compare the cost of an “album” in 1967 to the cost of a CD today. According to Wikipedia, the first CD for commercial release rolled off the assembly line in 1982, a mere 15 years later after RIAA’s cited 1967 comparison. Interesting don’t you think? Talk about comparing apples to oranges!

I agree that inflation is a valid argument when debating the history of cost on an item but there are also many variables when comparing time periods, especially a year like 1967 which was in the middle of the Vietnam War. In 1967 vinyl records were the popular media for music and to compare them to CD’s boggles me. Here is another incentive excerpt from the report “adjust for the buying power of a dollar in 1967 versus a dollar now, and that album would cost nearly $22″. Wow, what a bargain.. We should not be taking CD’s for granted and all go buy some!

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