RIP CDs, BestBuy (& Target?) will stop selling them in July.

[Elixer]

See ya CDs... but vinyl still lives?

Best Buy has just told music suppliers that it will pull CDs from its stores come July 1. At one point, Best Buy was the most powerful music merchandiser in the U.S., but nowadays it's a shadow of its former self, with a reduced and shoddy offering of CDs. Sources suggest that the company's CD business is nowadays only generating about $40 million annually. While it says it's planning to pull out CDs, Best Buy will continue to carry vinyl for the next two years, keeping a commitment it made to vendors. The vinyl will now be merchandised with the turntables, sources suggest.

Meanwhile, sources say that Target has demanded to music suppliers that it wants to be sold on what amounts to a consignment basis. Currently, Target takes the inventory risk by agreeing to pay for any goods it is shipped within 60 days, and must pay to ship back unsold CDs for credit. With consignment, the inventory risk shifts back to the labels.

According to those sources, Target gave the ultimatum to both music and video suppliers in the fourth quarter of last year that it wants to switch to scanned-based trading, with a target date of Feb. 1. But while it is proceeding to push DVD vendors to switch to scan-based trading terms (i.e. the chain would pay for DVDs after they are sold or scanned while being rung up at the register), it has moved the deadline back to music suppliers to either April 1 or May 1. So far, music manufacturers are not sure what they are going to do, but sources within the various camps say that at least one major is leaning no, while the other two majors are undecided

https://www.billboard.com/articles/...get-threatens-to-pay-labels-for-cds-only-when

 

[Carson Dyle]

You see any vinyl at Best Buy or Target?

Last summer, just on a whim, I contacted a guy on Craigslist offering a "CD Library - Eclectic music collection' (everyone thinks they have eclectic tastes in music, just humor them). Bought ~250 CDs for $90. Many out of print, some gems, all in pristine condition in their original jewel boxes. Fuck yeah, RIP CD.

 

[esquared]

You see any vinyl at Best Buy or Target?

Last summer, just on a whim, I contacted a guy on Craigslist offering an "CD Library - Eclectic music collection' (everyone thinks they have eclectic tastes in music, just humor them). Bought ~250 CDs for $90. Many out of print, some gems, all in pristine condition in their original jewel boxes. Fuck yeah, RIP CD.

My Target sells vinyl.

Big selection online.
https://www.target.com/c/rock-music-movies-books/-/N-5xswiZvevia#Nao=0&sortBy=Featured

 

[Ken g6]

I think I'm OK with this, if there's a place to get DRM-free FLAC files. (I've never been that into music so I don't know.)

If not, then yes, RIP CDs as fast as you can, before they're gone.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Man, that's really ... disappointing. I mean, tape hasn't completely disappeared, as far as computer backup goes. I was hoping the CDs and DVDs would keep going for a while longer.

 

[darkswordsman17]

You see any vinyl at Best Buy or Target?

Last summer, just on a whim, I contacted a guy on Craigslist offering a "CD Library - Eclectic music collection' (everyone thinks they have eclectic tastes in music, just humor them). Bought ~250 CDs for $90. Many out of print, some gems, all in pristine condition in their original jewel boxes. Fuck yeah, RIP CD.

The Best Buys I've been to the past couple of years do sell some vinyl. It was a small section (much smaller than the CD section, which surprised me that it was still as big as it was), but they did have some.

I think I'm OK with this, if there's a place to get DRM-free FLAC files. (I've never been that into music so I don't know.)

If not, then yes, RIP CDs as fast as you can, before they're gone.

That's a good point. I was set to say "I don't care because I don't care about formats, just the content" assuming that we won't backslide (I don't consider having lossy formats to be that, since there are alternatives and now we're getting to where lossless is possible for streaming), but then the issue there isn't the formats but rather the production chain, so it doesn't even matter. But DRM is definitely a concern. I think the bigger issue is that we're going to be shocked at how quickly we go to not being able to "own" content, that we'll only be able to pay for temporary licensing (via subscriptions). Disney seems about ready to Vault their entire (new) collection in their own streaming service, and I'm surprised that the music industry didn't try doing the same thing (I think they were shell shocked at their own incompetence so they sold off the streaming rights for pittance not thinking it'd take off like it did), but have a hunch they will. Which then we'll rely on bootlegs of people with good equipment recording playback on it and then uploading it, haha. That and people will probably swap waveforms so they can 3D print their own vinyl.

Man, that's really ... disappointing. I mean, tape hasn't completely disappeared, as far as computer backup goes. I was hoping the CDs and DVDs would keep going for a while longer.

That's not really the same thing though. Actually aren't there tape backups that dwarf hard drives pretty substantially? I know there was some big breakthrough awhile back, but even before then I thought they had like 50TB tape backups? And those tapes are more robust than consumer cassettes (probably more robust than optical discs short of and probably even including Blu-ray). I thought they had started getting like TB sized optical discs too (not even talking about that one format that people were speculating Sony would use after the PS3, it was like some optical holographic cards that could hold like 400GB or something).

And its not so much that you can't use those formats for that stuff either, its just that more and more the commercial audio and video versions are becoming more scarce.

 

[Thebobo]

I haven't bought a CD in eons but I still occasionally buy a blu ray.

 

[Puffnstuff]

BB has been talking about doing this for years now so it shouldn't come as a surprise.

 

[SKORPI0]

Worked at Best Buy (shipping/rec.department) '92-'99 and I always hated Mondays. FedEx/UPS would drop ship boxes of new release CD's (for Tuesday)
and I had to receive and price tag them one at a time. Usually 30-50 copies for popular artist/bands, < 10 for not yet popular, sometimes >300 CD for that day.
We'd usually get sample CDs fromunknown artists and I get to bring them home once it accumulates/nobody wants them.

 

[lxskllr]

I think I'm OK with this, if there's a place to get DRM-free FLAC files. (I've never been that into music so I don't know.)

If not, then yes, RIP CDs as fast as you can, before they're gone.

https://bandcamp.com/

You won't find the new Justin Timberlake album, but that's a feature. As long as you aren't hung up on names you know and/or crap on the radio, there's a lifetime of music available on bandcamp. I'd be fine using them as my exclusive music source.

 

[momeNt]

This probably hurts Taylor Swift more than most. She waits for streaming and relies on CD and digital purchases. Why are we doing this to America's Golden Child?

 

[BarkingGhostar]

With vinyl selling more than CDs is it surprising? And Best Buy only sells what they can sell and make money on. Today that ain't CDs.

 

[IronWing]

I still buy a lot of CDs. I never even consider BB or Target when looking for CDs as their selection is limited and mostly stuff I don't listen to much (pop and country).

 

[spacejamz]

something else those damn millenials killed....LOL

 

[Viper GTS]

I've been buying high-res nearly exclusively lately, the problem is that the main site I use (hdtracks) sucks. Their search is terrible, their site is dialup slow, their downloader sucks, etc.

High res (or at a minimum lossless 16/44.1) needs to be available on Amazon, with their search tools, and with universal availability. It shouldn't be the rare or only the most recent album that is available, it should be every album.

I still buy CDs and I still have a fairly large FLAC collection (all ripped by me) but if I can buy it direct in digital I'm fine with skipping the physical disk.

Viper GTS

 

[nakedfrog]

I still buy CDs, but not at Target or Best Buy.
Barnes & Noble has vinyl now as well, didn't notice whether they had any CDs.

 

[nakedfrog]

High res (or at a minimum lossless 16/44.1) needs to be available on Amazon, with their search tools, and with universal availability. It shouldn't be the rare or only the most recent album that is available, it should be every album.

That would be nice, where do we go to pester them to make this available?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Most stores have stopped selling CDs even if they continue to stock CDs. It's not by choice, just that nobody buys them anymore.