Mercury Records abandoning CD and vinyl format for singles

[corianderstem]

CDs are part of my decor.

 

[lazarus]

 

[corianderstem]

On the wall opposite my CDs, I've got a space cleared for a shelf on which to display The Head Of Lazarus.

I have a great plan for how to artfully light it, too.

Someday....

 

[u2popmofo]

Not to dive into digital music formats headfirst and confuse everyone here, but to lay it out for you, the tradeoff isn't between physical, good quality music vs. digital, wishy washy crappy quality at all.

An MP3 encoded at 192 kb/s variable bitrate is almost indistinguishable from CD quality. 320 kb/s and you won't notice any difference.

If you think digital music sounds shitty on decent speakers, you sure stole a hell a lot of 128 kb/s music from Limewire back in the day.

Let's just say you don't know me well at all if this is your argument, the last sentence is quite ironic.

Quite the opposite. We are back in 1950s/1960s land, where singles are the norm and cohesive LP-style albums are the rarity.

Digital music, and the mix-and-match ease of the playlist, have created a new world for singles. Look at iTunes. Pricing is now a la carte: you don't buy a shitty Paul McCartney album and get 9 filler tracks and 2 singles...you just buy the 2 singles.

Again, all of this is completely besides the point. I'm not talking about a "radio single", where you just randomly upload one song off your album to iTunes and call it a single. I'm talking about what a physical single actually was. Something with the single, and one or two b-sides. Click on any of iTunes "top singles", and it will either link you directly to the album, or to a radio version of the song that has no b-sides. That's not what we're talking about.

 

[Canadiens1131]

Let's just say you don't know me well at all

I don't, really.

 

[lazarus]

On the wall opposite my CDs, I've got a space cleared for a shelf on which to display The Head Of Lazarus.

I have a great plan for how to artfully light it, too.

Someday....

What's in the BOOOOOOOXXXXX??

I don't, really.

You're about to find out, the hard way.

 

[Danny Boy]

Disc 2 of Best of 2010-2020 is really going to suck.

 

[Canadiens1131]

Journey to the Soul (Heart Edit) (Soulwax Edit) (Reznor dubwave resample) (Jacknife 69`mix)

 

[Saracene]

Also, I challenge anyone to mount a decent rationale for having physical media back in terms of CDs. CDs were ALWAYS shitty. Cracked, cheap-ass plastic cases, scratches that didn't add character, age, or personality to your copy of an album (they just broke it), tiny album art that may as well have been on postage stamps. Scaled back, tiny liner notes that eventually were reduced to two-sided cardboard wafers or shitty paper.

If you want to get lovey-dovey nostalgic about physical media, then by all means, let's wax nostalgic about records. The warm, crackely sound. The huge canvas for beautiful album art. The personality your personal copy of an LP would develop over time. Only you had a record that sounded exactly like that, due to gradual wear and pops and clicks.

Maybe it's because I was too young for vinyl era, but IMO the only advantage they have over CDs is the larger artwork. You can't skip songs without lots of trial and error and the romance of the crackling sound escapes me completely Plus they're a nightmare to file on account of being bigger and having barely any spine to read identifying information when you try to find something specific.

And CDs last just fine if you treat them right (and not, for instance, have them bounce around the car with discs out of the cases piled up on top of each other like my Mum does). I've bought over 1000 CDs over the years and maybe had problems with scratches with three of them, tops.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

aww yeah.

cds are definitely more convenient than records, but soundwise nothing really does beat an lp imo. as far as storage, i have an awesome shelfing system i got (and painted myself, woo) where i store my lps. i keep them at eye level and have no problem reading the spines. but 7" records are impossible to identify by the spines. little tiny milk crates are where it's at for those.

 

[PhilsFan]

The iPod connector in the car was the beginning of the end for the CD format.

 

[Danny Boy]

I really have no romantic/nostalgic attachment to either format. Frankly, I'd rather have lossless 24-bit/96 khz downloads than vinyl. I just think that no physical singles means fewer b-sides, which is disappointing.

Honestly, though, I don't know why more bands haven't gone to putting out a track or two every couple of months instead of sticking to the three-year album cycle or whatever. I thought Radiohead was going that way with Hairy Patch and Twisted Words, but that sort of dried up. I think it would be more interesting to hear different sounds that bands are working on in short intervals than a collection of 10-12 songs that all sort of sound alike every few years. Maybe the end of physical formats will break them out of that "album" mindset, and we'll end up getting more musical variety in the long run.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

good point. at the very least artists can just throw a track up on itunes and/or their website.

 

[cobl04]

Honestly, though, I don't know why more bands haven't gone to putting out a track or two every couple of months instead of sticking to the three-year album cycle or whatever. I thought Radiohead was going that way with Hairy Patch and Twisted Words, but that sort of dried up. I think it would be more interesting to hear different sounds that bands are working on in short intervals than a collection of 10-12 songs that all sort of sound alike every few years. Maybe the end of physical formats will break them out of that "album" mindset, and we'll end up getting more musical variety in the long run.

The Flaming Lips were meant to do that this year, or last year, but never did.

I'll always be an album man and provided they still exist I'll be buying CDs in 20 years time.

 

[LemonMelon]

aww yeah.

Haha I was always told not to jump when my parents played records to prevent skippage. You would snap the needle right off after the first pot hole.

Vinyls > CDs. The bass response is better, and the larger album art makes them more collectible. That latter reason is the clincher for me; why the hell would I want a piece of plastic that takes up space if my only use for purchasing albums is listening to them? Like Peef said, iPod connectors for the car killed CDs. They allow you to use the glove box for something more productive, like gloves, or cocaine.