Is a CD release viable anymore?

[PaulWarning]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

I know a guy who does local gigs under one band name and originals gigs at festivals etc. under his own name with the same band.

it's a bit late in the day for us to do that, unfortunately, but there's local young band, sounds like the Jam, Sharp Class, who plan go out as a covers band called Sounds of the Suburbs, last I heard anyway

 

[casapete]

Just seen this on FB 

 

 

[BigRedX]

I think that's a bit out of date now...

 

1. No longer true for all services. Of the main streaming services Spotify is now the only one that doesn't offer an option for a format without lossy compression. However how important is that? I do much of my streaming listening in the car where the audio has to compete with all the noises of the road and driving. When I originally ripped all my CDs in the early 2000s for use with my iPod and HiFi, I spent several evenings deciding on the best format to use and decided that under most listening conditions I couldn't tell the difference between the original CD and a 320BR MP3. I suspect that most streaming listening is done in far worse acoustic environments.

 

2. What does this actually mean? When you buy a CD the only thing you actually own is the piece of plastic that the music is encoded onto. The music itself is just licensed. If it's a CDR rather than a glass-mastered replicated CD, you may find that your piece of plastic is no longer playable after less than 10 years. Then it's just a piece of plastic with hopefully a nice design on one side.

 

3. It could be argued that CD artwork is but a pale imitation of what you would get if you bought the same thing on vinyl. It also depends on how good the sleeve design is anyway. I have plenty of CDs and vinyl where the packaging adds little or no artistic benefit to the listener. I've also got some with fancy packaging that is actually an impediment to listening to the music. PiL's Metal Box (vinyl) and Scissor Sisters Ta-Dah (CD in a box) spring to mind.

 

4. Personally I like the algorithms. I like the way that when an album I've been streaming on Apple Music comes to an end the algorithm will play me more songs in a similar style. I've discovered several new bands this way.