Are shiny disks the present of music?

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1804197]

Context

Comments

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

With the first few questions I was responding to the idea of buying shiny disks that play movies. Blu-Ray is awesome and I have no problem at all paying money for Blu-Ray versions of movies I like.

As to music, however, the bulk of my purchasing money goes to buying concert tickets and merchandise - because the majority of that money goes directly to the band, while the majority of money you spend on shiny disks goes to the record company and is never seen by the band.

For example, if you buy a band T-shirt the band will get roughly three times the amount of money than if you buy their CD.

[andrewducker]

The buying of any kind of shiny disk bought in a physical shop counts for the second question.

I buy all of mine on Amazon, so they don't count.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I don't buy much music these days since Chris trashed my iTunes ('trying to improve it') but I don't much miss it.

I bought a CD for a single track to use at my wedding ceremony - it was an import version of some kind so wasn't available to download legally, and it was easier and more legal to give Music on the Mound £10 than try to dig it up (especially as there were two versions of the same song so I wouldn't be sure an illegal download was the right one).

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

Sheet Music. Not only did my iPad cost a substantial fraction of the cost of all the sheet music I've ever bought, it's actually quite crap to play off and you're better off just printing out the PDF for stuff bought online. Whilst my 30" monitor displays music beautifully it doesn't sit very well on the piano stand and page turning is tricky (one thing the iPad does get right).

I also buy shiny discs with music on from time to time as it's the easiest way to obtain high quality original files that play everywhere and are easily format shifted.

[fearmeforiampink]

I think HMV has a good chance of clinging on in some form; I think it'll morph. Also, they sell a lot of DVDs and such, and I think movies and TV series are a little behind music in the march towards digital.

Music-wise, in the last year or so it's actually been more on physical discs than other stuff; but that's a combination of firstly giving up on Emusic when they went from 'you can re-download as much as you like', to 'You can re-download a limited number of times' to 'You can't redownload unless there's a download failure', and changed from credits that all songs cost one of, to a cash based system.

Secondly it's from having not yet found another digital music provider I really like the model of — I want something akin to steam where I can re-download what I've bought, and don't have to worry about that.

And thirdly, it's because my music collection is about 50 gigabytes; 30 days of music (albeit that's including a certain amount of duplication, but not all that much). I'm mostly just buying the specific disks for the specific stuff I really want and don't currently have.

I'm mildly tempted by Spotify, and may go for it if I get the job I'm going for the interview of in... twenty one hours and forty five minutes, but I'm not that fond of the 'have access to large amounts of music... stop paying and it's all gone. The thing I really liked about Emusic was I got 30, then later 40 tracks a month of interesting and good music I'd picked, slowly expanding my music library and tastes.

[andrewducker]

As the context said, HMV's sales of shiny disks are their problem, causing them a large loss. The money they make is from electronics and suchlike.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I am very attached to shiny discs for music because I'm a luddite and still like to listen to them on my studio (also, I only have a work computer). But from the number of other people who only seem to own ditigal copies of music, I suspect HMV and similar are doomed. You wouldn't know it from how busy the one here usually is though.

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

It's very rare for me to spend money on music anyway - but that's been the case for the past 10 years or more. I don't really do music. Most of the money I've spent on music in the past 5 years has been on shiny discs ordered over the internet (and probably more than half of that was presents rather than for myself).

I think the last time I bought music for myself was the Aquaria soundtrack a year or so ago.

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

My biggest single purchase of CDs this year was when I was in Bristol and discovered Rise Music, an independent shop. Not a huge shop but a wonderful one. Great selection and a clearly thoughtfully curated one. It was a rare joy to shop in. I think most of my music purchases in the past 2 years have been downloads, and most of my CD purchases have been from Oxfam.

[innerbrat]

The last shiny disc I bought was the soundtrack to a musical I had just seen, and I bought it in the Foyer. That counts as a 'physical shop', right?

The money that goes towards streaming is just a little more than my money that goes towards downloads, but I buy them through Spotify too.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

the last CD I bought was Devin Townsend Unplugged, which was at the DT acoustic gig and seemed kinda fitting. Before that it was Paradise Lost's last album, which was a special edition - and more importantly them sounding vaguely like they did when they were the best band in the universe.

DVDs I still buy all the time, and will almost certainly continue to do so because HogsHead is significantly cheaper than any digital store I've seen.

I will buy damned near anything self-produced and self-sold at a pay what you like deal. I bought that Radiohead album even though I can't stand the band. I buy every Humble Bundle even if I'll never play the games.

Sell CDs or DVDs at £2 a go, and I'll buy hundreds quite happily. Then I'll go to cinemas and gigs and pay a hell of a lot more.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I am currently on holiday; I have a rental car. it has a shiny disk slot, but no interface for MP3 players. so I brought some shiny disks.

Even if shiny disks were teh future, high-street shops selling them really aren't. You can preview the product online, and Amazon can post them easily.

Also the inventory is large - "long tail" style, it's far cheaper to have an Amazon warehouse with wide inventory than a high-street shop with same. High CD street shops drop the end of the long tail, and it's harder to find stuff in them. So the online cd shops will be cooler.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Exactly this latter point. That, and the fact that for the mainstream current Top 40 albums, a supermarket is just as good as HMV.

[pigwotflies.livejournal.com]

I actually don't seem to have bought much (any) music in ages. I think it's one of those things I don't have the energy to keep up with/listen to anymore. :( Stupid ME. Same with books (which I would buy in dead tree format, but much less frequently).

I mostly listen to music on the radio (6Music) or, er, You Tube. If I read about an interesting song/artist, I tend to search for them on You Tube, or Spotify if I want to hear a whole album.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

There was a groupon style voucher event that had HMV on it last week sometime, where a £10 buy bought you £20 of HMV vouchers.

WHich is about when I realised HMV were doomed, and almost certain to declare bankruptcy shortly after Christmas. No way in hell they can survive giving away the hundreds of thousands of 50% off vouchers they sold in that deal. Very cynical money grab operation I reckon. Sell people the vouchers, then be all, oh, sorry, we've gone bust now.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Sell people the vouchers, then be all, oh, sorry, we've gone bust now.

Can that work or help in any way? I mean if you still have any money you've not gone bust and have to honour them. If you have gone bust then you've gone bust so what was the point?

I don't get the claim you're making here. What do you think they're trying to do?

[steer.livejournal.com]

Some predictions I'm reading are that the internet will be 95% streaming video by traffic content in a year or two. Not sure I believe it but the proportion is very high already. Selling DVDs and blu-ray in physical form seems pretty limited to me.

That said, I currently buy most of my music on CD but only as a backup -- I rip it immediately and never look at the CD or box again. I very rarely buy from a bricks and mortar shop though. I think one CD this year when I was passing through Waterstones which is currently combined with Fopp near me and I saw a CD by a band I like which I hadn't realised was out and picked it up on an impulse.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Likewise.

Last time I had a serious look in to this (about a year or two ago), it was actually cheaper (most of the time) to buy a physical CD online, including the postage from VAT-dodging Jersey, than to download the album. So for a few days' deferred gratification, I save money, get a higher-bandwidth copy, and a free hard copy backup with a nice picture of the album art on the front to make it easier to find should I ever need it.

The option of trekking in to town, paying to park the car or the bus fare, wrestling through crowds of shoppers, finding the damn CD in HMV's latest store rearrangement to deprioritise music CDs ... and paying substantially more than online ... doesn't appeal.

I was in town doing Christmas shopping the other day, and was walking past HMV when I remembered there was an album I wanted in the charts at the moment. (I forget which. Almost certainly something you wouldn't approve of :-).) I went in and spent ages looking, then waited for ages in a queue to talk to a member of staff. They didn't have it.

DOOOOOOOOOMED.

I can see video DVD/Blu-Ray box sets by post continuing to be a viable business for the medium term (like 5-10 years), on the old 'never underestimate the bandwidth of a lorry full of magtape' principle. But not on margins that will support a High Street presence.

[kmusser]

While it's been many years since I bought a shiny disk at a store, I still buy them pretty regularly at concerts, especially from local and/or relatively unknown bands.

[steer.livejournal.com]

http://www.google.co.uk/finance?client=ob&q=LON:HMV

Wow -- you wouldn't ski on that graph without a *lot* of training, there's some steep slopes at the end.

Reminds me of something I first heard about Nortel Network shares. At least if you invest in the right type of beer you get 10p back on the bottle.

[andrewducker]

Still not quite as bad as the one from January '09 here:
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=RBS.L&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=

(I bought in at 10p, which was nice. Less nice was when I decided to buy in at 40p.)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Can I be pedantic and point out that the correct spelling is 'disc'?

'Disk' is the American dialect spelling which (rather like 'program') is fine to used in a computing context). CD is therefore an acronym of 'compact disc' not 'compact disk'.

[andrewducker]

You absolutely can, and I will absolutely try and remember for next time!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I buy a lot of shiny disks, both with movies and music on -- but I often buy the music ones from a musician with a cardboard box -- and I last did that two weeks ago. So it's not 'a physical shop' exactly but I still think it counts.

But high street shops selling software of any kind? Totally, utterly doomed. I think I have now told all my relatives, repeatedly, that the only sorts of vouchers that work for us are iTunes and Amazon, and that both are hugely inferior to actual folding money with a note saying 'I would like it if you could choose a book/film/game that you like'. Still doesn't work.

[andrewducker]

If amazon would get the ability to buy ebooks for people working then that would be rather spiffy.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I very rarely buy music, because I very rarely listen to music. The last shiny disc I bought was a CD of a friend's Early Modern chamber music; it's very nice but I hardly listen to it because I Just Don't Do Music much. I think the previous CD I bought was the HPLHS Solstice carols, because they are funny.

I also very rarely buy DVDs of films/TV especially since we've signed up to LoveFilm. So much better to be able to send them back when I'm done (I rarely want to re-watch things).

I think physical shops selling such items are d00med. Mostly I think this is because I don't think a physical shop really adds any value over buying online (unlike with, say, a physical clothes store where you can try on the clothing, which is a lot better than ordering online and hoping it fits). I do think people will continue to spend money on entertainment, although I'm not sure how much people will shift to downloadable formats (which are obviously much more convenient once you have a highspeed connection than waiting for the post to show up).

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

I bought a couple of two for £10 CDs in HMV during the summer (Metallica back catalogue). I've probably bought about 15 CDs and 20 DVDs online this year. I'll look in HMV when passing, but rarely see anything that I couldn't get cheaper elsewhere. Also as a lot of the stuff I buy is either import-only or fairly esoteric (e.g. old film soundtracks with a run of 500 or 1000 copies) it's not available in HMV.

I suspect they are going to be hurt by people having less disposable income and being less inclined to make an impulse purchase.

The only thing I could see saving them would be being the only place in town with desirable electrical goods that people are willing to pay a premium for having a few days earlier. But that ain't going to happen.

[andrewducker]

I agree that electrical goods are where it's at. Although there they're in competition with Dixons (who also seem to be doomed).

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Having voted for them being doomed, I may very well see if they are selling anything (music / DVDs / games) off cheap after Christmas.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

CDs are handy, same way paper books are handy even if you own a Kindle. Most of the market will move away from HMV but someone will always be around to sell a physical portable version, though it'll be small time, like used bookstores or record stores. Companies that are heavily invested in CD selling stores will have to downsize. So I'd have to say that the future is something between Fine and Doomed.

[camies.livejournal.com]

HMV may b ok if they can diversify into other techie stuff e.g. Game. After all WH Smiths now seem to be what Woolworths were, so things can happen.
Most of my music spending money goes on attendance at live gigs.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Most of the purchasing of music and film in this household is done by bookzombie because he works in the centre of town and has to do something at lunchtime. The shiny disks usually have films on now. Most of the music is bought on download.

DOOOMED!

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I buy a lot of CDs, but mostly online.

The last CD I bought in a physical store was actually in HMV, as it happens.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Blah blah millennium has two letters 'n' like anno, not one letter 'n' like anus blah blah.

[andrewducker]

D'oh!

Sadly, polls are immutable.