Do you think CDs will become obsolete in the near future?

[WallyG]

This is a good question I ask myself in this day and age of digital music downloading. Vinyls are still around and cassettes are obsolete. What to make of CDs??

I've been transferring my CDs to my computer and backing up the files via external hard drive. Then I would store the CDs in a CD binder with the CD booklet and throw out the cases. It just takes up a lot of space and just sometimes sit there in my collection gathering dust lol.

I'm not a DJ but in light of increasing digital downloading (i.e. iTunes), I think it's possible CDs will become a thing of the past, like cassettes.

What ya'll music heads think?

[check two]

Cassettes aren't obsolete

[diggy]

CD are good for holding data whatever it is. Digital could be accidentally erased or in case of a cloud data storage being inaccessable, you could have it on CD as a back up. I don't think they are done yet.

[Rob Swanson]

[LORD NOSE]

I suddenly want some pancakes

[theheavens]

digital music outsold cds last year for the very first time and I'm sure it'll happen again this year...and the next and the next. I still buy cds because I want the fucking art cover and booklet, but only if it's wu tang or radiohead or some shit.

ironically, cassettes are more obsolete than vinyls. at least vinyls have some perks (huge art cover, quality sound), while cassettes don't offer anything anymore

[WallyG]

Originally Posted by theheavens

digital music outsold cds last year for the very first time and I'm sure it'll happen again this year...and the next and the next. I still buy cds because I want the fucking art cover and booklet, but only if it's wu tang or radiohead or some shit.

ironically, cassettes are more obsolete than vinyls. at least vinyls have some perks (huge art cover, quality sound), while cassettes don't offer anything anymore

EXACTLY the way I see it!

[check two]

-Cassette tapes make a big comeback


Four years ago, cassette tapes were headed toward their funeral. In 2007, British tabloid The Sun declared the death of the cassette, after the announcement that a major electronics retailer in the United Kingdom would cease selling cassette tapes. In 2009, the webzine Pop Matters bid cassettes good riddance: “Some mediums are just meant to die and never experience a revival. Cassettes seem destined to fall into this category.”

Then, last year, cassettes began to rise from the dead. In the fall, NPR reported that cassettes were having a “kind of” revival, with at least 25 labels in the United States putting out new music exclusively on tape. In a lengthy essay in Pitchfork, contributor Marc Hogan detailed examples of the “broader underground resurgence” of cassettes.

So, are cassettes at death’s door or enjoying a healthy renaissance? It depends on whom you ask. Cassette culture has never waned in certain circles, specifically among noise and experimental bands. But cassettes have gradually been popping up in non-underground places. Lady Gaga probably won’t be releasing music on cassette tape anytime soon, but well-known independent bands such as Animal Collective, Deerhoof and the Mountain Goats have all put out cassettes this year.

San Francisco-based rock band Deerhoof released its 10th album, “Deerhoof vs. Evil,” on Polyvinyl — a heavy-hitter in the world of independent labels — in January on three formats: digital, vinyl and cassette. They put out 500 tapes, each retailing for $8, which included a download of the album.

The Baltimore-bred band Animal Collective put out a limited-edition tape release in March (in conjunction with band-designed sneakers) that included previously unreleased solo work by each of the band’s four members.

And in February, the Mountain Goats, a band that built its initial fan base on a prolific string of early 1990s cassettes, released its first tape since 1994. The tape, “All Survivors Pack,” was a free inclusion with the first few hundred CD and LP orders of the band’s newest album, “All Eternals Deck” (the band’s first release on Merge Records).


“I think tapes have their own energy,” John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats said via e-mail. “I get pretty ’70s Californian about this stuff, but I think the means by which a person receives art — literature, film, music — contributes to the experience.”

‘A nice touch’

“John had these demo versions of all the songs on the album, and we thought that’d be a cooler way to get them out in the world as opposed to some digital bonus thing,” said Spott Philpott, label manager at Merge Records. “The early ones were hand-decorated — we thought that would be a nice touch.”

Karl Hofstetter, owner of Indianapolis-based Joyful Noise Recordings, which put out Deerhoof’s cassette, argues that the return of cassettes is a response to the digital revolution.

“I think that, in a strange way, piracy and digital becoming more prominent has allowed for a resurgence of the physical,” he said.

Hofstetter founded Joyful Noise in 2003. He put out vinyl, digital and CD releases until 2009, when he saw a demand for cassettes. He had the idea to approach labels and musicians he liked and ask to release their music on cassette for sale online and at concerts. Now, Joyful Noise is Polyvinyl’s go-to cassette producer. Hofstetter is working on cassette versions of all 10 albums by the Georgia psych-pop band Of Montreal, with artwork by the band’s mastermind, Kevin Barnes.

Lesser-known bands have been utilizing cassettes more often as well, for both their physicality and their cost-effectiveness. District residents Holly Tegeler, 30, and Thomas Collier, 29, are members of a jangly guitar-rock trio called Black Telephone, and in February last year, they released a four-song EP on mustard-colored cassettes, which they sold online and at Crooked Beat Records (where Tegeler has worked weekends since 2005) in Adams Morgan.

“Cost was a big reason for choosing to put [our music] out on cassette,” Tegeler said. “We liked the idea of putting something physical out, but vinyl was too expensive, and putting out a CD felt lame.” Tegeler and Collier are also fans of cassettes — they collect ’90s-era rock cassettes by artists such as Beck, Sonic Youth and the Breeders.

“People say ‘But I don’t have a cassette player’ to us a lot, but that’s not really the point,” Tegeler said, adding that their music is available for free online. “The point of putting out a cassette is that it gives the people who are interested in physical media the chance to actually own a copy of the music.”

[check two]

heavens, if you loosen your doo rag some, you'll be able to hear the quality of a cassette tape better.

[KERZO]

Have I time-traveled back to 2001 or sum shyt?!?!?!

[theheavens]

bullshit. cassettes have no value. even that Raekwon purple tape box set is a fucking joke. who keeps a cassette player?

[Sky Blue Danny Kid]

lol @ cracker-ass wu-tang muslims from detroit listening to Radiohead on their discmen while their moms drive them to work at long john silver

[Rob Swanson]

Yea that hissing and distortion of worn out cassette tape ribbon is superior

I think forest gump was big into walkmans during his later yrs in life

[TSA]

what do you mean by obsolete. I mean, the thread is completely fucking retarded but you took something as clear as cassette being obsolete and managed to convince yourself they're not obsolete because, idk, the purple tape i think.
it's not so much CDs are obsolete, this topic has been obsolete since 1999

i group all the YAMS together as 1 living root-like entity btw, so im talking to all of you at the same time.

[beautifulrock]

cds were obsolete 10 years ago, nobody bothered to do anything about it though.