Continuing with CDs?

1. No, never.
2. I will keep them as the art objects/media that they are.
3. Until I can buy whole albums from iTunes or Amazon as .wav files, I will continue buying essential CDs.

A lot of good reasons to hang onto CDs in this thread. I still enjoy cases and liner notes and having a good thing around to throw my disposable income at. In a lot of ways, I also find them easier to store and maintain than digital music, where you need at least two forms of backup and need to keep an organized file/folder structure together if you're going to find stuff easily. Finally, I still can hear the difference between reasonably good-quality CDs and mp3s, and with formats, storage methods, etc. changing frequently keeping CDs around seems like less of a long-term headache.

I'll still buy a lot, taking advantage of the lower cost and because I like having the little cardboard boxes from Caiman in the post to look forward to after returning from work.

I keep the price stickers on my CDs, and it amazes me just how much I was paying for music in the 90s. £15 - £16 for some CDs was not unusual.

ridic

its like 12 bux tops for me now. unless its brand new and too good

I'll continue keeping 100s of cds in a sock drawer which I occasionally pull out for a car ride. I wont sell them. But I oughta clean them all. I hate when a cd skips and I hate how I lost some of my cds even though I dont listen to any of my cds much. But I did lose Roxy Music - The Early Years and Tangerine Dream - Rubycon. I broke Thrakattak. And I can't remember what else at the moment. Kinda sucks. Kinda not.

Those of you who sell off your CDs, someday your hard drive is gonna fail. If you're lucky, you'll have it backed up to another drive. But then that one could fail as you're trying to dump it to your new hard drive. Then I will point and laugh.

i hate that too, captain -- i'm actually making a list of CD's i have that are too scratched up/missing. i replace a few ever year

it's like i just realized how to properly take care of a cd.

Fastnbulbous accurate enough, which is why the CDs I sell back are the ones I never listen to, or have only heard once and thought, "Nice" and never went back to at all. Ergo, why keep 'em around?

I moved into a new place two months ago and never bothered taking my CDs out of their boxes. I have a few lying around that I've bought recently, but there's no real reason for me to have them out, since the majority are on my iTunes/iPod, anyway.

Back when I started to download albums, I told myself that if I really liked something I downloaded I'd buy it on CD. But then it just seemed silly to go to the trouble of buying it, only to put it on a shelf and forget about it as soon as it was out of its shrink wrap.

Now the albums I buy are the ones I simply can't find online. I don't use p2p, but I can find most major new indie releases on a couple of choice websites or through friends. So what I buy ends up being not necessarily indicative of what I'm really excited about. A lot of times this amounts to used CDs I stumble across and take a chance on.

Those of you who sell off your CDs, someday your hard drive is gonna fail.
This is exactly right — CDs have become nothing more than backup.

http://www.sevenoaksart.co.uk/images/record1.gif

1) nah, I'm the kind of person who saves everything
2) ???
3) I never exclusively bought CDs, it was always a mix of vinyl, cassette (back in the day), or mp3 formats. I see no reason why this will change for me in the near future.

1) too lazy really - and they're not worth that much anyway
2) never completely stopped buying vinyl, so it's not even an accurate record
3) I''ve bought maybe 6 cds this year and maybe 300 LPs (and some cassettes, second hand for the car)

Also, I may want to rip at a higher bitrate later once hd prices come down.

yeah i thought about that. A couple weeks ago I embarked on digitizing my collection, starting with albums I didn't like that much; I ripped ~ 30 cds @ 320 which is fine for those but my main collection I'm probably gonna want to do in flac or whatever for posterity but i haven't done the math on what i'll need for space. I got 2 500G drives on black friday and I was gonna send one back but maybe I won't. than again i've been latched to rhapsody pretty hard lately and soon even the mp3s might be ancillary to how i'm listening to music. so much up in the air.

soon as I'm satisfied with backing up, and keeping the habit, I'm selling all my CDs. I need the space and I need the money.

i've sold all of my cds. still buy vinyl, which i also sell sometimes. while it's impractical, it retains its value better (and escalates in value far more often) and is more 'fun'. sue me

I keep the price stickers on my CDs, and it amazes me just how much I was paying for music in the 90s. £15 - £16 for some CDs was not unusual.

We still quite frequently pay $25-$35 AUD for some CD albums in this country. And they wonder why ppl use torrents.

resolved, did you just rip your CDs into FLAC format and keep them on your hard drive or something?

i ripped the ones that deserved it to FLAC + mp3 (for ipod), most of them just to variable rate mp3. and then a lot i just sold without bothering.

Will you bother trying now to sell off your existing CDs?

maybe. next year I might be compelled to "monetize" my vinyl collection.

Will you leave them as a record of 80s/90s to early 00s buying?

hate to say it but after sitting there unplayed for awhile they just take up space.

Will you continuing buying CDs selectively alongside downloading, for reasons of completing certain artists or genres?

Barely. I stream music on my computer, listen to old CDs less & less often. CDs/itunes I buy as gifts.

First off, CDs are still the primary way i listen to music, and I don't download very often.

1.) I'll hang onto my CDs for a long, long time, until they rot away (none of them have). I stopped selling back CDs a few years ago, because I tend to regret it later on. I used to regularly purge my collection of stuff if I hadn't played it in awhile, but there are too many CDs that I'm kicking myself now for selling then.

Plus, it always killed me when I tried to sell stuff that I knew was of really high musical quality or that someone would love to have, and the clerk would offer a pathetic couple of bucks (usually less!) for it. Most used stores never offer very much for CDs, and now when I think about it, the best offer I've ever received (about $3 for a CD, not common at all) is just not worth it to me. I'd rather hang on to the album, sorry, then take your 50 cents.

2. I'll keep my CDs as much more than just a record of this particular time, as they have fucking music on them!!

3. I'll probably buy CDs for quite a while. As others have mentioned, there are so many good finds on used CDs right now, it's great. So much stuff that I would never expect to find in used shops. It's only going to get better over the next few years, too.

Newbury Comics usually gives about $3 per CD.

1) No - mainly because CDs are not worth much now, particularly when trying to trade them in at a record store.

2) Most of the CDs I listen to regularly have been ripped now, but I'll keep them as a backup and also because of the possibilty of ripping in higher quality formats/higher bitrates later.

3) I still buy CDs sometimes but nowhere near as often as I used to - I've gone from half a dozen a week in 2001 to a couple a month now. But if I see a box set at a cheap price I'll probably buy it.

Those of you who sell off your CDs, someday your hard drive is gonna fail. If you're lucky, you'll have it backed up to another drive. But then that one could fail as you're trying to dump it to your new hard drive. Then I will point and laugh.

I've never had a hard drive die on me ever before. Meanwhile in that time a lot of my records and CDs got damaged in a flood. Life's funneee.

I wonder how homeowner's insurance would cover a hard drive filled with burned FLACs. Are you just screwed or could you reasonably claim the full value of replacing them on iTunes or whatever?

i sold them on amazon btw, the run of the mill ones at least. you get a lot more money that way if you're prepared to go to spend an hour going packing/going to the post office every few days.

x-post
but when your hd dies it's all gone. and the probability is much higher than all your cds being destroyed at once...

word. i'm still reeling from getting over £30 for a tatty Sasha & Digweed CD. xp

what is with you hd-failure doomsayers? you have to fuck a hd up pretty bad before the data on it is completely irretrievable.

Oh I'm just curious from an insurance standpoint. Like what if someone broke into your house and stole your HD. Can you only claim the HD or could you reasonably claim the cost of replacing the MP3s (I just talked to my boss-a former underwriter--and he's gonna find out for me)?

once i had a hd which seemed perfectly ok. but suddenly it crashed. it had been formatted a couple of megabytes too high. when i reached the limit it was all over.

presumably it might differ according to the original source of the mp3s. like if you've bought them from digital sources in the first place you'll have the receipts etc to demonstrate this. if you've just ripped your cd collection i assume you'd be shit out of luck.

The downloading thread is bad for music. People need to see an entire album as an artistic statement, and not just pick single tracks.

The only positive thing is that people are at least less fixated on singles, able to see that there may be good tracks that aren't hit singles too. But generally, downloading is bad bad bad bad!

BAD!

Bad?

bad bad bad bad

On the insurance thing, pretty sure the only things that would be insurable would be receipted downloads, as you don't actually legally "own" the ripped mp3s if the CD is gone, thus they have no insurable value.

xpost

People need to see an entire hamburger as an artistic statement, and not just pick off the pickles or eat the grilled onions.

http://www.baronbob.com/hamburgercdholder.jpg

Snacking is destroying the meal preparation industry

home cooking is destroying the fast food industry.

The hamburger analogy isn't so hot. I prefer to think of an album as very much like a box of chocolates.

yes, yes, and yes i guess. the last few times I went to sell stuff back i didn't get a whole lot, and with 800+ CDs still it's kind of a pain to drag them up to amoeba and then back home. BUT, I did sell more stuff recently, and got more money for them than I'd expected; might have just been because I had a new buyer. I also sold off a ton of rare stuff on ebay because this stuff is never going to be worth more than it is right now. But there are things I still can't see myself getting rid of, and I'll still buy CDs from time to time, of artists I like, who pay attention to packaging

Geir you assume no one downloads whole albums, then? Oh wait why am I even arguing.

Mark Clemente OTM on all counts. Same for me.

you have to fuck a hd up pretty bad before the data on it is completely irretrievable.

That's not entirely true. I've had an external (Maxtor) drive fail that wasn't fucked with at all, and internal (IBM) drive that, well, it was involved with Microsoft products, so I guess was doomed to fail. (Back on a Mac, thnx Bill.)

Secondly, have you ever paid to have your data retrieved? I did, once, for 40GB worth of data - and paid about $1K/10GB (aka $4K). Now I've got two external drives, backing up my backup of my backup. But I would guess that, for example, $4K to retrieve one's digital library would, by cost alone, define "irretrievable."

Youch. I had no idea. That's crazy expensive.

when you say fail do you mean it was completely beyond repair/no way to salvage at all?

Geir you assume no one downloads whole albums, then?

Some do, but way too few. We need to get back to the early to mid 70s where typical album acts such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Yes and Genesis dominated absolutely everything.

i've had a few drives fail; i'm not sure what the problem was, but it had to do with the b-tree something or other getting corrupted, and no operating system (windows, mac, dos) could read certain sectors. I'm relatively positive running norton on the drive made it worse actually.

RasterNoton did that 20’ to 2000 series, in transparent clamshell cases, which were full size but only silvered to 3” size. They’re all around here somewhere…

I also have a bunch of 3” avant / electroacoustic stuff (mostly bought from These Records in Kennington back in the day) and I know where those are cos I had to go looking for them to find… a 3” EP by a pair of erstwhile ILXors that I “engineered” in the dim and distant past. I was delighted to discover that my Samsung drive would actually rip it.

where can i get that new reich box for under $100, please

The Roland Kayn selection on the Avant Garde box is v much not the same old same old

i'm seeing the reich box on amazon for $97

Have we talked about the CD resurgence amongst Zoomers? My 18-year old godkids, nieces and nephews all want to come pillage my storage boxes, and on this most recent tour I was on (average age of the audience was around 23), CDs were selling like crazy

I made my way through the first five or six discs of Avant Garde and... it sounded so samey? And irritating? I'm rubbing my temples while a horn is skronking thinking "yeah, I guess this is what I asked for...."

― Cow_Art, Tuesday, May 13, 2025 6:28 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

One always has to sort through this kind of thing, it's the landfill indie of postwar music. I remember a Lindsay Cooper interview where she referred to this idiom as 'the pip squeak stuff'

Have we talked about the CD resurgence amongst Zoomers?

I am also hearing anecdotal evidence of this - bringing a couple hundred to the next record show for sure

Countdown to the launch of CeeDeeMePlease subscription service...

I have a big soft spot in my heart for 3" CDs
Me too! I have a few (Stereolab, Noveller) - also Ms. Telecom's solo release from 1996 is on a 3" CD

― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 12 May 2025 22:27 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Just yesterday I was given about 15 3" CDs, among a pile of CDs in general. Need to sort through them but one of them is the same Danny Wilson single three times.

at the record store near me that actually takes the time to curate a decent section of cheap used CDs, theres always teens scouring the racks

I made my way through the first five or six discs of Avant Garde and... it sounded so samey? And irritating? I'm rubbing my temples while a horn is skronking thinking "yeah, I guess this is what I asked for...

Not as irritating as the fact I missed out on getting this boxset by a few hours.

The 3" CDs I've found so far (basically I've been given heaps of boxes to either keep or get rid of - I have no space but I'm also too curious about anything that I don't instantly earmark for the charity shop)

Richie Valens - La Bamba EP
Wendy & Lisa - Lolly Lolly
Pete Townshend - A Friend Is a Friend
T'Pau - Only the Lonely
Carly Simon - Let the River Run
The Triffids - Bury Me Deep in Love
Ten City - Devotion
Hue and Cry - Violently
Kirsty MacColl - Innocence
Camper van Beethoven - Pictures of Matchstick Men
Public Image Ltd - Disappointed
Blow featuring Belva – Change (Makes You Want To Hustle)
Wop Bop Torledo – Jungle Fever
Danny Wilson - Never Gonna Be the Same (x3, all in Virgin pouches)
The Indian Givers - Hatcheck Girl (x2, one in Virgin pouch)
Pandora's Box – It's All Coming Back To Me Now (in Virgin pouch)

Not the most pulse-quickening selection but there's some gems there. I was sort of hoping for In the Air Tonight 1988, as that was the first CD my mum ever bought.

oh and Will to Power - Freebaby, which has a great sleeve if nothing else

SST used to do 3" CD singles, I had a Grant Hart one

the mary chain put out several 3" cd singles, i have Sidewalking as a 3" and a 12". and the sunday's first single is 3".

they are a perfect format for singles but always felt like you were getting very little for your money because they are tiny and just came in card sleeves.

So back in 1989 I was on Melrose Ave in Hollywood where many of LA's best record stores were and I picked up the "Blues from a Gun" 3" CD single import at Vinyl Fetish which exclusively contained their cover of The Temptations "My Girl" (and of course the single itself from the forthcoming album). I remember I paid $10.99 for it which was not a good a value! I remember the exact price because as always I walked west down Melrose to Bleecker Bob's Records and then to Rene's All Ears Records where Jim and William Reid just happened to be shopping. I was completely star struck and borrowed a pen from the cashier and shakily handed it over to William who graciously signed the sleeve (Jim had already moved on to the next store). He asked how much I paid and shook his head and said it was too much.

Love those 3" CDs from Metamkine - Fractals by Bernard Font is all-time

My kid has gotten into CDs which isn’t surprising because of me, but she has several friends that actually have CD players. Blew my mind. Maybe it’s a reaction to parents listening to pain in the ass records?

Okay that's an amazing story, Spencer. (But also a classic celebs-on-Melrose moment from that era -- the first time I was wandering around there around that time with some friends, one of them said "You have to get used to seeing famous people and not freaking out." Literally five seconds later Ric Ocasek, accompanied by a camera operator under his direction, darted in front of me, pointed towards something, and the two of them immediate ran towards whatever it was.)

I could have sworn the final disc of Prurient's Rainbow Mirror was a 3" CD, but it's actually a 'minimax' CD with a 3.5" data section surrounded by a transparent border. it looks cool but it doesn't play in my tray loading CD player, only in my portable. it seems like they first started popping up in the mid '90s (like this Olivia Newton-John single from 1995) and peaked between 1997 and 2000, but I don't think they were ever much more than a novelty

https://www.discogs.com/search/?format_exact=Minimax

https://i.imgur.com/0S64xvh.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/LpJruUe.jpeg

I have that but I don't know if it'll play in my system. It probably will; my CD player has a slightly recessed "tray within a tray" that will hold 3" CDs, so it should be able to process that one.

yep those work great for 3" discs

DJ Food's Quadraplex was a minimax. I never thought to even learn the name for it.

https://i.discogs.com/Deo5t5tcuH5k4n-XTqHG9j8N5imQ6W6DJWH1JgYFeAA/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI5MTQ3/LTEyNTcwMDE5Mjgu/anBlZw.jpeg

I had a Zappa 3" mini CD, iirc. "G Spot Tornado"? I think I had one from Keith Levene, too. And I think I had (still have somewhere?) one from Elbow.

Well then, it's off to the "things you didn't learn until you were shockingly old" thread for me, with that tray-within-a-tray intel in hand...

The 'Borders Exclusive ' version of the first Caitlin Cary album came with a 3" bonus disc which (IIRC) was packed on top of the main album on a weird custom spindle.

I have one of the Broadcast Microtronics EPs on a 3" CD - and I think Ghost Box released a few as well.

PIL This is Not A Love Song / Blue Water was a favourite from back in the day!

Vinyl’s become a luxury item, expensive and difficult to play. Gen Z are in a cost of living crisis (like all of us but they’re younger and even more skint). I literally had a meeting on Monday about how students aren’t drinking enough anymore. Of course they’re getting their retro authentic cultural kicks from cheap as shit CDs. That they can actually play.

Jeffrey Lewis did a great commentary on this a few years back. The twist ending is relevant to the current conversation:

LPs

speaking of dj food, strictly kev did a whole series on his blog about these mini cds

https://www.djfood.org/category/mini-cds/

also, when you bought a ninjatune toy :

http://www.ireallylovemusic.co.uk/ninja_toy/ninja%20toy%201.jpg

it came with a steinski vs ninjatune megamix on 3" single :

https://www.discogs.com/release/946733-Various-Rolito-Mix

bugger. here is a link to the image of the toy :

http://www.ireallylovemusic.co.uk/ninja_toy/ninja%20toy%201.jpg

Sweet! Yeah, Kev has a love for unusual formats and packaging unsurpassed by anyone I've ever seen. I follow him on Instagram, but never remember to check out djfood.com.