Death of the CD

by: Justin Tate

I’m a tech junkie and proud of it. Part of my job is staying up on the latest and greatest thing out that will be outdated in 6 months. Put an “i” in front of it you’ve got my attention, and if it might make my life a little easier I’ll probably buy it. Technology has changed the music industry so much, mostly good but the one thing I’m still dinosaur about is buying CD’s.

I have yet to purchase one thing off of  iTunes or any other digital music stores.

Hell, I won’t even order a CD off the ‘net unless I can’t find it local. I’m like a kid at Christmas tearing through the plastic so I can pop it in as quick as possible. I know I’m eventually going to be forced out of my ways and start all the downloading but I’m riding the train until the bitter end. I love my iPod because I can have my whole music collection on me at all times but that’s where the affair ends.

It’s evident that it’s coming to an end every time you walk into a store. The music aisle keeps dwindling down and now it just seems to be what’s on top of the charts. I get the positive points of being able to streamline, chiefly being that you don’t have to deal with plastic cases and scratched disc. But, I still have a shelf with God knows how many of the old things proudly displayed. It’s a mural to my musical addiction. Some are embarrassing, some make me smile, and yet there are others I wanna throw out because of the memories they rehash that I wanna forget but don’t wanna lose.

I don’t get the same feelings scrolling past them in my iPod.

I’m sure I’m in the minority here. Downloading is easy, usually cheaper and you don’t have to wait out lines or worry about it being in stock. It just seems very disposable to me. I love hearing stories from the 60′s and 70′s about the old record stores.

People used to just hang out listening and talking about music. I’m still jealous of not having that growing up. While they still do exist I wasn’t lucky enough to have one anywhere near me.

The closest thing I had was Hastings and thought I hit the jackpot when Best Buy opened up. Just looking through the albums and talking to people about what hey were getting, I could stay in there for hours. I still think Best Buy should have had me on commission for all the people I helped with the “I just heard this song and don’t know who sings it” albums I helped sell.

My favorite thing was to play my musical version of Russian Roulette, just pick a CD  of somebody I’ve never heard of and buy it. I can’t tell you how many crappy CD’s I bought from that damn game but I found a few great ones. The Great Divide was one of the bands I found that way. All the crap was worth finding that one band. At the time it was the only way I had to discover new music.

This hasn’t really been about our kind of music but I’m trying to tie it all together. The thing I love most are the little things that come with the album. The cover art, liner notes, seeing who they thanked and who wrote what song. Our artists do a tremendous job of  making you want the disc over the download in my opinion. Just the last few that have been released recently with Stoney’s fuzzy cover and Reckless Kelly’s slide show are enough to make me drop my coins on them. Most of the bands around here do a pre-sale with autographs and they keep surprising me with amazing cover art.

They are keeping the dinosaur alive as long as they can.

I can’t imagine a Todd Snider album without being able to flip through the semi coherent ramblings that come with them. I’m sure it’s not a big deal to a lot of people. To me it makes it seem real in a way I don’t think iTunes could ever duplicate.