Why CD's, Vinyl's and Tapes still triumph over music downloads

Are Music downloads facing the last bite?

Music downloads, the bane of the music industry, they seem to be dominating the music consumption behavior across the globe, whether through the more apt means of purchasing legal downloads through Amazon, iTunes or similar online and offline applications or via piracy and or illegals means such as filesharing, torrent, or hacking; even to extremes such as leaking.

But is the age of the music download finally reaching saturation point? With the resurgant force of Vinyls making a comeback and their subsequent values increasing, are we really getting the best of the music we have paid for? Clearly no.

Let's look at some figures:

The "IFPI estimates that 3.6 billion downloads were purchased globally in 2011, an increase of 17 per cent (combining singles and album downloads)" (Source: http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/dmr2012.pdf)

So ok that's over a half of the world's population, but what if the same song was downloaded multiple times by the same person? Or 1 million people downloaded 3,600 songs? That's about an eighth of the current population of London. So come on, how can they be absolutely certain more and more people are downloading music? Now lets look at CD's.

"Two-thirds of album sales are still on CD, but their fall of 19 per cent was offset by slightly increased digital sales of albums" (source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9775844/Album-sales-slump-as-downloads-and-singles-dominate.html)

But there again, are they taking into account unsigned artist album sales? What about charity shop album sales? Boot sales? Ebay? Amazon? Who knows, probably not.

The thing is, sure downloads are cheaper, quicker and easier to get hold of, but there are 10 reasons we believe why CD's, Vinyl's and Tapes still bully the music download trend.


1. Additional features and costs.

What do you also get from music downloads? Well apart from the occasional virus, sweet bugger all. However, when talking of CD's, you get a number of things that total up to make the value of the CD itself more appealing than downloads. For argument's sake let's say Dave's debut album costs 99p per track on iTunes and £9.99 pre-order. So you pay £9.99 for the pre-order, brilliant. But you want to reassure yourself you can keep the music for years, cue problem, how do you manage that? Oh you say you will use a re-writable disc and what wait you have to buy them?!?!? Print off the CD inlay and booklet cover, oh wait ink and paper usage, oh and the CD case too, suddenly you're paying £3-£6 more on top of the £9.99. Others will say, use an external hard drive, ok cool another £70+ spent, financially worth it in the long-run as long as A. it does not die or overload (it will eventually) and or B. you're burgled, bye bye Justin Bieber music. And what about the booklet with the CD, also the portability of the CD, play it in your car. I could waffle on and on but there are 9 other reasons why music download just don't cut it.


2. Misplacement of songs

Oh no disaster, you have deleted your entire iTunes library and you bought every song without backing them up or you deleted a song and want it back, another 99p+ gone down the drain, but with a CD you can burn it to your computer endless times. I think that closes this one.


3. Value and customization

If anyone could realize that if your favorite artist was to die that the music downloads would be worthless, but the CD's, Tapes and Vinyls have a value attached to them, just ask The Beatles whose release "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (signed by all four members) was sold at an American auction on Saturday 30th March for "$290,500 by Heritage Auctions in Dallas. It had been listed at $30,000 before the sale", now do you need any more persuading? Digital signatures do not count. Oh and you can get physical releases personalized per se "To James, much love. Carly Rae Jepsen".


4. Supporting the local scene

You are no fan if you don't own at least one physical release by a band, even more so where you have local bands that rely solely on your buying of merch, what a better way to support them than to purchase their albums. Oh and referring to point 3 you can get that signed too, furthermore some unsigned bands actually number their releases so consider that purchase of album copy 6/100 a rare. Just downloading the music for free really does not support the band, music has a value, it's an art so don't steal that time and money spent by the artist to record the song just for you to illegally download it.


5. Access to information

Lyrics, now what is the point of attempting to sing a song if you don't know the words. Quite hand to have your booklet with you to sing along, mind you doing a songs of praise style deliverance in a mosh pit is entertaining but not practical. Sure you can look it up online, but for ease of access it's better to read the booklet. Oh and you want to contact their management? Easy look at their managements name in the booklet.


6. Radio DJ's often start out by collecting CD's.

Anyone working in the music industry will admit to owning CD's, this is how most of the Radio DJ's started out. They buy the physical media (CD / Tape / Vinyl) and then play it on the radio, of course nowadays it's all digital on the computer. But back in the earliest days of radio, unsigned artists would send in their music on physical media to be played by the DJ, furthermore did you know Chelmsford, Essex was the birthplace of radio? Pirate radio also used these media types, Radio Caroline is well known for this and actually had an interesting start:

"Radio Caroline was begun by Irish musician manager and businessman Ronan O'Rahilly. O'Rahilly failed to obtain airplay on Radio Luxembourg for Georgie Fame's records because its airtime was committed to sponsored programmes promoting the major record labels; EMI, Decca, Pye and Philips". (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Caroline#1991_-_present:_Licensed_Support_Group_era)


7. Playability

CD's are in region 0, meaning they can be played anywhere on any PC, CD player or DJ desk. On the other hand, digital downloads come in a variation of types: mp3, wma, m4a, wav, etc and so restricting the playability level to lower than that of the CD. Enough said.


8. Authenticity

At least with physical media you know what you are buying, with music downloads all kinds of things can happen: tracks missing, wrong track length, wrong music entirely!. The third example is a classic with the Linkin Park vs Tribal Ink issue, the latter had released their song "Refugee" and was mislabeled as Linkin Park's new single "What I've Done" (http://linkinparks818th.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/tribal-ink-songs.html), at least with a CD, Vinyl or Tape you cannot go wrong.


9. Level of rarity

Say what? Vinyl limited to 10 copies! Physical rare releases are worth more than their download counterparts, need we say more?


10. Fun of collecting.

Jim's band has 12 albums, you are seeking the rare red pressing limited edition of the band's first album, £20 won on eBay, your collection is complete. Has the more personal feeling than downloading the whole discography no?


What is your stance on this? Please leave your thoughts below as a comment.