I’m 40, and when I was a teenager, EVERY band had CDs. And I know a lot of music has shifted to digital. So much so that I heard Best buy stopped selling CDs. Presumably because nobody buys them.
So I wonder what musicians sell besides t-shirts and posters at concerts. Do the kids have ANY CDs? Do they buy mp3’s? Do they just use pandora and spotify? Do they even own their own music?
I’ve given up on trying to understand the lingo. Other generations lingo sounds stupid to me, but still understandable based on context.
I have NO idea what a skibifibi toilet is…sounds like a toilet after some taco bell and untalented jazz, but maybe I can try to understand their thought process on media consumption.
I never really liked physical media. But I also don’t have a Spotify subscription. So I guess my music is downloaded from YouTube and other sources.
Usually t-shirts and hoodies, vinyls, armbands and autographed drum skins are the essentials, I feel like. And then every band has some assorted rotation of merch on top of this, but that’s not universal for every band: beanies, mugs, CDs, keyrings, baseball caps, posters, ashtrays, weed pipes and bongs… These fall into the two categories of merch that caters to the target audience, and merch that is bought in bulk from www.weprintyourcrap.com.
For what it is worth, CDs are definitely pretty rare, because it’s just an obsolete media. The CD was convenient before phones became even more convenient. Vinyls, on the other hand, are very popular and often occur because they’re decorative and playing them is considered an experience.
For reference, I mainly go to pop punk/rock/indie/metal shows
I have a teenager and they seem to track with their parents.
My son is into digital, but he thinks vinyl is cool to collect as art.
One of his friends is into the sound of vinyl, her parents are vinyl people.
I still go to tons of concerts and I’m seeing cassettes and vinyl being sold, I don’t see cds as much but I’m sure they’re selling them.
Nope. I wouldn’t have a use for it, even if I was a super fan. I listen to my music with my jellyfin server, or stream from the commercial platforms. I think I still have some CDs somewhere, and could play then if I really wanted, but it’s just a pretty dead format for me.
As far as I know, the money is from selling additional stuff, like merchandise. Some people like vinyl, but I personally don’t care.
Skibidi toilet is a animated series with actually pretty good quality where people with cctv cams for heads are at war with people who’s bodies are toilets. Haven’t watched a lot of it but I can kinda see why the kids like it, hits similar as star wars the clone wars but without a mega Corp behind it.
I know some people who will buy vinyls but that’s as far as it goes for physical media in music. Music CDs are pretty much foreign objects in 2024 and people just stream instead.
A CD would be cool, but where am I ever going to use it? I don’t have a CD player at all…but I do have an Apple Music subscription. A vinyl at least is large and works better as a decoration. Don’t really see the point in using a CD.
If I want to support the artist I’m seeing, I just buy clothing instead.
P.S. we don’t know what a skibidi toilet is either. Ask gen alpha.
The last couple of concerts I went to were more EDM and aside from T-shirts, hats, pins, and patches, etc they had vinyl records.
I’ve gotten a free CD at a concert recently. I don’t have anything to play it on.
Do you have a game console? Uhhhh…besides Switch I guess.
I have a switch emulator on my pc. Ones for other consoles too. Don’t see much added value in a physical console, since I need a reasonably powerful PC for work anyway.
Also, to touch on the other questions in the post, I have an Apple Music Subscription, but do have about 50 GB of flac files of my favourite music mirrored to most of my devices, in case I’m holed up somewhere without Internet access.
I dug out my Wii for it once… Which probably proves im not a young person anymore
Could the Wii even play audio cd’s???
It had the capability (as with DVDs), so as long as you’ve got a modded Wii and the right homebrew software, yes!
Ahhhh not stock, only via mods… I have the black “unhackable” Wii :(
Yep, last time I owned a CD drive was two laptops ago, around 2016 or so…
Yeah, I don’t own anything that can play optical media. When downloading MP3s became a thing I just stopped using CDs.
Get an external drive, it’s useful to have lying around for those rare occasions where you have something on an optical disc.
Omg come to my house! I have a computer dvd-drive and a 4k drive for ripping. I have 3 gaming consoles with disc drives. And I have 9 portable CD players and 3 portable DVD players.
I am a collector. I have a hobby of making my own CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays.
What 4K drive do you have, and how do you like it?
It’s an Archgon Md-8107-U3. I got specifically because the firmware could be updated to allow ripping with programs like Make-MKV. Works great.
That does sound fun. How far from Berlin are you, in rough terms? Can I walk over, or is it more of a cycling distance?
I’m about 6000km from Berlin I’m afraid.
Yeah, that’s a bit of a hike, probably would throw my plans for the week.
I’ll bring the pizza and some two liters! Who wants what?
Man, I started answering you and realized I am also 40 and…yeah.
But, were I to go to a show, a CD? Nah. But a sticker or socks or something, certainly.
I would buy their vinyl though! I’m also in my 40s, never listened to records before 2023. I jumped on the bandwagon and haven’t looked back. Something about all that effort to listen to 22 minutes of music and getting to enjoy an entire album is just fun.
What’s your setup, and do you find that the sound quality is superior to streaming or physical media?
I’m by no means an audiophile, I just have a Victrola I bought at Best Buy and run through my Bose sound bar using the headphone jack. I wouldn’t say it is better audio, but the highs don’t hurt my ears as much as digital music does.
I’m in my 40s too. I usually look for vinyl, if I’m inclined to buy music at a show.
CD without download code is a rip off.
Wait…do people not rip mp3s from cds anymore?
well we do because we r old and know that Audio CD quality is superior to MP3’s. But young people don’t even have a CD drive. TBH this is the best way to build your music collection. Buy original CDs off discogs for like 1$ and rip them.
This might answer some of your questions. Music isn’t the same. It’s mass produced entertainment that we can browse at our fingertips with infinite options. Music devalued itself by being so accessible and throwaway.
I mean…it didn’t answer my question per se, but it was a great insight into where an industry is, and how they got there.
I saw a 12 minute run time on the video, and thought “I’m not going to watch this whole thing…”
But the man makes great points.
In the 90s, if you played video games, and you played an SNES RPG, those were typically very text heavy, story driven games. The memory on an SNES cartridge was very data limited. So you couldn’t have a 9,000 page script. It simply wouldn’t fit on the memory allowed.
So developers would write a first draft, and find out they were over limit. So they’d cut it down by 30%. Find out they’re STILL over the limit. Cut it down by 5% and NOW it fits. Just barely.
And what you ended up with was a direct, straight to the point story that hits its plot points in a very matter of fact way. You get an oversaterated story that makes sense, and is pure plot. They cut the fat.
What I’m saying here is that limitations are frustrating, and require more effort to work around, but they also breed creativity. And that seems to be the main point this guy is making now with music. Sinatra is dead, his music three quarters of a century old, and still feel timeless. He had barrels of creative limitations, and he overcame them.
Or, not discussed here is Bethoven. I’m not even sure he was ever able to record any of his music himself, but he recorded the sheet music. Which means anytime you hear Bethovens work, you’re technically hearing a cover song. Yet despite not having a way to distribute his music, his works are still timeless centuries later.
But this video discussed more about music production from the manufacturers viewpoint. Fascinating stuff for sure, but I’m more interested in knowing from a young consumers viewpoint.
Although, I will admit, his video reminded me of Green Day. Simply because my sister bought me my first CD in 1994. I was 10. It was Green Days Dookie. I can remember listening to that cd over and over and over, studying the box art and booklette, just like this guy said.
I remember being in high school about 15 years ago and going to a show where a band was selling music on a flash drive. That felt so clever, since the world was just starting to ditch CDs at the time.
I didn’t really answer your question at all though, sorry lol. I don’t think many people buy. Some people collect stuff but it’s probably analog/vinyl, not CDs.
Some bands I see sell cassette tapes and vinyl records at their shows. These tend to be heavy metal bands. There’s a niche interest in physical media in music, and it’s mostly for analog mediums.
I like it when they do that and also give you a free digital download code so you get both.
Nkt exactly young anymore, but I would and I do. Music you don’t own can disappear any day on the whims of a company. I don’t like that.
I’m not even a younger person, but when I got a new computer case a couple of years ago I moved my blu-ray drive from the old one and ended up using a dodgy sata cable or something because it doesn’t show up
I told myself I’d fix it when I needed to read a disk.
That day has not yet come
I almost always buy a vinyl. Great artwork, lasts forever, makes putting a great album on a special occassion.
