The following op/ed comes from Eamonn Forde (pictured inside), a longtime music journalist and author of The Last Days of EMI: Selling a Pig. Ford is based in the UK New book, Leaving the building: The lucrative afterlife of the music estatesNow available through Omnibus Press.
A major celebration of the music industry took place three months ago but it passed without a major celebration. It happened without any acknowledgment at all.
Something that helped propel the global record business to its absolute zenith, when it reached a major milestone, was at best met with indifference and at worst looked down upon.
The compact disc’s commercial debut was not publicly acclaimed as it turned 40. There was no stock tape parade.
It is not the subject of thousands of TV and magazine flashbacks. Something so remarkable at the time was barely noticed.
A CD in 2023 looks like something – like a lackluster haircut or early MySpace posts – that the music business is currently in. deep awkward via. It was then, the industry says when its cheeks lit up with something that could be embarrassing, and now, madly pointing to streaming and the vinyl renaissance as foot love its truest and most profound.
Nothing in music is permanent. So if it dies, the CD at least deserves to go with some dignity intact than to be coldly bid farewell with a shrug.
The CD is of great significance but its place in history is being lost.
The first CDs were released more than 40 years ago in Japan (October 1, 1982 to be exact). Billy Joel’s 52nd Street (originally released in 1978) is often considered the first album to be released on CD that day, but it was in fact just one of 50 titles released in this new format.
The format itself has its roots in 1976 and is a joint initiative between Philips and sony. It was released to the public at mournful sound Press event Introducing Philips Compact Disc in the Netherlands in 1979.
It’s been in development for a long time and it’s only taken such a long time to really capture the public’s imagination. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that it overtook cassette as the dominant format for music sales. It was then the rocket that powered the global business for the past decade to yield previously unimaginable profits.
Now, subconsciously, it can be considered a Judas goata quisling format that caused all that digital pain and chaos at the turn of the millennium.
Short version: CD brings perfect digital recordings to consumers for the first time. The significance of that move was not clear until much later with the demise of the MP3’s development, the rise of CD copying, and the early popularity of the internet. This brought the record business to an event horizon in 1999 with Napster and then all hell broke loose.
Although the industry had grown beyond belief in the profitability of CDs in the 1990s, it indirectly helped pull the business out like a glove puppet. It seems that this betrayal, although it is all the fault of the industry, will not be forgiven.
“The CD for the first time brought perfect digital recordings into the hands of consumers. The significance of that move was not clear until much later with the demise of the MP3 development, the rise of CD copying, and the early popularity of the internet.
In 2022, CDs are barely mentioned. If it does, it often feels reluctant. There’s also a mess about it.
Perhaps the most “huge” CD story of this anniversary year comes from an artist who had his first hit in 1958, the year LP turns 10 years old (that was a long time ago).
In a move to try and re-prioritize supermarket CDs, Cliff Richard released his new Christmas album in a “magazine format“. Christmas With Cliff is crammed inside a 20-page magazine. Symbolically, the disc itself is hidden, like the inverse of the lid. It’s almost as if people are repenting about it.
All of Cliff’s albums were really a massive marketing campaign and part of a larger effort to get the album to #1 within the week of its release, but it wasn’t enough. goodbye Stormzy. It tried its best, though.
The CD is now a poor relationship. This is an affordable option to buy when looking to see a performance in-store (as vinyl will cost you £30+) when they’re looking to boost their chart positions within the week of release. It was made to feel disposable, a third-rate product, an old rival. “Come and watch us play in a small venue for £12,” the acts say. “Oh, and this is a circular gewgaw or whatever.”
It is still used occasionally. Mojo the magazine still makes a covermount CD (take it off Ask considered to hasten its demise), but you get the impression that they want a more LP coverage. In mono, obviously.
“CDs are being allowed – even encouraged – to shrink. No hipsterised rebirth is planned for it like there is with the cassette.
CDs are being allowed – even encouraged – to atrophy. No hipsterised rebirth is planned for it like there is with the cassette. A “do not resuscitate” note was hung at the end of its stroller.
There is a bleak sense of symmetry between entry and exit. For example, in 1983, record labels made no real effort to bring the format to the masses. Buying CDs is extremely expensive (as is the hardware to play them) and there are only a handful of titles available for purchase anyway.
EMI’s aversion to CDs at the time, as seen in this BBC news reporting from 1983, hardly unusual at the time. They sit there until they’re sure it’s worth it. Until 1988, jewel in EMI .’s catalog crown was even put in place to handle CD reissues.
The labels that were initially hesitant to embrace the CD are almost ashamed of its existence now. That in-between (the glory days of the CD when it was a money machine to an unprecedented extent) has now been strategically overlooked.
Well, we just have to accept its decline. But the CD, if it dies, deserves a more solemn farewell than it is receiving.
this format perform you as a fan. It built the business you run today (for better or worse). You wouldn’t be able to do what you do today without it. The least you can do is give it a nice eulogy so it can roll into the sunset with at least some dignity. Global Music Business
