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Opinion: The Foreseeable End of Compact Discs

CD

CD
Will 2012 bring about the end to the era of CDs?
According to SideLine music magazine, CDs will no longer be around for music consumers beginning in 2012. Apparently, major music labels are planning to abandon the format that became so popular in the ’80s.

It doesn’t come as a surprise to those knowledgeable about the ever-changing music formatting, and yet it still stings.

As a child of the ’90s, I learned how to go on my morning jogs lugging around a Walkman player instead of a tiny iPod nano. I was even one of those toddlers with carried around a red, yellow, and blue plastic boom box blasting the Spice Girls and Hanson CDs AND cassettes.

Granted, I can’t remember the last time I bought an actual CD…I think it was Sherwood’s album Sing, But Keep Going in 2005. I have been known to frequent libraries to check out stacks of 20 CDs at a time when my computer has crashed or my iPod has crapped out.

That even grew tedious and tiresome after a few trips, though. It was easier to use sharing music files sites like Mediafire and Dropbox to share and trade music with friends.

It all went downhill once the you-can-illegally-download-music-and-movies sites like LimeWire and BearShare were created. Not only did they provide a new outlet for music to be shared but it also ruined my computer privileges on countless occasions.

I digress.

The three major CD-producing labels left — EMI, Sony, and Universal — have yet to release a statement in regards to the report.

Instead of having production money goes towards the creation of CDs, the labels will instead focus on iTunes and digital formatting of music. Amazon would still continue to be the primary provider of CDs.

Since the creation and boom of digital formatting, memory sticks and other online music storage sites, CD sales have dropped 50 percent since their peak sale year in 2000.

Until their collective value rises, their quality improves and they become more convenient than MP3s,  it’s unlikely the CD will avoid this certain demise.

But who knows, perhaps CDs will have a last-minute revival like their cousin, the cassette tape…in a few decades. Or even have a future comeback like their grandparent, the record.

Now what to do with all the CDs I couldn’t sell at my parent’s last garage sale…I guess I won’t have to buy coasters for a while!


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