New Wave Outpost Forum

Wow, after 50 years of vinyl,cd, and dvd production the Sony DADC plant in Pitman New Jersey is closing. About 300 employees will be let go. This plant was the birthplace of CD production in the US, so it is very clear to see the big bold writing on the wall.
I guess we won't be having much choice in the matter when it comes to what format we get our media on in the future - we are getting the MP3. Yeah! The industry is making up our minds for us! Oh well, life goes on.

it's not the first time;
the industry made up our minds for us in the 80s, in the rush to eliminate vinyl records, simply because the profit margin on CDs was so great;
they thereby set themselves up for destruction, as blank CDs were the essential component for the music biz ravaging illegal download craze starting with the birth of napster;
if vinyl was not literally shut down and forced out, and remained the prefered mode of listening pleasure(you can't download onto a blank slab of vinyl), the music biz would not be in the disasterous dumps that it currently finds itself...
self destruction, I think they call it,powered by greed...

[V]

Looks like there'll be 300 more Peckerheads lining up to get a reality show.

<a href="http://www.djcraig.net/los_angeles_dj">DJ Craig</a>

thanks for reminding me, Thursday night, new episode...

"Self destruction"??

The loss of vinyl and CD's and the advent of mp3's were MARKET driven. The so-called music industry did not "force" out any format. In fact, they would have preferred vinyl and CD's as the profit margin is much higher for those formats than for mp3's.

But the public wanted the convenience of downloadable files on their computer. If you think otherwise, that somehow the music industry "made up your minds for you" and systematically dumped vinyl and CD's, presumably against the public's wishes, then why was the iPod such a mind-blowing success right out of the gate?

(And cassettes/home taping threatened the music biz years before blank CD's came onto the market.)

[i]> In fact, they would have preferred vinyl and CD's as the profit margin is much higher for those formats than for mp3's.[/i]

Hmm, I don't know about that. MP3s, or even WAV/FLAC, cost next to nothing to duplicate, can be duped in seconds, and can be duped an unlimited number of times. Also, there is minimal storage costs, and no wasted/unsold copies.


[i]gt; why was the iPod such a mind-blowing success right out of the gate?[/i]

Because it was much better than a walkman/discman, in: portability, storage capacity, battery life, sound quality (walkman), no skipping (discman).



[i]gt; (And cassettes/home taping threatened the music biz years before blank CD's came onto the market.)[/i]

True, but the internet made distribution of music much more efficient. And there's no generation loss when duping MP3s, unlike cassettes, which also takes too long to dupe.


I'll agree with you that MP3s (blech) are gaining in popularity as the preferred format, though.

I worked in Sam Goody ,management through the 80s, so i know first hand that vinyl records, albums and singles, were eliminated physically in the racks, and assassinated by a media campaign designed to sell the idea that records are horrible and always were, while CDs are scratch proof, sound better and will LAST FOREVER!..
don't tell me what I lived through and was forced to participate in..
labels didn't like getting returns, and initially, returns on CDs were limited/refused by the labels, due to their 'indestructabilty"..

[quote][i]Originally posted by toyah[/i]
<br>I worked in Sam Goody ,management through the 80s, so i know first hand that vinyl records, albums and singles, were eliminated physically in the racks, and assassinated by a media campaign designed to sell the idea that records are horrible and always were, while CDs are scratch proof, sound better and will LAST FOREVER!..
don't tell me what I lived through and was forced to participate in..
labels didn't like getting returns, and initially, returns on CDs were limited/refused by the labels, due to their 'indestructabilty"..
[/quote]

I find that hard to believe. You actually were gainfully employed at one point?

I'm certain the music industry will continue to find ways to resell us stuff we already own. All they have to do is "invent" the MP3 equivalent of a "Blue Ray" format. Perhaps pay some old classic rock legend to endorse the new enhanced digital format and they're off to the races.

[b][i]Here's Neil Young for the All New MP3 Deluxe with Dolby Quadriphonic Sound featuring Enhanced Resonance and Flux Capacitor Filtering..."It sounds just like a record complete with authentic sounding pops and cracks!"[/i][/b]



<a href="http://www.djcraig.net/los_angeles_dj">DJ Craig</a>

You actually were gainfully employed at one point?
-------------------------------------------------------
yes, handsome, and I still am....
and I don't even have to play Macarena or The Chicken dance!
howzaboutdat....

I actually specialize in the YMCA. I find those other two songs too progressive for my audiences, many of whom have also found work in government programs after their dead end, retail jobs were eliminated.


<a href="http://www.djcraig.net/los_angeles_dj">DJ Craig</a>

I actually specialize in the YMCA
------------------------------------
I THOUGHT you looked familiar...the leatherman,right?

obs said:
>MP3s, or even WAV/FLAC, cost next to nothing to duplicate, can be duped in seconds, and can be duped an unlimited number of times. Also, there is minimal storage costs, and no wasted/unsold copies.

You are correct. But because it costs next to nothing to "manufacture" mp3's, record companies can't mark-up the price as much as they could with vinyl and CD's. That's why they would prefer to sell CD's. But the market doesn't want them.

toyah said:
>vinyl records, albums and singles, were eliminated physically in the racks, and assassinated by a media campaign designed to sell the idea that records are horrible and always were, while CDs are scratch proof, sound better and will LAST FOREVER!..

Yes, at the time the labels wanted to get rid of VINYL in order to re-sell you all your music on CD -- basically, double-dip. And they profited immensely from this "upgrade," as you stated.

But now they would love to keep CD's around. They can't make a profit on a triple-dip because consumers can simply rip their CD's to digital files. So as I said, the move to mp3's is MARKET driven, not forced by the labels.

Believe me, I prefer physical media in my hands too. The labels would love to sell us physical media because they make a profit on them. But, unfortunately, most people don't want it. Digital files are the future -- we have to just get used to that.

On the bright side, labels are making so much of there back catalog available for the first time in decades. They don't have to worry about unsold CD's and can't lose money on making digital downloads available in perpetuity.

Yeah, I can see that it was market driven. I agree completely with digital music replacing CD's due to the demand from the peeps. But it is very similar in some ways to the vinyl to CD switch because not everybody's on board. Like DJCraig I liked my vinyl and I don't mind CD's nearly as much as I dislike the latest digital music trend. It just seems like the quality of what we are consuming just gets worse and worse and for less bang for the buck.
For the life of me I can't understand the whole "lowest common denominator" concept of mp3's. It seems sometimes people just love to embrace mediocrity because its "easy". "Hey, let's throw out these perfectly good records because of these little shiny discs that last forever!"
I guess I'm different cuz I have no problem getting off my ass to flip the record and/or push the cd into the tray to get the best possible sounds.
Was driving around with an old buddy over the weekend on a ski trip and they had their impressive microscopic mp3 player jammin' with their online "finds". At one point those familar "wavy" sounds of the over-compressed tunes drove me to the point where I asked him to put on a CD.
Mp3's can be fantastic but they are sooooooo fucking boring. There is nothing there, just plain old air. No personality, no substance, not even remotely interesting. Its like you now have music as purely a non concept... simply just notes for the portable device to spew out while being distracted by other stuff in our lives. Music as accessory.
I love music, there isn't a day that goes by where I don't have it on - that's why I'm on this board in the first place. If these are the trends then I guess I'm odd man out. Sony is jumping the gun by closing that plant, but they already know something we don't - right?

For what it's worth, I was talking to the soon to be unemployed manager of one of me local FYE stores that's going out of business (a bunch are in my area). Everything is marked down 40% to 80%. He told me DVD's are flying off the shelf but CD's (some going for as little as 99 cents) are sitting on the shelf. He said you couldn't give them away.