There isn’t much doubt that the CD is on life support. At best. But in the last week I saw a few telling signs, the first of which is the title to this post. “High-quality Jewelcase” is a bullet on a sales page for a new release. No, really. It’s for a release that, frankly, deserves better. It’s a fairly high-profile artist, and CASH built the press site so I know its a decent record.
The release page was built by Topspin, looks really nice, and offers their usually excellent array of purchasing options. At the low end you get a digital download, and on the high-end you get a whole pile of stuff to go along with your digial+vinyl release. But it’s the low-end where it’s really interesting. You can buy the album digitally for $9.99, or you can “upgrade” to CD for $14.99. The offering is identical, save one point:
Yeah, the high quality jewelcase. I’m paying $5 more for plastic.
Now in reality, you’re probably getting more complete liner notes, additional art, etc. But everything that goes into making the jewelcase *should* be included as a PDF in the digital download. (Check out the downloads at renminbi.cashmusic.org.) Fair warning, I didn’t buy the digital so it may be in there — and in no way am I saying that it’s not in there. What I’m saying is that done right, a digital release should contain every scrap of the physical — except the $5 plastic.
My other big issue is the price-point for digital. $9.99? That’s basically the Apple-says-so pricing model, established because folks have been paying $12+ dollars per album for years, so the market will probably bear it. But why? Distributing digitally is cheaper and easier. You can make a really nice chunk at a price-point in the $5-$7 range, and that’ll get more folks listening to the music, becoming fans, and ultimately willing to swim in the high-end of the merch pool rather than the low-end.
Better digital packaging and proper price-points are sort of a big issue for me. So I’m just rehashing a standard rant here, and I’ll probably do it again in the future. I’m sorry. But the real thing that inspired me to write today is my daughter, Violet.
Violet is two-and-a-half, rad, and no stranger to music. My earbud headphones were her first real lesson in sharing, and we’ll sit and listen to music together as much as we can.
So as Violet and I were heading out to the playground yesterday a FedEx truck pulls up. This is a thrill for any two-and-a-half year old, and the cherry on top was that the package was for us. Whoa! So we open up a care package from Whitesmith Entertainment (WAY more on them soon) and find CDs from Sydney Wayser and Emilyn Brodsky. (Both are fantastic, by the way. If I have time I’ll write proper reviews, but wow…great!)
I hand Violet a CD to open, and this is where things get telling. First she asks “what is it Papa, a movie?”
Me: “no, it’s music.”
V: “it’s not music Papi, it’s plastic!”
I couldn’t make up a better line. And the happy ending? She takes out the CD, decides it makes a nice POP sound when she pulls the disc off the tray, and tells me she can make music with it.
After a pause she puts in on the ground and tells me she wants to blow bubbles on it.
Violet’s still little and there’s a lot in this world she’s thankfully naive about. But in the difference between music and plastic she’s dead-on. And if we’ve resorted to selling CDs based on the quality of the jewelcase then I think the final knell for the format isn’t long off.
love this post and you and violet! :) xo
It’s sad when the case becomes a bullet point….Unfortunately, bullet point marketing is where it’s at..The more bullets the better (‘cept one to the head). The point that’s missing with the digital distribution of music is it’s ephemeral nature. One bad day with a hard drive and those lovingly purchased music files (along with all those digital photos you’ve been meaning to print) vanish into the ether. CD’s may seem antiquated but they are a lot more robust than any self-burned disc. That said, the CD has it’s own problems…. I like cover art!..and the CD did in the 12×12 art format of the LP. What I would like to see is a new jewel case (Ok don’t call it a jewel case) that’s the size of an old fashioned LP. We can get art, liner notes etc… and have a place to store the CD so that it’s available when we need to re-rip it once the hard drive has failed…. and don’t give me that “just make a back-up” excuse.. Let’s face it. very few people do…
Couldn’t agree more about cover art, not to mention the liner notes and all that goes along with the packaging. And you’re right about the trouble with digital downloads, they’re not nearly permanent enough. My only issue is that CDs address back-ups more than they do music. I think part of what’s needed is a system where a user can easily verify himself/herself and get repeat access to the downloads. CASH did a simple version of that for Throwing Muses (http://throwingmuses.cashmusic.org/) — they sold download codes and they could be redeemed once, or registered to an email address for repeat access. It’s not a perfect system, more of an idea sketch. But bandwidth and storage fees are so cheap that its a realistic starting point. So instead of issuing new CD formats I’d really like to see more attention paid to the packaging, with releases coming out via book or art print with a repeat-access download.
Sorry…long reply. But you make really valid points, and the various solutions to those issues will be interesting to see!