Friday, August 26, 2005

Death of CDs???

When Ohio-based rock band the Sun releases its first full-length album next month, it will be available on DVD, online and on vinyl record. But not on the medium that's still the biggest seller in the music industry today: the compact disc. "It's a tip of the hat to the past and the tip of the hat to the future," said Perry Watts-Russell, a senior vice president at Warner Bros. Records Inc., which signed the band.
The full-length CD format, which debuted in 1981, last year sold 766.9 million copies, down from a high of 942.5 million in 2000, according to statistics from the Recording Industry Association of America. At the same time, online sales -- championed by the popular Apple Computer Inc. iTunes Web site -- is picking up part of the slack: 139.4 million tracks were sold online in 2004.
The Sun's 14-song album, "Blame It on the Youth," will be released Sept. 27 and will come with one disc option -- a DVD of music videos that can be manipulated through a computer to download the songs onto an MP3 player or burn them onto a CD. Actually, there is a second disc, but it's made of vinyl -- a nod to a burgeoning subculture that is reviving the old long-play format. ...Read more here

No comments: