CD IS NOW

Re the debate about HMV and the death of the CD (RC 396). I seem to remember back in the 80s that the CD would herald the end of vinyl, which, after a shaky couple of years, turned out to be bunkum. I also seem to remember that digital compact cassette was going to supersede CDs, and, well, blah blah blah. And 8-track tapes were the future once…

I think this industry still hasn’t learned from the kickin’ it has got from the digital market. And now it’s getting behind digital full-pelt, long after the horse has bolted, forgetting that most of us have only in the last 10 years or so got rid of all our cassettes and in some cases, vinyl. I use Spotify daily, and iTunes a lot. But there is still no substitute for having product in your hand, to pore over and read. This was the case for vinyl of course, and still is, and now that we live in an age of re-issues – the CD has a lot more to give.

I worked for HMV between 1990 and 92, then 2002-2008. In my first tenure, HMV was the place. In my second tenure they were lost in the woods. I love HMV, and don’t have a bad word to be honest, and it was wonderful playing High Fidelity in their stores over the years, but Simon Fox predicting that CDs won’t be stocked by 2016? Big mistake. HMV have continually tried over the last 10 years to be all things to all men (or women) when their strength was selling music, recommended by geeky music snobs like me. This has been lost, and as a result they are now not the market leader. And predicting the end of the CD is bunkum too. Look at Amazon! They sell millions of CDs every day. The CD is still “new” and a lot of people have yet to catch up. Let Tesco sell the chart stuff, but the rest of us still want a physical shop, to find that rare gem on CD, and not just Amazon or iTunes.

by Belfast
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