Lorde may have given up on the humble compact disc, but one record seller says the Aucklanders buy thousands of CDs every week.
When Lorde released her third album, Solar energy, on August 20, you will not be able to buy it on CD. It is released on vinyl, digital download and streaming platforms only. However, the singer will be selling a “music box” – essentially a CD-sized package containing album-related collectibles, including a “high-resolution album download”.
Maarten Holl / Stuff
Lorde will not be releasing her next album on CD.
In emails to fans, Lorde said the decision not to release a CD was made for environmental reasons.
“No CD this time. I didn’t want to do something that would end up in a landfill in two years, ”she said.
“I decided very early in the process of creating this album that I also wanted to create an ecological and avant-garde alternative to the CD.”
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Regarding the “music box”: “It will be the same size and shape as a CD, and you can buy it where CDs live, but it’s something totally different. “
“It’s a bit like buying a membership in a small club, a club that engages in the evolving nature of a modern album,” she wrote on her online store.
His label, Universal Music, said it would be “an eco-conscious music box.”
Real Groovy chief executive Chris Hart said Lorde’s decision not to release a CD was “neither here nor there” in terms of business.
“I don’t think there will be an uprising,” he said. “His fans are probably not as passionate about CDs as those of other artists.”
Grahame Cox / Stuff
Chris Hart, owner of Real Groovy Records, says they sell thousands of CDs every week.
But he disagreed that the CD would be dead in a few years.
Hart said Real Groovy continues to sell over 1,000 used records every week, proving the old format doesn’t need to end up in landfill.
“We still sell a lot of CDs, but a lot less new ones,” he said.
Like the music industry around the world, Hart said vinyl records continue to be reassured and are now the main source of sales. He said vinyl overtook CDs five years ago and its growth has remained stable.
Real Groovy was ahead of the trend. For the first time since the 1980s, global vinyl sales exceeded CD sales last year.
Hard is the first to admit that CDs have their own issues, such as audio quality. And, of course, they’re just one album.
“The latest CDs, while better than downloads or streaming, were often inferior to the original vinyl. Compressed music is tiring, ”he said.
“So now we have people looking for the first CDs – the AAD recordings from the ’80s and’ 90s that were direct digitizations of LP stereo mixes, originally mastered for home listening. “
He said music fans who always buy new CDs tended to have high-quality CD and Blu-ray players in their homes, or wanted new music played in their old car stereos.
“So, yeah, we’re not throwing this baby out with the bathwater.”
Dean Kozanic / Stuff
Independent music stores across the country are benefiting from the vinyl boom.
Recorded Music NZ boss Damian Vaughan said revenues from physical music sales continue to decline, despite the popularity of vinyl. He said vinyl made up 50% of physical sales, worth $ 4.125 million in New Zealand. CDs and cassettes made up the other half.
In April, The Warehouse reduced the number of CDs it stocked and removed albums entirely from some of its stores. A spokesperson said there would always be CDs for sale through its website, and new versions would arrive “from time to time” in stores.
Recorded Music New Zealand (RMNZ) said CDs remained the most popular music medium until about 2013. From there, streaming took over. While streaming is the most popular way to listen to music, it hasn’t provided the revenue that physical albums did.
It always encouraged artists to consider producing CDs, if only as a commodity to earn extra income after concerts. But large retailers, such as Real Groovy, Marbecks, and other independent music stories continued to stock CDs.
