Thursday, July 02, 2009

CD in the Age of Digital Music

Following the sudden death of superstar Michael Jackson, his albums were sold out in many music stores across Malaysia. Considering the omnipresence of MP3 music, this is pretty interesting.

MP3 music is convenient and customizable. We can download MP3 songs from the Web, whether legally of illegally. We can download individual titles instead of the whole album. Why, then, do we still buy CD/DVD?

One possible explanation is that MJ’s fans are Gen-X or pre-Gen-X, who are not as tech-savvy as the Gen-Y. They still prefer CD to MP3.

Another explanation is: we can’t display MP3 music on our shelves. It is not physical. In other words, it can’t be a collector’s item. Here is where CD/DVD still excels.

I plan to buy one or two Michael Jackson’s albums too – for collection purpose. The other albums I am eying are those of Celion Dion and Kitaro…

17 comments:

  1. Yeah! I read about it too last Saturday. A few of the music stores in Malaysia actually ran out of MJ's CDs including his Jakson 5 ones.

    This is really interesting because we could easily download it right. :D

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  2. I read about it too.

    Why do ppl rush out to buy CDs when a famed singer/celebrity dies?

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  3. A person's value is always worth more after he's dead.

    I wanna buy his CD too. My hifi system works on CD, can't play MP3.

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  4. totally agree with shingo t,
    after he's dead then ebody flock over to buy his album =.=

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  5. Yes, collector's items. I just bought a few two days ago, CDs and DVDs. His fans include people half his age or younger. Can't deny his musical brilliance. We only have to see the reactions of fans during his concerts. Amazing!

    MJ's hits are again topping the charts after his death. A second wave, if you will. Posthumous recognition..

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  6. tekkaus, Mei Ting
    As mentioned, people buy CD for collection purpose. Do you know they are lots fans of classic VW Beetle?

    shingo
    Maybe you need to buy an iPod now, haha...

    annant
    Yeah, I also want to buy his CD too...

    Happysurfer
    I always thought hip hop is most popular now.

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  7. There may be many people who just follow the crowd or the rush.

    However I do think that it is worth while to buy CD as they can become collectible and the songs also can be burned/converted into MP3.

    If we divide by the number of songs, each song actually cost not more than RM1.00, and we get CD as well as the electronic format.

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  8. Download mp3 sufficient la... can burn onto a DVD, the print your own cover. Can be put on shelves too. :)

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  9. It's really ironic that his album only sells so well after his death.

    Yes, buying the CD is good as collectibles.

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  10. Grasss
    Some youngsters know where to download MP3 songs for free, hehe...

    Neo
    Too much hassle... But I do encourage people to do so. This will pressure music companies to lower the price of CD, haha...

    foongpc
    MJ's album definitely sold well in the 80s.

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  11. No lah, Foong, like KS said, his albums were already selling well when they were first released and are now seeing a second wave of demand. To this day, the Thriller album is the highest grossing (most number of copies sold) album of all time.

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  12. I used to have quite a CD collection, but I left it in France when I moved to Canada. Haven't bought an album since then... way too expensive, and not convenient.

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  13. Yeah, Happysufer is right. Thriller is the best selling album of all time.

    Zhu
    I hope MP3 music will force music companies to lower the price of CD.

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  14. i guess it is good to have it display on ur shelf ~ looks cool :p

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  15. Just download only loh. So many places to download, some more can give a lot of headache to the big companies like WMG :P

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  16. Thriller is definitely the best album ever made. Even I never owned any of the MJ's CD. But will definitely get the Triller, Bad, and Dangerous sometime later.

    Michael Jackson grows up with me. Used to be a yearly show called Playback 84, Playback 85, Playback 86 etc, it is a collection of best MTV of the year. I still remember my dad recorded Playback 85, and the first song was Beat It. I was so impressed with Beat It that I keep replaying the same song until I started to get bored of it. But, it is one of the songs I can never get sick of. I saw teenagers or younger kids few days ago playing it on his handphone and their buddies sang along with it, it is really amazing how this 80s song so popular even teens these days can sing along with it.

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