SevenHat

A recent article from hypebot confirms something my gut has told me for a long time.  Music consumers still love to hold a physical cd in their hands.   Even though digital downloading is still on the rise, this article points out that 73% of young music lovers still prefer a cd to downloads only.  Even the heavy downloading buyers and streamers spend five dollars more a month on cds.   My personal experience confirms this as well.  I have a buddy back in Illinois that lives and breaths cds: new, used, it dosen’t matter.   Sure, he has an ipod and its packed to the gills, but so is his office with the cd collection thats spills out onto every open spot, it’s truly staggering.   But that’s the joy of it all, a collection of music that is a documentation of our interests in music.   That reminds me of the scene in ‘High Fidelity’ when the guy is organizing his record collection in the order of his girlfriends that he’s had.   That’s truly lame, but, whatever!  We as human creatures love to touch and hold stuff and having that fulfilled by digital x’s and o’s just doesn’t make the cut.   I love carrying my library of music in my pocket, but for some reason I still like picking up the cd off the shelf and checking out the liner notes and art work, again!   Downloading a song or an album is great and I do it a lot, but honestly, I don’t think I have a connection to that music as much as I do with the ones I took time out to go buy at a store.   Also, books haven’t been replaced.  We certainly have cool new ways to read and listen to books, but book sales are through the roof these days!  People don’t stand around and look at plastic and metal box and say, look at at my huge library of books!  They have them proudly displayed and pat themselves on the back.  I think we’re kind of like the meatheads that drive big trucks.   I digress…

Most articles I read, and this one is no exception, usually point out that digital product will replace the physical product.  I’ll be bold and say, No, I don’t think it will.  I’ll place my bet on human nature and the fact that we love “stuff”.  Look, vinyl was dead, but it’s now being resurrected and becoming popular once again!  Cds might disapear, but it will be replaced by something else we can touch and feel.

Physical product is still the driving force of making a living. well, ok…it’s good music, but without something tangible, we don’t survive.  Startups and indies aren’t ditching the cd and turning only to digital.  They aren’t leaving the ‘old’ behind altogether for the ‘new’.  But they certainly do use a lot of digital product to sell the physical.  The market is at work, and my gut says the market will keep something physical available for the foreseeable future.

Here is the link:

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/07/survey-uk-music-buyers-prefer-cd-to-digital.html