Where do they go?

SymphonyXV

SymphonyXV

Member
Mar 9, 2010
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Albany, NY
I've been reading as much as I can about the music industry over the past few months and I have always wondered something. Ok, so say a commercial band like Bon Jovi or Kiss sell 2 million albums in the first week of a new release. Probably at least a quarter of the people who bought a copy are either not going to like it or are going to get bored of it eventually. Where will all these left over CD's go?

Music stores very rarely accept used CD's these days because they already have thousands and thousands of them. It's the same with amazon. You can find say a Green Day CD for only a penny on there. Do these CD's just get thrown into the trash?

I am starting to run out of room on my shelf as well and I have a stack of CD's I used to listen to when I was in elementary school and middle school which I would never in a million years listen to again (like Blink 182 and Fall out Boy). I feel like my only option is to just throw these away, since they're practically worthless now. And this isn't even counting the cassetes I own.

And this is kind of unrelated, but say Symphony X's Paradise Lost album sells for 7.99 on amazon.com when on the official website, it's worth say 14.98. Does SX's record label not make any money at all from copies sold on amazon which are very underpriced? Even new, unopened copies on amazon can be half of the listed price. I know bands don't directly profit from record sales, but the record label is usually the only way bands can perform world wide and get magazine interviews/ TV appearances/ etc.
 
The answer to this is very multi-faceted.

The simple answer is that leftover stuff just permeates the market. If people decide to bin them, then the available material lessens. That would normally raise the price on still-extant copies, but with CD it seems to have little effect.

Factor in bulk-buy deals, middle-man cuts, MSRP vs actual retail value, wholesale value, ebay competition, etc etc.
 
Used CDs are cheap but not worthless. The price only gets really low in my experience if there's a huge supply and low demand. The canonical example is Genesis' Wind and Wuthering....major band, huge distribution, yet it's an album almost nobody outside a small fanbase seems to care about, so you always see it selling for nothing. But there are lots of other used CDs that can be more expensive.

The short answer is - they go into my collection, because I am constantly buying used CDs. :D
 
amazon can sell very low because they buy wholesale, which is a whole other factor. The site is marked for retail value, and honestly that price seems high in my book but the band can do whatever they want. Fact is, Amazon is either breaking even on backstock or they are making a buck or two still on wholesale cost depending how much they get the discs for.

The other thing is you wonder why you see so many AC/DC, Kiss, Thin Lizzy, Journey and other prominent band's records (i am talking vinyl here) in the used bins? it's not because people didn't like the records. In fact, most of those records are their best selling, and you can find them in spades because 20 friggin million people bought the album on vinyl and then vinyl became outdated so they sold their collections. Cd's are going the way of the dinosaur, but aren't totally gone and people still buy them so as long as there's a market, which there is. Thus, there's going to be cd stores (i got about 5 near my house) that buy used cds.

Also, you are young enough to have listened to Fall Out Boy? How long has that band been around, i've only been aware of them for like 2 years.
 
music stores rarely take in used? I disagree. Around here, the used sections are growing. There is a huge market for used cds. Some people only buy used. I buy used, why not save a few $$ over the new.
 
nckissfan said:
music stores rarely take in used? I disagree. Around here, the used sections are growing. There is a huge market for used cds. Some people only buy used. I buy used, why not save a few $$ over the new.
Click to expand...

cause if you do, you dont increase the band´s sold-records numbers and that way the label cares less about the band and it gets less benefits, less chances of a dvd, and finally dissapears from the face of the earth.
 
Also, you are young enough to have listened to Fall Out Boy? How long has that band been around, i've only been aware of them for like 2 years.
Click to expand...

It's been eight years or so. Not unreasonable!
 
This thread makes me feel old. CDs and CD players were sold to the public beginning in 1982.
I was 20 at the time. I grew up with vinyl LP and 45 rpm records and 8 track and cassette tapes. We used to record mix tapes from albums to cassettes and play them in our cars on cassette decks. I remember when Van Halen came out in 1976 one of my friends had an old beat up Toyota with an 8 track player and the VH tape never left that player all summer. You younger people can ask your parents or grandparents what 8 track tapes were.

On topic, I prefer to own CDs as opposed to downloading. Many people don't care about the physical product anymore so that's why there are so many used CDs. The recording industry is dying because of all the new technology. People aren't buying CDs anymore. Everyone is downloading their music. Are there still file sharing sites anymore? I buy single songs from iTunes to see if I like a certain band and if I do I'll buy the CD either from Amazon or my local record shop. I never download whole albums. A friend runs a small store in my town and they have a large used CD inventory. Plus he can get me anything that's in print and some things that are not anymore. I buy mostly new but I'll buy used if the CD is in good condition. I like to have the actual CD both for my collection and in case my hard drive crashes and I lose my entire library of music. I have a little over 700 CDs so far and I get more each month. My kids are starting to peruse my collection and it will be theirs someday anyway.
 
Prog is King said:
This thread makes me feel old. CDs and CD players were sold to the public beginning in 1982.
I was 20 at the time. I grew up with vinyl LP and 45 rpm records and 8 track and cassette tapes. We used to record mix tapes from albums to cassettes and play them in our cars on cassette decks. I remember when Van Halen came out in 1976 one of my friends had an old beat up Toyota with an 8 track player and the VH tape never left that player all summer. You younger people can ask your parents or grandparents what 8 track tapes were.

On topic, I prefer to own CDs as opposed to downloading. Many people don't care about the physical product anymore so that's why there are so many used CDs. The recording industry is dying because of all the new technology. People aren't buying CDs anymore. Everyone is downloading their music. Are there still file sharing sites anymore? I buy single songs from iTunes to see if I like a certain band and if I do I'll buy the CD either from Amazon or my local record shop. I never download whole albums. A friend runs a small store in my town and they have a large used CD inventory. Plus he can get me anything that's in print and some things that are not anymore. I buy mostly new but I'll buy used if the CD is in good condition. I like to have the actual CD both for my collection and in case my hard drive crashes and I lose my entire library of music. I have a little over 700 CDs so far and I get more each month. My kids are starting to peruse my collection and it will be theirs someday anyway.
Click to expand...

You think just because I didn't live in the 70's that I don't know what 8 track tapes are? And yes of course there are file sharing sites like pirate bay that are very popular. I buy CD's too but I don't personally know a single other person who does.

There is already a new generation of people who don't even know what CD's are. MP3's can be deleted on accident which is the main reason why I still buy CD's. Last year I bought about 120 dollars worth of MP3's then my computer crashed and I lost everything. You can back it to CD-R's but then you might as well just buy the real CD to avoid all of this in the first place. There are also USB drives but I lose those all the time because they're so tiny.
 
Prog is King said:
I prefer to own CDs as opposed to downloading. Many people don't care about the physical product anymore so that's why there are so many used CDs. The recording industry is dying because of all the new technology. People aren't buying CDs anymore. Everyone is downloading their music.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. I honestly would never pay to download music, simply on the principle that if I'm going to pay for something, I want a physical copy of it. CDs are the way I go, and I hope that even when CDs are phased out in the near future that some other form of physical media exists.
 
SymphonyXV said:
MP3's can be deleted on accident which is the main reason why I still buy CD's.
Click to expand...

Hey, a cd can get damaged by accident.

No, a fire or a hurricane can destroy your house, your computer and all of your cd collection by accident. But those MP3's on pirate bay will always survive. :cool:

MP3's and piracy should continue to exist in this money-ruled age because we need art and knowledge that's free and accessible for everybody around the world. But at the same time people should be responsible enough to financially support their favorite artists whenever they can.
 
Well my main argument against mp3's is that you don't get the "whole picture". When you download an album, you don't get to see the album artwork, artist notes, lyrics, professional photos, etc. I believe there's much more to an album than just the music itself. Who will ever forget opening Nirvana's Nevermind CD and instantly seeing the back cover of the booklet with Kurt flipping the camera off? Imagine buying Pink Floyd's The Wall without seeing the booklet? Or how about even SX's V's CD booklet?

Edit: and yeah CD's can get lost or stolen, but it's SO easy to just delete a computer file by accident or have it just randomly fade into thin air.
 
If you buy a CD you have an automatic lossless archival that acts as its own backup. Not a bad way to go. Vinyl can be a bit trickier, and it's less common. The only reason I prefer vinyl is the large artwork. That said, my position toward people groaning over the change to digital formats is basically get over it...things change, and music's not really worse for it.
 
Postulate said:
If you buy a CD you have an automatic lossless archival that acts as its own backup. Not a bad way to go. Vinyl can be a bit trickier, and it's less common. The only reason I prefer vinyl is the large artwork. That said, my position toward people groaning over the change to digital formats is basically get over it...things change, and music's not really worse for it.
Click to expand...

That's true. You really can't go wrong with CD's. And also not to mention you can play CD's in your car. I honestly believe unless you have a really HQ stereo system, vinyl is usually the best sounding format. Although, let's be honest, the vast majority of people just listen to top 40 and don't really care about any of the things that we do. I think if you are a musician yourself, you over analyze music WAY more than the average person, so that's like the great divide.

The music industry has always been fixed where a popular artist like Britney Spears makes an album, with 2 lead singles and the rest of the songs just complete filler, charges it for like 14.95 and people had no choice but to buy it unless they wanted to tape record the radio. Now, people get to bypass all of that and just get the singles, which ruins the entire game for the industry.

I don't know a single person who ever listens to albums. Everyone I know just downloads whatever single is popular on the top 40 and listens to a playlist shuffle on their ipods. What I'm saying is that, we don't want to and should not have to change our means of obtaining music just to fit in with the sheep. Hardly anyone but a very small demographic actually gives 2 shits about an album being seen as an art form. The new music industry caters to the mainstream junkies.

So as long as there are people like us who still care about the way we get our music, we should have no problem. More bands these days are releasing vinyl than ever before in my lifetime.

But then I have no clue how independent record labels will ever last. Are they done for or is there any way they can continue? Most people don't realize that it's the record label that makes things happen for the band behind the scenes.
 
I'm 100% with those that demand some kind of physical media. I will buy LOSSLESS downloads if it's the only available way to get something (See Bumblefoot's latest rerleases), but I prefer media....2000 cds, and going strong!

Oh, and Van Halen's debut was 1978, not 1976.....:heh:

I remember my friend's older sister had that the day it came out on 8-track, and while she was at work, we used her stereo in the open window while we played frisbee out in the street. Probably listened to that 8-9 times all the way through! :headbang:
 
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