A eulogy for music CDs

Music CDs appear to be breathing their last gasp at retail. And they could soon disappear entirely as consumers shift to subscription streaming music services.
Best Buy plans to pull music CDs from its stores by July 1, citing slumping sales and a desire to use that retail space for other items. And Target could follow suit. (See articles by Business Insider and the Los Angeles Times.)
Consumers like the convenience of on-demand streaming music services like Spotify and Apple Music. People no longer have to load a compact disc into a CD player to queue up their favorite tunes.
However, the end of CDs is changing the music business in ways other than losing a physical distribution channel.
With digital distribution, artists big and small are on equal footing, battling for attention on streaming services. When CDs were king, artists with major label backing dominated the retail racks and earned consumer mindshare. Packaged media has significant additional costs in manufacturing, shipping and handling that digital distribution does not.
With digital music released online, consumers are starting to feel overwhelmed with all the choices. It likely will be harder for music artists to break through to a large audience. (See Wall Street Journal article subtitled “The sea of music that the industry is producing has both artists and fans feeling submerged.”)
Music fans used to take pride in their physical music collections and were devoted to their favorite performers. But as ownership gives way to subscriptions to all music, there’s bound to be a weaker connection between fans and performers.
Also likely to go away is the notion of albums. With no physical media to fill, artists can release a new track every few weeks instead of once a year.
The decline of CDs also is likely to give more clout to DJ producers. Some artists like Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber now seem to be building their careers as singers for hire for DJs rather than trying to create their own albums.
CDs aren’t going to disappear overnight, but the shift to streaming is clear. Last year, streaming accounted for 65% of recorded music sales in the U.S., up from 51% in 2016 and 34% in 2015.

Photo: Pathetic music CD section at Target store in Reston, Va. (Patrick Seitz)