The End of Media

by

I was killing some time downtown when I went into Reckless Records, one of the few surviving independent record shops. I browsed a bit and saw the new CD from Grant Hart, formerly of Husker Du, and bought it for $12.99. Why not. I loved Husker Du growing up and even bought a CD from Grant Hart’s first solo act, a long, long time ago and it was decent.

After I got home I ripped the CD using iTunes. I hadn’t done that for so long that it wasn’t even set up to find the songs on the Gracenotes online library, and for a second I was panicked that I’d have to put the song titles in by hand, like I used to have to do many years ago. But I checked a box in preferences and it found everything and then the CD ripped in just a few minutes. I remember staring at my computer for half an hour in the early years when it took eons to rip a CD.

After I was done I was staring at the CD. What to do with it? I gave away all of my CD’s a while ago. I used to keep a few under the TV cabinet for when I was driving but now I have satellite radio or I hook up my iPod when it’s just me in the car. So after a bit of thought I… just threw it in the garbage. The CD kind of wasn’t that great (haven’t given it much of a chance but it was very weird) and if I was going to have ONE CD in the house, it wasn’t going to be Grant Hart.

That is truly the end of media.

Cross posted at LITGM

19 thoughts on “The End of Media”

  1. I boxed my CDs, both to be legal and because I had to re-rip the CDs at a higher bit rate a few years ago. Don’t know if I’ll have to do it again.

  2. Like Eris, I keep ’em both as hard data-backup and b/c I’ll probably be re-ripping them at a higher bit rate. I ditch the jewel case though & just keep the disc & pamphlet, if the content’s worth it; sometimes it is for jazz / classical / reissues etc.

  3. I have over 500 CDs of mostly jazz and classical music, most bought in box sets at an average price of less than $2/CD. When I want to listen to them, I can use either my computer or my boombox. I don’t see the point of wasting time to put the CDs on a hard drive, especially when the life of a hard drive appears to be considerably less than that of a CD. Granted, they take up shelf space, but the bookcase was cheap and I have the space.

    I did purchase some MP3 music from Amazon, because what I was looking for was not on CD.

  4. Well you could be like me – put it into the CD player of your 17 year old car! It seems the music companies are in a quandary – unable to adjust to the digital age .

    You could be like my friend the computer guru – when I complained to him about Amazon – how they won’t let you simply download your .mp3 file any more – wanting to store it for you in “The Cloud” – (which I refused to buy any more from them) – my friend likes to buy the CDs – then rip them. The CDs are then kept mainly as a backup.

    You must be younger than me Carl – I have no idea who “Husker Du” is – and to you they are classic rock ;-)

    Me – Beach Boys, ABBA, Alan Jackson, Def Leppard….

  5. Bill Brandt:
    You could be like my friend the computer guru – when I complained to him about Amazon – how they won’t let you simply download your .mp3 file any more – wanting to store it for you in “The Cloud” – (which I refused to buy any more from them)

    I bought MP3 music from Amazon in the last 6 months, and was able to download it to my computer. I ripped a CD. Has Amazon changed since then?

    I agree that it would be a ripoff to have to keep your purchased music in the Cloud.

  6. Larry Ellison has been saying that “the network it´s the computer” since the 80s, most people did not know what he means. Sony spent millions of dollars developing the blue ray against Toshiba´s HD media, Toshiba gave up, and Sony “won”, except very few people bought their product, you can a watch a movie in high definition online, almost free, or even free.

  7. Gringo: Maybe they changed their policy due to an uproar. I used to simply buy a song for .99 to 1.29 and download it. Then they made a bug fuss about how they were improving their service putting your purchased song on “the cloud” and allowing you to play it on x number of your devices.

    Never really got into the “how” of this – but told them if I couldn’t have the file on my computer to do as I want (barring sending it to other people) I was no longer interested in their “Cloud”.

    While as an old programmer I have to say I haven’t kept up with all the latest I do know that for the last 30 years the issue has been who controls their data?

    Which is why the PC/Mac has made such inroads.

    Was talking to a fellow at dinner tonight who was big at HP – MIT graduate – and I was talking about (to me) their disastrous purchase of Compaq.

    He countered with their purchase of EDS – what made Ross Perot a billionaire.

    Trouble is, while there is still a need for mainframes (where EDS excels – facilities management), even the biggest corporations are decentralizing and using 1000s of PCs instead of a big mainframe.

    Its all about the data, and keeping close to the users.

    Anyway maybe I’ll have to check out Amazon again.

  9. “I don’t see the point of wasting time to put the CDs on a hard drive”

    Bilocation (or higher order).

    “put it into the CD player of your 17 year old car!”

    I lost six CDs when the player broke. Never again.

  11. Well you could be like me – put it into the CD player of your 17 year old car!

    This is funny: I just sold a 16 year old car that had a CD player (and a tape deck!!) and bought a new Volkswagen with satellite radio, smartphone interface bluetooth etc etc.

    I read that comment and though “wait – does my new car even have a CD player?!!”. I had to go outside and look. It does!!

  13. When I get a free morning I’d like to replace the cassette player in my ’96 Tacoma. Should I skip the CD player and get whatever the next thing is?

  14. This is odd. I buy mp3s from Amazon, get their cloud service, and still have the mp3 file downloaded to my pc to do with what I want.

  15. @Tyouth – the answer is yes. Load your cd’s into a cheap mp3 player, put an mp3 player into that Tacoma, and you have your entire collection on one tiny music maker. Enjoy.

  16. Arcs – maybe I got fed up with them with they were just switching. Had an email back & forth with a rep; said it could only go on “the cloud”.

    Maybe enough people screamed – will have to try it again. This was about a year ago.

  18. I guess just make sure that the unit you put into your vehicle is compatible with your player. I have never done it so don’t have a ton of good advice to that end but I imagine it is pretty easy.

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