Is the CD Becoming Obsolete? 645
mrnomas writes "What's to blame for the declining CD sales? Is it that manufacturers are putting out more and more 'safe' (read: crap) music while independent musicians are releasing online? Is it because iTunes is now the third largest music retailer in the country? Or is it just that CDs are becoming obsolete?" Quoting: "Forbes.com [ran] an article showing that CD sales are expected to be down 20% in 2008 (slightly higher than the 15% drop initially predicted). Why such a drop? What's truly happening is a gradual shift away from physical media to downloadable formats. What this indicates, so far, is that US sales of digital music will be growing at an estimated rate of 28% in 2008, however physical sales will drop even further, resulting in a net overall decline.""
Speaking for myself (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe others feel the same way?
I still buy CDs, and here is why (Score:5, Interesting)
2. I have a semi-permanent copy which I can re-rip as many times as I want.
3. Shiny.
I hope not... (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate downloaded music, I hate having nothing but some files and a printed out cover to show for my money (or no cover etc. if I'm not going to back them up individually).
I love having shelves of cds, with their cover art, their liner notes etc. I love the hard, physical format of them.
I'm forever worried that I'll lose or misplace, erase or whatever the tracks I've legally downloaded...
I want physical music delivery to remain dammit!
Re:Speaking for myself (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, I voted with my feet (and wallet) a few years ago.
I go see local bands, and if they have CDs on sale at the door, I'll buy there. That's the extent of my music spending now, and I used to buy half a dozen CDs a month.
I bought one Saturday (Score:4, Interesting)
1. I like it uncompressed, I probably couldn't hear the difference with the new iTunes DRM-free tracks, but I don't have to worry about recompressing them later and having the flaws come popping out.
2. I run linux and it's really a PITA to boot over to windows to use iTunes, and eMusic doesn't have some of the artist I enjoy.
3. The cover art and the convenience of having a disk for the car premade with a nice pressing is enjoyable.
4. I want to buy from artists I enjoy so they can keep making music
I don't see online distribution quite solving these things yet. ALthough, I will admit, most consumers are a lot more apathetic about these issues than me.
Re:A Silly Thing About Vinyl (Score:3, Interesting)
Back in, um, '92? I went to my favorite used music store, and they had set out a milk crate filled w/ abandoned albums that had scratches and the people who brought them in weren't able to sell. I bought the whole crate for $3 and covered a wall with them.
Re:Not yet (Score:5, Interesting)
The music industry should realize the CD is a fading format. They need to start pushing 192khz audio dvds. They have almost the same manufacturing cost as CDs. And considering the number of homes that have surround sound system in the US, this is quality that could easily be appreciated.
(under 25 and appreciates good sound quality)
Re:A Silly Thing About Vinyl (Score:3, Interesting)
A record album was a fairly large thing, and, covers were small posters in their own right.
Yeah, I grew up with them, loved them, and I remember people bitching about the small size of CDs when they came out, but I never missed it. Probably because I got a booklet with the CD (probably same total area, so it was a push.)
Then the booklets got smaller and I never missed it. Probably because by then I had the web and didn't need to stare at physical liner notes while listening to an album.
Now I've got D/Ls and iTunes and cetera, and any 'album' I listen to I've probably created myself, so I know why each song is there.
I prefer CDs. (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, it seems like I'm more restricted in how I can use my music when purchasing online. It seems easier for a company to control content that way. Sure, there are ways to defeat any copy-protection, but sometimes it's a hassle.
I'd rather buy a CD, convert the songs I want into MP3s and be done with it. That way I have the comfort of knowing I have a reliable, high quality backup which I can even stick in my sound system when I'm so inclined.
So going online I'd spending as much as I have with CDs, but I end with with nothing physical to show for it. No album art, no booklet, not CD, nothing. Just some crappy 600x600 jpg if I'm lucky and an MP3. Maybe I'll embrace that medium some day, but only when it's evolve far beyond its current form.
Re:Not yet (Score:3, Interesting)
But 98% of the time, I will buy a CD and then rip it. I will get much better quality with my own rip than I will buying from an online store. Even worse are the files on P2P networks. Legal issues aside, most of them are ripped by 15-year olds that have no clue as to how to rip a high quality file (i.e. with high bitrates).
If the online music stores want to switch from AAC or WMA to FLAC at very high bitrates (and DRM-free), then I might stop buying CDs.
And maybe I'm old fashioned (and just old) but I guess this goes back to my days growing up with vinyl. I like liner notes (although I need a magnifying glass to read them on most CDs these days) and cover art. And perhaps even lyrics (that I know haven't been butchered by some bozo who contributed to one of the online lyric sites).
Another plus for CDs: if my hard drive crashes and takes my music collection with it, I can always rip the CDs again (been there, done that).
And you're right, it's the under-25 crowd that doesn't care about any of this stuff. Just as long as it sounds decent on their iPod or WalMart bought boombox "Stereo".
For the record, I don't own an iPod or any kind of portable music player. But my computer doubles as my home stereo (that's why I invested in decent speakers for it).
So unlike the under-25 folks, I do care about good sound and right now that's best had with CDs (or even better - SACD or DVD-Audio).
Since the under 25 crowd are the people who have always been buying the most music, it makes sense that CD sales have plummeted.
Oh and yeah, and most of what's on the radio these days sucks anyway. I generally buy music based on reviews or word of mouth.
But I digress....
It's obvious who's to blame... (Score:2, Interesting)
Recently I bought the new Nine Inch Nails album. Not because I felt the need to support their label, not because I prefer my music on CD's (I don't), and not because it was a good album (though it was). I bought it because a glimmer of imagination and creativity went into its production. The CD appears black until it's played, once it's been heated up by the laser it turns white and reveals previously hidden writing on the CD itself, along with a bit of binary code that can be translated into a URL. Finally, a reason (albeit a small one) to own the physical media again. A little something extra that's pretty interesting and can't be owned without buying the album. This is adaptation, and it's a trend the rest of the music industry should be following. It's time to offer more than just 12 tracks burned to a CD in a cheap plastic case, it's time to justify the $20 price tag in an age where the same music can and is being distributed globally for free. And for god's sake it's time to let some good music through, instead of this constant stream of generic crap.
Most of all, it's time for the RIAA to go away and make room for a new generation of music entertainment, one that isn't terrified by change.
Re:Not Just Away From CDs (Score:5, Interesting)
I would say that (for the past few years at least), good solid albums have stuck out more in my mind than individual singles have. This is especially true among independent artists.
A few somewhat recent albums that I've enjoyed as a whole (in no particular order)
and the list goes on.... There have been quite a few high-profile "popular" albums released by popular artists such as Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Justin Timberlake, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, all of which are very much intended to be played as an entire album.
At a show I recently went to, I bought the band's CD on a whim because I enjoyed the show. As the guy handed it to me (he was the band's bassist), he encouraged me to copy it, share it, email it, or "do whatever you want to get the word out." The side you don't hear is that most small artists owe much their very existence to the internet.
So, no. The album is far from dead. Even though popular music has almost completely gone to shit in the US, the independent music scene is arguably the best it's ever been.
Re:Not yet (Score:2, Interesting)
Observations of an old man (Score:1, Interesting)
They were big, heavy, when you carried them home or to your friend's party, everybody saw who was your favourite band.
The covers used to be great mostly. Later the double albums were invented, then the cover artwork became even more interesting.
But that was not all, they could stuff into the big cover a folded, even bigger poster, which could end up on the walls of your room.
The best photographers, artists created the covers and you could watch them for weeks after you finally brought them home.
It seems like much less records were released. It was before everything, including politics, economy became just a clip, then a soundbite.
We used to listen to much less variety of records, but we listened to them much longer. We used to be curious of every minute of the album from our favourites. I don't think that they had better ratio with the great and not that great songs, but somehow even the not that great ones had something to offer. There were actually songs, which started to make sense only after listening to them over and over as "fillers" between the better songs, simply because you could not set up play lists and skipping was more difficult and inconvenient on a record player. You also risked to scratch the track.
There was also something magical watching the LP spinning, the light had a strange dance on the black tracks.
I love my iPod, don't misunderstand me. It's beautyful, small, extremely convenient.
I have also developed some attention deficit disorder, due to the fact, that you can have so much more these days.
I am also guilty of skipping if the first 20 seconds does not hit a raw nerve.
But sometimes I slip back into the past and listen over and over the entire CD, just like when I used to listen to Led Zeppelin, the Stones as they were just released and it seemed like the entire world was just waiting to see what they've got to give us.
Sometimes it happens, like lately with Sam's Town from the Killers. When I look at the tiny graphics on my iPod I wonder how the cover of their LP would look like, if they were stars when we used to be young.
I never wanted to go to Vegas, but now I am curious, for sure.
Some things don't change, I guess.
Becuase the studios are retarded... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not yet (Score:1, Interesting)
Not obsolete, but diminished... and inevitably so. (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with CDs is one largely created by the recording industry themselves, in particular, the major labels. In their continual efforts to marginalize artists and own an increasingly large portion of the market, they have drastically cut artist rosters, and increasingly relied on Big Hit Records to maintain their profit levels.
So a funny thing happened... they replaced "real" artists with those manufactured by the labels; not 100% across the board, but enough to make the hits extremely mandatory, every year.... there were no longer enough established artists with a long-term fan base to fill in the holes between hits. And art has never been something you could put on a production line.
In addition, most people have a fixed entertainment budget. When I was a kid, you could buy a record or a book, or go see a film, that was pretty much the extent of consumer media. These days, there's music (purchase or download), DVD, videogames, rentals, online subscriptions, etc. All competes for the same buck.
Legal downloads have become a kind of pressure release valve for much of the listening public. Rather than add to sales, they've reduced them.. the same people who might have chose "CD" over "Game" this month can now just download that hit or two, they only songs they really wanted anyway, and still spend most of their cash on the DVD or game or whatever. I grew up with album-oriented rock radio... I still listen to whole albums, still buy them. But the recording industry destroyed this model with their push to Hit oriented radio... sure, they'd like a CD with multiple hits, but in the downloading model, you have to win each hit purchase, not simply that first one that bags the CD. Most kids don't think in terms of albums, period. This is the same culture that took compilation CDs away from bad K-Tel TV ads and put them (the "Now that's what I call music!" series, for example) into the top 10... that's just another form of single.
I don't think CDs are necessary anymore, but until there's a lossless download available, with similar pricing, I won't be buying downloads. I did subscribe to eMusic.com sometime back, when they offered unlimited downloads (128kb/s MP3, yeah, but DRM-free), but I dropped it when they went to a limited model... which was single-oriented, even on an "indie" oriented service like eMusic. I can't see spending the same money for a lesser product. The CD is still superior to downloads, but doesn't necessarily remain so forever...
Vinyl is a lot of fun!! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is totally flamebait. As another poster pointed out, you're wrong about the master-to-vinyl vs. master-to-cd process. But that's not why I'm replying...
I buy a lot of vinyl. Not because I think it sounds better, just because I like it better. Here's why:
As far as the sound goes... my LPs sound every bit as good as your CDs. Yeah, my turntable is an ornery pig sometimes, but it's usually just a loose cable or something. So, are CDs obsolete? I think so. Especially in the retail world. Every now and then, an album comes out that I want that isn't available on vinyl--in that case, I usually cave and buy the CD. Like I said, though, it's becoming more and more common to find every new release I'm interested in on wax.
PS: Between the time I started typing this and the time I pressed preview, your post got moderated down by 2. BONUS!!
Re:Digitization destroys information? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Are you honestly claiming... (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, yes. I can. Last time I had my hearing tested, I heard frequencies up to 24.5kHz.
Careless, thoughtless production and over-processing I can all too readily believe in, but not problems with the essential theory at the heart of it.
The trouble with the theory is that it is just that. The theory of using low pass filters to smooth out quantized signals works very well. In practice, however, low pass filters have to be matched to a proper power output stage, or else you get slewing, and a corresponding spectral shift.
Seriously, get your hands on an oscilloscope and a cheap CD player. You'll be able to measure frequencies into the 25kHz range coming out of the power output, despite Nysquist's sampling theorem. This directly corresponds to information loss in the audible range.
2 inch tape is still the best recording medium ever made.
Re:Hmmm, move up market... nah... (Score:3, Interesting)
But as insightful as your post is, why do you say
I'd say FLAC+WMA would be the premier choice, the one being high-end for audiophiles, the other being playable on dang near any modern (car) stereo. (And yes I could have said MP3 instead of WMA, but Fraunhofer's licensing is even more bonkers than Microsoft's.)
Albums (Score:2, Interesting)
22KHz (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a difference between a 22KHz sine wave, square wave, sawtooth wave, etc. which you're not going to capture by sampling at the Nyquist frequency (Personally: I think this is the reason why vinyl sounds better than digital).
There's also a problem with aliasing. Try sampling a 21.5KHz wave at 22KHz and you won't get the original wave back.
So yes, there's definitely a need for 96KHz/192KHz @ 24 bits and these days the technology to do it wouldn't cost $0.01 extra.
Re:Not yet (Score:5, Interesting)
Translation: It is the size of CDs that affect sound. Records are bigger. Bigger is better. That's just common sense.
And the guy was *never* technically brilliant. Quite the opposite. It's somewhat strange to be lectured on issues like sound quality by a guy whose sound was.... rough. I don't deny the guy's influence, and he's undeniably recorded some important stuff, but that doesn't make him God, or even stop him being a Grumpy Old Man.
Re:22KHz (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, you're wrong. The SHAPE of a waveform is caused by the frequency components it comprises. That's called Fourier's Theorem. If you strip away all of the higher harmonics that cause a waveform to look square in the time domain, you get a sinewave at the fundamental frequency. All periodic waveforms are built up from sinewaves of various frequencies (harmonics) and amplitudes, but all of these components are at a higher frequency than the fundamental. So a 22kHz sinewave is the same as a 22kHz squarewave that has been filtered to remove all the higher components. And the next highest component of a squarewave is at twice the fundamental, or 44kHz.
I will concede is that practical real-world filters can be poor, and any harmonic that leaks through to the A to D conversion stage produces aliasing artifacts well down in the audible range that do sound terrible. So the filter ahead of the A to D is the most important thing in the system in most respects. Making a really good filter in the analogue domain is hard, which is why oversampling to 96kHz is a popular solution - not because there are any genuine audio components above 22kHz that really matter, but because it allows a simpler/more effective filter to be used (after all, it has so much more space to work with between 22 kHz and 96 kHz as opposed to 22 kHz and 44 kHz, and more space means it can be less steep and therefore has less phase distortion and 'smearing') and the resulting digitised audio will sound a lot better. The problem with this argument is that professional audio equipment does this as a matter of course, so the aliasing isn't (or shouldn't be) there on the CD, even though it is subsequently downsampled to 16 bits and 44.1 kHz. And the reason that professional gear uses 24 bits or more for the amplitude is both to give it headroom and to provide enough resolution to preserve quality while doing mathematical processing on the samples. Same reason you use long integers instead of shorts when you know you'll be multiplying them together, even though the eventual result will still fit in a short. By the time it's finally mastered to a CD, 16 bits and 44.1 kHz should be adequate for excellent fidelity PLAYBACK. So those claiming that CDs sound worse than LPs are either deluding themselves, or are really hearing the result of poor workmanship in the mastering.
On that last point, if you listen to a very high quality label CD like, e.g. Deutsche Gramophon, and the lastest poptart commodity release, I think you'll hear a difference. The theory and best practice of CD technology is sound; what isn't is the actual practice in many cases (i.e over-compression, excessive effects processing, way too many downmixes that stretch even 24-bit resolution beyond what it can reasonably do). In other words maybe what you're hearing on a bad CD are rounding errors in the processing, and nothing to do with the original sampling. It's another case of where the music machine doesn't really care about the "consumer" of the "product", they just want your money.
Re:CDs are not obsolete (Score:2, Interesting)
My music is on my iPod, my computer & my backup drive. If all 3 die on the same day, ill be screwed. If your house burns down, or gets burgled your screwed - same as me. Except I'll probably be out when that happens & have my iPod with me, so I still have it all. How many CD's do you have in your car? 'Cause I just have this iPod with 4000 songs & it works in the car fine because you can transmit the signal & pick it up on your car radio. Not really. I have bought maybe 5 CD's in the last 2 years & I listen to more music now than I did because it's more accessible. In the 'olden days' I would buy 2-3 CD's / month & now they are all in attic boxes because they take up 8000% more space.Umm, so if you burn it to CD anyway, why is DRM music an issue - you can still burn it & then you have the CD you always wanted. You DO get Cover Artwork & Track order. You don't get lyrics, but typing "slow train to dawn lyrics" into google brings it up pretty fast. It's true you don't get the physical object. I agree here. I used to enjoy paging through the booklet or looking over the album cover while listening to the album - in a way, indeed, something has been lost in the experience.
In fact, as a previous record collector, I should agree with you 100%. I spent 1000's of hours & cash on collecting vinyl. Time's change.
It would be nice if this kind of thing was provided in video clips, pdf's or whatever. Let's hope some of that extra value makes it's way into the digital music, there's no reason why it can't.
If you buy an album track-by-track online you normally pay more, no one would do this - if you buy the whole album as one, then it works out cheaper. Not obsolete yet, but getting there. Thinking into the future, there is no doubt that there will be a new format for music/video. Be it Blu-Ray or Krypton Crystals, either way I'm optimistic.
The way I see it, as the world becomes more virtual: you pay for something & it's accessible to you - wherever you are. Actually, you don't get anything physical at all - but magically your TV can watch it, your player play it, your brain imagine it.
PS: Even though I have disagreed with mostly all your post, it was interesting & well put. I wouldn't have replied otherwise - Thanks for posting!
High retail costs are to blame... (Score:3, Interesting)
That really is the problem with the industry, higher and higher costs due to inflation and gas/energy prices(gas for distribution, and energy prices causing the price of everything to go up). When you can download tracks legally, and get only the tracks you want without paying for songs you don't want, you end up better off with a music download. The quality of a CD will be higher in most cases, but why pay $18 for what may be one good track on a CD that you otherwise don't know anything about. As a result of this, you have the people who will download the CD illegally to see if it's worth buying in the first place, but in sampling the music, they find the quality is acceptable, and may not go out to buy the CD.
Perhaps a better model for the record companies to go into is to push for a change, where customers can walk into a "record" store, and request a bunch of different tracks, which can then be burned to a legal CD for the price. You may end up paying the same $18 for 8-10 tracks, but at least you get a set of songs you actually want, so don't feel ripped off. In addition to this, the store is providing a service(making a mix CD for you), so you feel you get your money's worth.
Re:Are you honestly claiming... (Score:2, Interesting)
Overall Quality Has Declined (Score:3, Interesting)
Production: What is interesting is the reviews I see occasionally complaining when a band "sweetens" the music too much -- in other words, adds instruments, or perhaps a whole orchestra to make the recording sound like it wasn't made in somebody's basement or garage. Let's not equate primitive production for good sound, folks.
Then there's the artists. For every great singer out there, there are a dozen Bob Dylan wannabes. Hey, let's face it, Dylan sounds like he gargles with broken glass every morning.
Songwriting quality: where are all the pop bands with something to say, other than how much they want to rape and abuse women? Rare, indeed.
Record companies: In their greed to promote the big hit single in this digital age, they've abandoned the artists capable of holding your interest for an entire album, artists with long-term playability. Pop music today is down right *boring*. The old artists are either dying off or have lost their touch (e.g., Paul McCartney should just give up music and open up a vegetable stand somewhere), while the new artists pay too much attention to what the companies tell them.
Buy CD's? What on earth for?
I'll tell you something. My fourteen year old has discovered my LP collection from the 60's, 70's and 80's (about 1200 have survived the ravages of time), and he spends his spare time digitizing them onto the computer. He loves the music and the sound of these old dinosaurs, and will "rip" an LP even where I already have the CD. He hates what's on the radio, and feels like he's found buried treasure in these old archives.
Buy CD's? Why on earth would he want to do that? He's not finished listening to my LP's yet!
And there's perhaps the real reason CD sales are in decline: it has too much competition from what people already own. Something like Windows Vista having XP to contend with, I guess.
Re:what does Bob Dylan know? (Score:1, Interesting)
Now keep in mind that these guys don't have to 'recall' what the old days were like... in the case of my boss, he often compares new digital equipment by doing crazy things like double blind tests using 1/4" analogue masters from the 70's.
Dylan is probably right in that certain characteristics of vinyl, and I suspect he doesn't mean vinyl, he means high speed analog tape with good spectral noise reduction sounds better than modern digital techniques, but this is incorrect... they just sound different.
Analog tape was the first stage of mastering, and when mastered at a standard or even high flux (up to 520 NW/M) will accentuate the tape's natural dynamic compression which takes the form of a hysteresis response. Noise reduction such as the dbx or dolby SR reduction again will add certain dynamic characteristics, most of which were palatable to the ear.
The you had to take that desk master and master it for vinyl, which involves another layer of encoding (RIAA equalisation) and a whole lot of techniques to do things like keep the album inside 12 inches, stop the needle popping out of the record etc.
The point here is that the mastering process that made stuff sound great, was that they were made for their medium. Modern tracks are made for their medium, and so have a completely different sound. Just as people mastered things for vinyl in the old days, people master for highly compressed FM radio and MP3 these days... so modern stuff can sometimes sound better on new formats than it would have on old formats.
Some would argue that digital is no where near the good old days of analog, but in reality modern digital production equipment is light hears ahead of it... don't let an audiophile tell you differently, they're not engineers.
The consumer formats have a long way to go, and eventually when I can get an uncompressed 24/48 or 24/96 consumer recording, I'll be happy.
Re:Not yet (Score:2, Interesting)
I suggest you try searching the newsgroups. Get a newsreader like News Rover that offers an indexing service to seek out specific mp3s. Like others have said on here, most of the CDs I've purchased in the last 15 years were to replace my vinyl, and the CD format usually makes them sound even better. But, there are a huge number of remixes and re-releases that for some reason aren't available in the states, but are available from Usenet posters in the UK or other parts of the world.
Finally, as a diehard R&B fan (Temptations, Whispers, etc) I'd be out buying new CDs if these guys or contemporary artists released this type of music. But, someone in the management chain of the record companies figures me and the other millions of baby boomers wouldn't spend the money, even though we've got plenty of it to spend and a whole lot of people over 50 people own a whole lot of iPods.
After all, we're the generation that used to buy the high end stereo systems for our dorms or apartments and countless vinyl albums. We love our music and the fact that performances by old school artists always sell out should indicate how strong the market is.
The record companies are really clueless by missing this market.
People don't care about sound quality (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:was the movie Memento based on all of you? (Score:2, Interesting)
Once FM radio listeners started to match or exceed the numbers of AM listeners the days of the freewheeling DJ was over. FM became the same systematic crap programming as AM. The last decent radio station in these parts died around 1981.
The music being made then was not any better than music being made today, you just had a reliable source to hear some of it. Now there are so many outlets for music; radio, tv , xm/sirus radio, internet, etc that no new music can reach any real level of popularity unless it can be mass marketed via the pop or country formats.
Re:Hmmm, move up market... nah... (Score:3, Interesting)
Vinyl has certain properties that limit acoustics. It is a physical process, so if you go to heavy/light on one part of the range, the needle would skip. That physical limitation means that if one is is releasing a Vinyl version, someone that knows how to master vinyl does the process. Often the CD and Vinyl releases have separate mastering processes.
CDs, being digital, can send whatever you want. Years ago, companies would send out masters to a few mastering engineers to get back their version. Every time, the contract went to whoever made it sound loudest, because on a single listening, especially an A/B comparison, the louder track sounded better. As a result, the only mastering engineers that stayed in business were those that learned to sound "loud." As a result, there is less interesting sounds, and only a fraction of the 16-bit range was used.
This had three effects... 1) MP3s sound almost as good, who cares if you drop the low-bit range if it is over-powered by the rest. 2) synthetic instruments and drum machines, which were improving with cheap processors anyway, sound closer and closer to the real thing as you compress the range that people listen to. 3) the need for a perfect studio environment/mixing environment went away as you just weren't releasing stuff as good.
This slit the throats of CD sales, as nobody cared that the MP3 "lost acoustic range," because Pop/Rock doesn't use that range anymore. The need for a band was lessoned, and studios focused on solo vocalists which was cheaper, and used drum machines instead of drummers and the occasional work-for-hire musician for instruments as needed. In addition, the explosion of independent labels in the 90s (that were bought up by the majors) benefited from the studios destroying the need for expensive studios... Sure the independents were mostly bought up, but if you think that letting competitors enter the market so you can buy them up at a premium is good for shareholder value... well then you'd be a corporate executive.
Loud sounds better as background music (but all my stereos have a volume knob), and on the radio when people listen over FM which nukes detail anyway and cars are noisy... but there was no reason not to "do things right," and master for vinyl, transfer that master to CD, and take singles you want radio play for and do a radio master, over-compressed and loud.. It would have cost "more," but mastering engineers are NOT the expensive part of music production.
That would have preserved the oligopoly's hegemony, and not alienated DJs from the record industry as the vinyl releases were few and far between (and CDs/MP3s can be beat matched, but it takes the skill out and limited DJ expression). It's easy to say that teenagers don't care about audio quality, but I don't know that it's so true... crap sounds like crap... whenever an actually talented musician succeeds in pop, the other labels find knockoffs, who normally lack the talent, and don't become huge. Marketing people try to turn things into metrics that they can analyze, but if you don't have a good product, it shows in the end... the music industry stopped putting out good product. The teenagers that I encounter (friend with their parents), are not NEARLY as into music as we were 10 years ago, and we weren't nearly as into music as those whose teen years were in the 60s, 70s, or 80s... I don't think its the commercialization, that's been pretty constant since the 50s, I think it's the lousy quality.