The Case Against CD (1989)
This column from the January 1989 issue of Hi-Fi Review shows the anger I felt about the con-trick that I felt CD to be. It was a prime example of early technology push rather than goods appearing because consumers wanted them. Now, of course CD has had its couple of decades of fame and it is a moribund format…
I’m feeling rather angry. I wasn’t planning to write what I’m just about to commit to paper, I was going to address a different topic altogether, but something I read while at my desk eating my lunchtime sandwich has really raised my hackles.
The remarks passed by a writer en the first page of the new Penguin guide to Compact Discs and Cassettes (Best Buys in Classical Music) exhibited both his ignorance upon matters of hi-fi reproduction, and the blase attitude that the record industry has adopted since Sony and Philips first needlessly inflicted the CD player upon our hearing facuities. On this latter point, I’d ask you to consider if, before you were first made aware of CD’s imminent birth, you had consciously wished for an alternative to the vinyl medium? I certainly hadn’t, being more than delighted with the progress that was being made soliciting further fidelity from the process of dragging a diamond stylus through a piece of wiggly plastic. I lever once longed for those ‘silent backgrounds’ that the manufacturers of CD lied about when they said that that was what music would emerge from. In fact, when I try to listen to music on CD I am often made more acutely aware of the fact that tape, tape recorders, microphones and mixing desks are all sources of unwanted noise. Well, when there’s so little in the way of music present one has to listen to something!
there exists an element within the corps of classical music fans who see no merit or worth in any music composed by someone who hasn’t subsequently decomposed.
The writer in question attempts to perpetuate the myth that CD is going to annihilate the conventional LP with the glib statement that By now LPs are well on the way to obsolescence. He also states that (cassettes)….offer an alternative medium for more casual listening, and that cassettes are likely to remain the major alternative to CDs for the immediately forseeable future. What I want to know is what planet does this guy inhabit? And with what equipment does he make the comparisons that enable him to make these observations? A faulty Amstrad tower system perhaps? Certainly he doesn’t have access to a respectable hi-fi.
Taking his first point first, that in he which he tells us that CD will make LP obsolete. He might just be right, but only in the context of the music in which his expertise lies – the classical repertoire. Does he realise that classical music sales represent a tiny fraction of overall recorded music sales – one that no business man would regard as a sufficiently significant factor upon which to base statements regarding the whole of the business? The last time I saw the figures, classical music sales accounted for fifteen percent of all records sold. Popular music – that vulgar abomination which that dreadful and loathesome creature the classical snob refuses to acknowledge in the same breath as serious music – accounts for nearly all of the eighty five percent of record sales remaining. Putting yourself in the businessman’s chair, which sector ol the market would you choose as your barometer of market trends?
Before I alienate all our readers who enjoy classical music let me qualify something I’ve just written: I don’t wish for one moment to imply that all those who enjoy classical music are in any way snobbish or elitist. To think that would be ridiculous. But there exists an element within the corps of classical music fans who see no merit or worth in any music composed by someone who hasn’t subsequently decomposed. To those people whose world finishes with Janacek – a young black pop singer called Jackson does not figure in their belief system despite the fact that the latter J’s records outsell the former J’s waxings by a ratio of probably 5000 to 1, or even more. As they see it. classical music points the way that all else must follow. Not so in the real world, thankfully.
Their blinkers unfortunately extend beyond the point where they can be convinced that CD is better than LP. The poor chumps do not even realise that they are being robbed every time they buy a CD recording. Talk to a record company owner – ii he’s honest he’ll probably tell you that the biggest thing in CD’s favour is the fact that he can charge more for it – the profits are greater than those accrued from vinyl. That’s why it’s so popular within the ‘industry’ – it’s a short cut lo the Lamborghini. or the eight bedroomed country house in Surrey. It’s not the listener’s interests that are being served but those of the record label’s executives and major shareholders.
The classical music enthusiast now finds himself between a rock and a hard place – witness music lovers like contributor Peter Turner who wish to purchase a recording but cannot get it on vinyl as they would wish. They have two options: buy the CD or go without. Most, I would imagine will want the performance so much that they will purchase the CD, and that I can understand. But surely that is the thin end of the wedge? Once you start down that slippery – and expensive – slope you become hooked and begin filling the coffers of those extortionist record labels.
My answer to this conundrum is simple though it requires the will of one who can give up smoking (which immediately counts me out of the running}, for success – although guaranteed – will not be yours overnight. It is based on a sound business principle which is more commonly voiced in that old adage about leading horses to water. Common sense tells the vendor that if item A that he manufactures will sell easily and reward him with a reasonable margin, it is a more valuable commodity than item B which is more profitable but which no-one wants to buy. So boycott CD! All of you who wrote complaining about Deutsche Grammophon discontinuing LPs, refuse to buy the CDs.
When DG sees the figures on their balance sheets heading for the floor their attitude towards the LP might undergo a sudden reversal. I realise this all sounds extremely facile but ask anyone who runs their own business to make a profit. They’ll tell you that you can only sell what people are prepared to buy.
The second point made by the writer that concerned me was his attitude towards cassette tapes. My experiences a few months ago with one particularly efficient PR company proved him wrong. The young lady from whom I was requesting one record label’s LPs insisted on meeting all of my requests with the LP, the CD, the cassette version, and, once or twice, the DAT. enabling me to compare easily all three or four media. Every time, without as much as one exception, the ranking for sound quality and musical satisfaction placed the humble cassette in second place behind Ihe LP. CD always came a poor third. This held true even when I used for the comparisons a £125 turntable with £15 cartridge, a £350 cassette deck and a £600 CD player.
The crap that used to be punted about with regard to CD used to simply annoy me. But now that more ‘authorities’ and record labels are jumping on the bandwagon, trying to take ever more money from me and this magazine’s readers for no good reason, I’m starting to get really angry. Take my advice and hit these bloodsuckers where it hurts most – in their pockets. You’ll win in the end. believe me!
