THIS HOLIDAY SEASON WILL BE THE LAST HURRAH FOR CDs

A recent article in the New York Post seemed to all but confirm what I’ve been saying for some time; this holiday season is going to be the death call for the Compact Disc. With CD sales already way off pace compared to this time last year, major retailers are viewing this holiday season as the last hurrah before cutting floor space in favor of more profitable goods that, ya know, people actually buy. According to the article:

“Year-to-date, album sales are off around 14 percent, with over 400 million albums sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Factoring in sales of individual song downloads, sales are still off around 9 percent. To keep pace with 2006’s full-year total of 588.2 million albums sold, the industry needs to sell over 150 million albums in less than six weeks.”

So if you’re looking for that umpteenth Johnny Cash or Neil Diamond collection and you enjoy the thrill of going to the store and picking the CD up off the shelf, or you just want to show your kids that music once upon a time came in a physical package… better hurry up, because Santa’s gonna be skipping the music store next year.

-VN