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Originally Posted by Kid Klash

Well, yes and no.

At today's retail prices, the answer is yes. Believe it or not, the largest retailer in the U.S. (and maybe the world now) is WalMart. They're having some very heated discussions with the bog labels, and they're demanding that CD's in their stores retail for $10 each or less. WalMart has recently downsized their CD shelf space too, further putting the squeeze on the labels. They told the labels that if they don't adjust the wholesale prices so that the retail price can drop to $10 or less across the board, they'll discontinue selling CDs alltogether. With the big labels spiraling down in flames these days, this is probably their last wakeup call. CD sales were down 15% last year, and they're down another 12% in just the first quarter of this year, so they better act fast. An interesting statistic is that most young people quit buying CDs a few years ago; they're only downloading music now, although the downloads aren't making up the difference either. Personally, I think the overall quality of commercially released music is at a all time low too...

There are so many other things to spend money on these days other than music.

One big problem with trying to listen to vinyl right now is that most music is very hard to get on a new vinyl disc. I'm forced to resort to buying the CD version. Right now I'm interested in getting some of the Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver recordings but they aren't available on Vinyl LP. I'll have to get the CDs for the time being.