Plastic doesn't exactly run out, does it?

 

 

It grows on trees, does it?

I love CD singles so much. The last one I got I think was when we collide and before that, wear my kiss- Sugababes

 

I also remember that I literally refused to stop buying CD singles and always held up hope that they would become big again :kink:

I think I gave up in July 2010 and got iTunes because my local HMV (which is now shut down) had like no CD singles

 

I own loads from 2008-2010 which I posted in a thread I started in the lounge a month ago. Love Story is probably my favourite of them :wub:

 

I do unfortunately think CD singles are dead at the moment but could rise like vinyl soon though

The CD single is pretty much dead, they are more accessible from the net like Amazon, a lot of stores usually stock the charity/ X Factor Winners singles more than anything. Also most artists like The Vamps, OneD sell their CD singles through their websites these days.

'Problem' having a CD sticks out as a bit odd for some reason!

 

Yeah I thought it was interesting too as it's usually boybands (and The Saturdays) only. I wonder how many copies it has sold.

 

In Germany, they still release CD singles for quite a few songs. The following tracks all have a CD single;

 

Kiesza - Hideaway

Sigma - Nobody to love

Calvin Harris - Blame

Calvin Harris - Summer

Michael Jackson - Love never felt so good

Meghan Taylor - All about the bass

 

I sometimes buy German Imports if they include a good remix or bonus track. They are relatively expensive compared to downloading but I still prefer CD singles to downloading.

 

I like to buy a few German CD singles too if I really like the song or it's a really big hit. I recently bought "Ghost" and "Rather Be". You can get them on Amazon UK. I asked OCC and they said they're not counted towards the charts unless the label requests it.

 

Germany is the last country I know of where it's normal to release a CD single, because their chart is based on income rather than units, so a sale of a CD single counts for about 5 downloads. Australia used to do them quite a bit up until about 3 years ago. Sweden just has the odd one now and again.

Edited October 26, 201410 yr by AcerBen

The following singles from the top 100 have a physical release:

 

03 Steal My Girl - One Direction (CD)

49 Problem - Ariana Grande featuring Iggy Azalea (CD)

69 Unmissable - Gorgon City featuring Zak Abel (12")

81 Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys (7") - probably long since deleted

 

(information from UKChartsPlus)

 

The Vamps (Cecila) and God Only Knows should also have a physical, the former available through their site if I remember rightly.

CD singles had died down a fair bit one I started to get interested in the chart ('10, because of me and my cousin obsessively listening to Ke$ha :drama:), but I still value them as collectibles and would love to own one one day. If only they weren't so expensive and I wasn't indifferent to almost every artist who supplies them for their music.

I have gorton each Saturdays single from their online store, but I don't think they have had physical copies in stores such as HMV since 30 Days in 2012. (I may be wrong)

Germany is the last country I know of where it's normal to release a CD single, because their chart is based on income rather than units, so a sale of a CD single counts for about 5 downloads. Australia used to do them quite a bit up until about 3 years ago. Sweden just has the odd one now and again.

 

The other big one is Japan. In fact, their singles chart (Oricon) only counts physical sales. And we're not talking middling sales either - last year, the theme tune to Attack on Titan, "Jiyū e no Shingeki", sold 129,000 physical copies in a week, and that was only good enough to reach #2 in the chart.

The other big one is Japan. In fact, their singles chart (Oricon) only counts physical sales. And we're not talking middling sales either - last year, the theme tune to Attack on Titan, "Jiyū e no Shingeki", sold 129,000 physical copies in a week, and that was only good enough to reach #2 in the chart.

 

And more impressively AKB48 have sold over a million CDs in a week with each of their last 17 singles. Including one that is apparently called 'Suzukake no Ki no Michi de Hohoemi o Yume ni Miru to Itte Shimattara Bokutachi no Kankei wa Dō Kawatte Shimau no ka, Bokunari ni Nan-nichi ka Kangaeta Ue de no Yaya Kihazukashii Ketsuron no Yō na Mono'.

Bizarre! I'm glad they haven't made the UK charts, their line-ups alone would have made up a whole post on my other thread! According to Wikipedia, the line-up for the recording of the single Bre mentioned above (no I'm not going to repeat it) was determined by a rock-paper-scissors event among the numerous members of the group(s)

Amazon can still make a top 100 chart out of them which seems pretty much active each week!

Amazon CD bestsellers

 

Lots of current singles in the chart!

I imagine it'll be like vinyl - going down to record lows, only for people to start getting a tad nostaglic and it'll start rising a bit again.

I can't see this ever happening, they'll go the same way as the cassette. CD's, as much as I love them, are essentially just digital tracks on a disc. When people are able to download the exact same product for less, what incentive is there for people to continue buying them?

 

Actually, I think that may be a possible reason for the steady increase in vinyl sales over the last few years. Vinyl is a completely analogue format, so whilst less and less artists are opting to release a CD single version, they may be more inclined to produce a vinyl version instead, which seems more disirable to collectors.

Physical Singles sales:

 

2000: 55.7m

2001: 51.2m

2002: 44.0m

2003: 30.9m

2004: 26.5m

2005: 21.4m

2006: 13.8m

2007: 8.6m

2008: 4.9m

2009: 3.1m

2010: 2.1m

2011: 1.3m

2012: 0.768m

2013: 0.4m

 

0.4 in 2013?! Wow. I imagine a gutting amount of those CD singles were by James Arthur and Sam Bailey.

 

0.4 in 2013?! Wow. I imagine a gutting amount of those CD singles were by James Arthur and Sam Bailey.

The 2013 total was actually a bit of a guess since all I have for last year are vinyl sales, which was 0.127m for 7" singles and 0.088m for 12" singles, a total of 0.215m (the figures for all other years are actual figures provided by the OCC / BPI). For some reason the BPI didn't indicate in their annual press release on music sales how many CD singles were sold in 2013 so I just guessed at what the sale may have been using data from previous years which showed sales of CD singles falling year on year since 2010 by over 40% each year. I made a slight mistake in the calculation / guesstimate though, CD single sales in 2010 were 1.9m, in 2011 they were 1.1m and in 2012 they were 0.62m so an estimate for 2013 would be around the 300k to 350k mark if trends remained the same. Add in vinyl sales and the figure could be as high as 0.55 or so million. That overall figure is only slightly higher than total physical sales for this very week 10 years ago, when weekly sales (and all on physical) were 457,143 and which were then seen as being in freefall.

 

Back in the early 1990s the singles section in HMV's Oxford Street branch was huge. It was still possible to buy the entire back catalogue of a band who had released a dozen or so singles without ever having a top 75 hit. Those were the days :(

I can't help but ask, Billy, what was your motive for taking that first photo in 2008? I don't suppose you were anticipating this thread topic six years ago :lol: It's nice to have the 'then vs. now' comparison, though also a depressing sight of course!

It's going to be a few more years, possibly a decade or so before the CD 'dies' and the digital world officially takes over. We still use CD players these days, in cars, stereos, and often in clubs which haven't upgraded to better tech.

It's going to be a few more years, possibly a decade or so before the CD 'dies' and the digital world officially takes over. We still use CD players these days, in cars, stereos, and often in clubs which haven't upgraded to better tech.

Not for CD singles though, which is what this thread is specifically referring to. I agree it will be a good few years before the CD album dies out.

I can't help but ask, Billy, what was your motive for taking that first photo in 2008? I don't suppose you were anticipating this thread topic six years ago :lol: It's nice to have the 'then vs. now' comparison, though also a depressing sight of course!

 

Late 2007/early 2008 was when all the Central London music shops started steadily downsizing their single sections. The HMV down the road had already substantially reduced theirs so while shopping in the Zavvi I thought I'd take a picture of something that seemed like it would soon be a thing of the past - which it was just a few weeks later. Still caused some funny looks from a couple of staff and customers when the flash went off though :P

 

Weird to think that back then, you had the HMV in Bond Street, Oxford Street and Trocadero plus the Virgin Megastore/Zavvi in Tottenham Court Road and Piccadilly Circus, all of which are now closed down. So many teenage shopping memories in all of those.

Late 2007/early 2008 was when all the Central London music shops started steadily downsizing their single sections. The HMV down the road had already substantially reduced theirs so while shopping in the Zavvi I thought I'd take a picture of something that seemed like it would soon be a thing of the past - which it was just a few weeks later. Still caused some funny looks from a couple of staff and customers when the flash went off though :P

 

Weird to think that back then, you had the HMV in Bond Street, Oxford Street and Trocadero plus the Virgin Megastore/Zavvi in Tottenham Court Road and Piccadilly Circus, all of which are now closed down. So many teenage shopping memories in all of those.

About two months after you would have taken that photograph, Woolworths announced it was to stop selling CD singles except for X-Factor type releases

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technolo...000/7421035.stm

 

That really did hasten the end of the CD single.

 

From the above link

 

However, it will continue to stock one-off releases, such as the X Factor winner, which the retailer says still sells hundreds of thousands of copies.

 

I don't think Woolies ever got the chance to stock the next X Factor single as the retail chain went into administration a month before the winning single ('Hallelujah' by Alexandra Burke) was released and all stores closed down the week the single went to number 1!

 

When Woolworths stopped selling CD singles in mid 2008, many of its stores had reduced their singles section to being a tacky yellow cardboard display box which housed the "top 20" singles from Woolies made up chart. It all looked so sad and was an inglorious end to the retail chain's proud history of being the biggest singles retailer in the UK.