seeing some labels doing things like digital downloads & vinyl for new releases instead of cd's
think is is a pretty cool idea, wondering if people have thoughts on it

Do you mean they aren't releasing it on cd at all?

If that's true I think it's a bad business decision.

I've read where, if you buy the vinyl from them, they'll give you a link to download the album for free.

That's alright, if you're a vinyl fan, I guess.

I don't have a working record player. I'll stick with my cd's.

I've seen this and think that it's a pretty great plan. It's not the easiest tasks for evrybody who does use vinyl to convert it to a digital format, so if it's included in the price of admission I'd definitely be more likely to buy.

i too like the vinyl/dl option.
you get big art work and can still put it on your ipod.

I first noticed that with Sigor Ros. They released a lot of their stuff on Vinyls in addition to cd formats. Looks like the Ole phonograph is not dyin' any time soon.

i know 5rc is doing this with some of their last releases before they shut down in 07, that's where i first heard about it.
for me, if i could something on vinyl, and in my ipod, then it's perfect. it covers the ways in which i would most likely listen to music - at home on a turntable, or [god forbid] on the subway with headphones.
i'd invest in a lot more records if more people did this, since so much is going digital nowadays anyhow.

If I remember correctly the old fashioned 7 inch single made the biggest sales percentage gain of any music format over the last few years (at least in the UK).

Vinyl is still very much alive.

Yeah, this is indeed a great idea. It keeps the format from dying out completely, and gives those of us who buy vinyl a bridge. Now if only labels could figure out how to do this with older records...

Merge has done this with the last two Robert Pollard albums. Nice touch. But

I want CDs. MP3s are not going to be the standard forever but CD drives are likely to stick around a long, long time so I can rip CDs to whatever is the standard at the time.

Personally, I'm disturbed to read that Warner Bros (I think it's them) is planning on DVD-only music releases - no CD release (or any other format, apparently) at all. It'll be a flop, but what a tremendous inconvenience for fans of the bands that wind up stuck on that ill thought-out marketing plan. They claim there will be digital files for "computer users" on the DVD, but they conspicuously leave out specific players, which indicates to me that they won't be files that can play in Ipods, as is usual for these stupid labels. Who knows, they'll probably be in some proprietary format that you have to install some damned player from the disc in order to play. I will look forward with glee to the day this format dies like I did the day when DualDisc's imminent death was announced, but I feel sorry for the bands and their fans. I just hope I'm not one of them.

When did this happen? And thank God.

Kinda sucks that I bought a few of those Talking Heads and JAMC reissues, but I just couldn't resist. They sound great.

Did it die? Weird Al's newest was released on it, and as far as I know it was the only version of it, at least of what we received in shipment.

Here's the story.

Interesting quote from the article:

Well, that doesn't directly state that DualDisc is dead, just that it's floundering. I don't how that could be a surprise to anybody.

The video portions of all of the DualDiscs I have are really weak, especially those stupid JAMC videos where it looks like they're about to fall over from boredom. The live Talking Heads videos are OK, but there's only like two per disc. I'd rather just buy a live DVD of that whole concert that the videos on Fear of Music and Remain in Light are sourced from.

They're still pushing it for some things, but you can bet there'll be a "deluxe" version of the album in 6-9 months with separate CD and DVD with extra content, just like with the Springsteen album. Sony's doing what they can to milk as much money out of this dying format that they can.

Who wants to bet this will happen: in a year or two they'll just rerelease all the DualDisc titles as "special edition" CD and DVD sets.

touch & go has made downloads available with vinyl releases, but i don't know any label that is giving up on CDs as a format. i'm going to buy some albums on vinyl anyway. and i don't have an ipod/zune/whatever, so it doesn't really make any difference to me right now. i do think the option is a nice offer to those of us who continue to buy vinyl, though.

That's it's floundering is the key, though - if Sony's released DualDisc-only titles and the format hasn't taken off, it's dead in the water. As usual, Sony introduces a propietary format that no one else wants to buy into - Memory Stick, DualDisc, etc. I'm actually surprised that some other labels have used DualDiscs, like Rhino (or are they owned by Sony?) with the Talking Heads discs, especially long after knowing how unaccepted they were with the public. I saw a lot of people on other boards buying the UK releases because they were separate CD/DVD discs.


Yep, they're almost a total waste if you don't have a system that takes advantage of the high-rez, surround sound stuff on the DVD.

I actually have one really small label release that is a DualDisc, World Drummers Ensemble (with Bill Bruford) that takes really good advantage of the DualDisc. The video portion is a full concert, like 70 minutes long. It's the only DualDisc where I feel like it was actually a good use of the format. I still would have preferred it as CD and DVD, of course.

And who knows what toll time is going to take on these glued-together discs . . .