Ha, that's funny Exact.

I like Wal Mart for what it is. It's a place that saves my family and I loads of $$.

Mine has ultra-mega crap CD selection, however.

You guys are nuts. WalMart sucks ass. How can a store with so many items have so few worthwhile items?

It does contain many items for me to eat. Most stores, I will not set foot into if they do not include this feature.

I donot think the physical CD will disappear all together but both ToB and S correct in the reasons why CD's are disappearing. Also factor in the fact that alot of major bands go on many tours and some even for decades without creating or at least releasing any new music.

Record labels and their over priced CD's did not help, not to mention their business practices that has driven artists such as Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and many others to abandon major record labels.

The prices are still high. I have to agree with that. It's costy to keep you collection updated.

It's nice to see that FYE has been sticking to their $9.99 or less format. I've purchased more releases there in the last few months than I have, well, ever.

If I remember it correct, 545 million CDs were sold 2008 or 2009. That is still quite a lot. So it will be a long road before its dead.
However if someone pays maybe 80-100 Dollars/Euros for his/her mobile phone than he/she won't have money for CDs, legal downloads anymore ... . There is a joke: paying 14 bucks for a CD with 50 minutes of music is way to expensive. I better pay 4,99 for one or a few ring tones, that is much cheaper ... (of course that includes subscriptions, this means I have to pay much more, but nevermind).

In Germany 300 million songs were downloaded illegally during the last year. But even if you count one song one Euro music sales would still be much lower than during the 90s.

"The CD is dying."

In other news... the sun is hot, and water is wet...

Before they die out, they should price all CDs at $5.00...

If CDs stop being made, i'm not sure i'm going to be getting any new releases anymore. Hopefully there will be a underground cd market still making CDs and selling them at shows or websites independently.

CDs are "dying" in terms of major label sales...major labels saying "dying" are really saying (as someone already pointed out) "we only sold 500 million CDs last year"...that doesn't sound like "dying"...it sounds like they're not selling as much as they were...which they aren't...and that they're crying about it...which they are. We have to remember that major record labels have nothing to do with music...they are corporations who look at the bottom line on the quarterly report and wonder "how do we make that number bigger". When they number gets smaller for several quarters in a row, even if "small" is 500 million units as an industry, they start to panic...context.

When bands like Rush or NIN announce that they are making something "download only", I think the underlying sentiment is something like "we used to sell 5 million CDs...now we only sell 900,000 CDs...Cds are dying". The context is completely different. Of course it looks to you like they're "dying"...but 900,000 CDs is a lot of fleckin' CDs. The other reasons you're "only" selling 900,000 CDs? A- you're a band that's been around for decades (nobody stays on top forever), B- the music you make isn't as mainstream as it once may have been, C- your audience is getting older with other things to spend their money on (and who honestly may have even forgotten about you)...context.

I remember Hootie & The Blowfish selling 14 million copies of their debut album and it being heralded (at the time) as the biggest selling debut album in history. They were the biggest band in the country. Fast forward to album number 2. It sold something like 7 million copies. "Only 7 million copies" I kept hearing...it was considered a failure...context.

Every time we have these discussions, we always come back to saying "the market is there...it's just smaller". Metal fans (at least the ones who post on forums like ours) want something they can hold in their hands...box sets, special editions, EPs, etc. Now, that said, it may go into "I want physical copies of my favorite bands, and others I can go digital on"...which means less CD sales too...but in some small way, the CD format will continue to be alive in the Metal scene somewhere.

As a scene, we have to think in smaller numbers. We can't think "oh, major label artists are not making CDs anyore...it's obviously dying". Well, on a large, mass-marketed scale that may be the case. But as a format, CD players are still put in cars, DVD & Blu-Ray players play CDs, computers still have CD drives. They're still here and it'll be a long time before they're totally vanquished. As a scene, Metal people want CDs (or something physical) for their money. My son who is 16 years old WANTS CDs of his favorite bands...so do a couple of his friends. Physical formats may not be clogging up Best Buy shelves anymore, but they're still available to those who do want them....just on a smaller scale.