Since digital music has made me lazy lazy lazy, I haven't been into the used CD store that is right across from my "office" in months. I went in there yesterday, and if I needed any confirmation that the CD is dying, I got it.
I was reminded quite powerfully of when vinyl really died in the early '90's, and you could go into used record stores that had formerly held nothing but copies of Bob Dylan's Planet Waves and Jethro Tull's Heavy Horses and suddenly find just about any great album ever released on vinyl as everybody jettisoned their record collections.
Same thing at work in the used CD store. I mean, I didn't want all of these things, but the store was packed with CDs by bands I've actually heard of. And if I didn't actually want to buy them all, I recognized them as albums that, unlike Planet Waves and Heavy Horses, somebody might like to buy. Like the whole Ryko-reissue David Bowie catalog. Like most of the Rolling Stones catalog. Like the T. Rex greatest hits album I bought. I also picked up the King Missile album with "Detachable Penis", which, last time I checked, was not available for download anywhere.
Best of all, every CD in the place was under 10 bucks. I believe that, as the CD dies, we may well be entering the golden age of used CD shopping. Get out there and buy buy buy!
(And you can take all the money you save and buy more brand-new copies of my books!) (or else just take yourself out for ice cream or something.)
