Anyone searching for a gravestone marking the death of the compact disc should avoid Slowtrain Records in downtown Salt Lake.
Owners Chris and Anna Brozek spend every day surrounded by CDs, and seldom do they feel like they run an antiques store. While they acknowledge that Internet downloading of music has significantly changed the music industry, it has mainly impacted major labels and chain stores.
Primarily, their store appeals to fans of independent bands who want entire albums instead of singles, and they want to support the musician. As for the bands themselves, because merchandise and CD sales at their live shows are huge sources of income, it is practically impossible to depend on digital sales.
"Most major label people are fine with instant gratification. They can download a song they like that week and not care if they lose it later," Anna Brozek said. "But the type of person who is buying CDs is also the type of person who wants to support the musicians, and they want to support the music community."
Twenty-five years ago, the first CDs were produced in Germany through a joint venture between Sony Corp. and Royal Phillips Electronics. Depending on whom you ask, the first CD pressed was either ABBA's "The Visitors" or Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony, and its size was chosen to fit Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (or, if some rumors are to be believed, to match the size of a Belgian beer coaster).
Now, although only in its 20s, prognosticators and cynics have equally lamented and hailed the CD's death. They point to falling sales, soaring online purchases and the increasing popularity of personal music players, especially iPods.
Digital downloads have many benefits, especially when it comes to convenience. Instead of packing a dozen CDs into a backpack or loading a five-disc changer, listeners can have thousands of songs in their pocket, with an entire music collection playing randomly.
Legal purchases of single songs can be done in the blink of an eye through online stores such as iTunes, and illegal downloads (despite the inherent viral risks and their questionable morality) continue to thrive among younger listeners.
What they lack, however, is what will give CDs their continued viability.
"I cannot wait for the day when a parent passes their music collection onto their children, and it's done by handing them a portable hard drive," Anna Brozek said, mostly sarcastically. "There is nothing exciting about looking at a music collection on the computer, not like flipping through a stack of CDs or records."
Sound quality is another issue, even more so with MP3 music files than the already compressed sound of a CD. Because of that, Chris said that people are actually turning back to vinyl and some musicians are producing vinyl-only albums that offer a complimentary digital download from the band's Web site.
"I in no way think that downloading music will be the death of tangible music, on CD or records," Chris Brozek said.
E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com